Things, Saguru reflected, staring down a late night cup of chamomile, were a bit better after speaking to Aoko. Takumi had turned in the worksheet—with spelling errors, but he'd actually done it, and not half-assed it using a translator; Saguru would have found far more consistent errors if he had—but of course the pranks didn't stop. They got sneakier. Less disruptive and less obvious. Small things were moved or misplaced and things that should not be on his person or in his things popped up. Like smoke pellets that went off when he set down his briefcase or a crazy straw looping impressively over his tea cup. They were calculated so that Saguru wouldn't be inclined to call Takumi out on them, but still harassment. Saguru couldn't figure out what his angle was. To make Saguru angry? To have another talk with his parents? But no, that didn't seem likely. The day after he had spoken with Aoko, Takumi had come to him before class, frowning and serious saying, "You made Kaa-san cry." After that Saguru doubted Takumi wanted him to speak to his mother again.

It didn't help that in the last three weeks since the incident Saguru had been running into Takumi everywhere—in class, in the halls, at the literature club meeting Saguru had attended, and of course next door when he visited Kuroba.

Saguru swallowed cold tea, sweetened with a bit of honey. He'd made it to try and calm him enough to sleep, but instead his mind had gone off on tangents. He had run into Takumi leaving his father's apartment (on time; he seemed to want to avoid another awkward moment like their first meeting) and had witnessed Kuroba's tight, one armed hug and Takumi's protest that was more for show than not. He clearly loved Kuroba.

There was a draft from the window and Saguru didn't need to look up to know Kuroba was sitting in his window watching him. "What are you still doing up?" Kuroba asked. In the last week he had started dropping in, even if for just a few minutes to exchange how his day went and, Saguru suspected, to check on how Saguru was doing. Saguru had finally broken down and bought another chair.

"I'm thinking," Saguru replied. He continued studying the wall blankly. He went to take a gulp of tea only to find that the cup was empty. Odd. He had plenty of tea left a moment ago.

"You're worrying," Kuroba corrected. "Talk." He padded, near silent, to sit in the free chair. He swiped Saguru's teacup and sniffed it. "Good, not alcoholic, then."

"No, just tea and honey." Saguru rubbed his eyes. They ached behind them, deep into his skull and down along his sinuses to his temples in a slow throb of eye strain and sleep deprivation. "It's about Takumi-kun."

"He's still pranking you."

"Yes." Saguru scrubbed at his eyes, but the ache didn't go away. He blinked cross-eyed at Kuroba as his body tried to catch up with his brain.

"It isn't because you're different," Kuroba said, low and serious. He leaned forward. "I asked, and he wasn't lying. He wouldn't explain why he was pranking you, but that isn't the reason."

"I know. It would be much more malicious if that was the case." Saguru sighed. "I can almost see why, but then the pieces fall through my fingers."

Kuroba chuckled. "The detective's out of practice."

"Mm." Saguru rested his chin on his fist. "I've never been good with people to begin with." That was why he watched them. That was why he used to ask whenever he made an arrest what had motivated a crime. To make sense of it all.

"If you're losing sleep, it's pretty serious," Kuroba said, only half joking. He poked Saguru's face. "You're going to get bags under your eyes."

Saguru swatted his hand away. "It's hardly the only thing going on in my life." There were plenty of other things he was specifically trying not to think of. "It worries me though because his record shows this behavior to be out of the ordinary. The other students are taking it in stride but changes in behavior can be reactions to stressors, and that he's aiming it at me means that somehow I am a stressor. I can't see how though, I'm doing my best to keep our interactions strictly professional and not letting my past with you or Aoko-san intrude on how I treat Takumi-kun as a student."

Kuroba studied him. "Maybe that's part of it."

"What is?" Saguru sighed. He'd been up and down and back and forth over the whole thing and he was starting to get more than a little frustrated.

"Your past. You knew Aoko and I back in high school."

"Do you think so?" Saguru frowned. It was a valid theory. Kuroba knew his son better than Saguru ever would, certainly.

"Keep trying. He'll confront you eventually." Kuroba watched him as Saguru felt his eyes sliding closed again. He had a half smile on his face like he had a particularly amusing thought process going on. It wasn't his plotting face, so Saguru figured he had nothing too much to worry about for the moment. "Okay, you need to sleep."

"I will. In a minute." Saguru yawned. His jaw clicked and he blinked, rubbing it. Well, that didn't sound good. That made him feel older than he usually felt.

"Up," Kuroba said, no nonsense, and Saguru was following the command before it fully processed. His cane was pushed into his hand, stabilizing his wobbling stance as he tried not to put too much weight on his bad knee. "Brush your teeth."

"But the futon—"

"I'll clean up and put out the futon. Go." Kuroba pushed him toward the washroom.

Saguru staggered to the sink, going through his night routine out of habit. What was Kuroba trying to pull? Concerned friend? But then he'd cared for Saguru's wellbeing back when Saguru was his enemy so… Saguru was half through brushing his teeth when he realized floss was still stuck in his back molars. He pulled it free.

"Are you done in there yet?"

Saguru spat and washed his mouth clean. "Close." He returned to find the futon pulled out and neat with his night clothes folded beside it. Saguru blinked at them. "I should be more surprised you know what I prefer to wear as my secondary sleepwear when my usual is waiting to be washed."

"Just get some sleep," Kuroba said. "You look terrible."

"I'm generally a bit of a mess these days," Saguru said absently. He shuffled across the room, only leaning on his cane as much as he needed. Compared to high school he was in constant disarray. Some days he didn't bother to brush his hair beyond fixing bed head.

"You're not that bad." Kuroba sighed, and his hand fluttered in a motion Saguru didn't understand. His wrist, when it flashed out from under his sleeve had a bandage, on the top from the back of his hand toward the back of his forearm. The bandage was disguised by makeup to be less noticeable, but the cold water from brushing his teeth had woken Saguru up enough to be a bit more observant.

"What happened to your arm?"

Kuroba glanced down at his arm and pushed his sleeve lower. "Just a slip up making a model earlier this week. I dropped a replica vase and a shard bounced and cut me."

It sounded like a lie. Saguru's sleep-deprived brain couldn't connect the dots as to why it was a lie, but he felt certain that it was one all the same. Something in the way he covered it up? Or was it the disguised bandages? He crossed the space to take Kuroba's hand in his. Kuroba's face went blank and his muscles rigid, but he didn't pull his arm away. Saguru pushed the sleeve up and noted more bandages, some long, others short. Pulling up the opposite sleeve showed the same, and when he looked closely at Kuroba's face and neck, there was a tiny cut on his chin and one close to his collar bone that had been covered with liquid bandage and makeup. The cuts were clean and not deep, but the ones on his arms looked to be longer and possibly more severe from the length of the bandages. "Glass?" Saguru guessed.

Kuroba huffed, one sharp exhalation and pulled his arms free, rolling the sleeve down. "Ever the detective, aren't you?" he said. His face was still a mask; his tone let nothing through about his true emotions, kept polite and distant.

"Was it your night job then?" Saguru's mind went off without him, thinking through snipers and crazed fans and other criminals that had sought to use Kid in the past.

"The case shattered."

Saguru tracked back two days to the last Kid heist and the fire opal necklace that Kid had stolen. He remembered a picture of it behind a glass case with other smaller jewels from the same artist. "By means of you, an officer, or one of the deadly shadows hanging around you?"

For a moment Kuroba's face was still the mask, but he sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Fine. It was the crows that perch on rooftops. The shot went wide and hit the case in front of me. The glass shattered toward me and I had to shield my face."

"I see." Saguru wondered if it had been kept out of the public eye or if the police had missed the shot as usual. Kuroba was watching Saguru's face.

He glared at Saguru, steel in his eyes. Saguru couldn't remember ever having that expression leveled at him, not even in moments of challenge. "Don't. Don't think, don't analyze, and don't get involved. Not how you are now. I don't need anyone else a target." This from the man who had casually asked him if he planned on returning to heists. Had the question been a test?

"I presume I already am one as your neighbor and old rival." Did they know about Kuroba Kaito, or did they only know Kaitou Kid? Kuroba's hints and the death of his father meant that they had tracked down the original Kid's identity. It would be simple to realize who the current Kid was. The old suspicions about the gunshot wound to the knee resurfaced. He'd never caught the shooter. It could have been one of the mystery snipers. Saguru rubbed his bad knee at the thought, paling with remembered agony. He had thought he was going to die, then. With the shock and later infection, he nearly had.

Kuroba's face twisted. His lips tried to pull a flat line and a grimace at the same time. If only Saguru could see into his head. The look in Kuroba's eyes almost could be seen as guilt, which didn't make any sense at all. "Just don't," he repeated. "I know you're here and that if my life was in danger you'd put aside your sense of justice and help. That's more than enough."

"Fine." It was too late at night to be pressing the issue. Saguru scrubbed his eyes and waved a hand. "Go to bed, Kuroba."

Kuroba exhaled with an edge of laughter. "I try to get you to go to bed and you turn it around on me. Typical and hypocritical."

"I'll sleep when you're gone." He heard Kuroba cross the room. Cloth pressed into the hand still hanging vaguely in the air from shooing his neighbor.

"Change first."

Saguru opened his eyes to Kuroba closing Saguru's fingers around pajamas and looking tired. He took them and stepped aside, letting Kuroba exit the front door properly instead of climbing back out the window.

"Goodnight," Kuroba said. He paused at the door. "You know, you could always visit me. I'm sure you need to vent sometimes as much as the next person."

"You'd only laugh and support the students acting out," Saguru said as dry as he could manage while falling asleep standing up.

Kuroba laughed. "But you have to admit it would be fun arguing about something ridiculous again."

"Goodnight, Kuroba," Saguru said firmly. He made a shooing gesture again. The door clicked open and shut. The lock snicked tight—locked from the outside meaning either lock picks or Kuroba had a copy of Saguru's key; he was betting the latter.

Saguru changed into his night clothes methodically and mindlessly, his brain turning Kuroba's parting words over and over. Why hadn't he tried to enter Kuroba's home? A strange reluctance to examine Kuroba's life? Benefits of plausible deniability because he had never glanced around the apartment for proof of Kid? Or was it habit because Kuroba always came to him? Saguru curled in his futon and pulled the blankets as high as they would go. No more thinking. He was not rested enough to puzzle out Takumi let alone his own behavioral process. Perhaps he would actually sleep enough to think properly in the morning this time.

*o*o*

The pranking stopped three days later. The watching started instead. Saguru wasn't sure if it was much better honestly.

In the classroom, in the hallway, in homeroom, and at the weekly literature club meeting, Takumi did nothing but watch. Even Momoi noticed and called him out on it. Takumi blustered his way out of it, but Saguru bet she would get him to talk faster than either of his parents would. She intrigued him—and mildly terrified Saguru with her card shark skills—into attending every literature club meeting and keeping up with the reading. Saguru was still questioning if the choice was wise for his health, but he was accumulating a much more eclectic range of reading material than he would choose on his own, and that was not a bad thing. Even if he still couldn't get Momoi to agree that Sherlock Holmes was a prime example of detective literature.

Saguru sighed, and went through his lists, the school day over for the moment. He had home visits lined up for the next week and a half. Really they should have been done by now, but he had had trouble contacting a few of his students' parents, and several other parents had switched what times they were available on him. It was almost Golden Week for goodness sake. One of his meetings was even running into the holiday week. It was ridiculous. While he was all for parental meetings, and could see the advantage to meeting in a student's home, he missed having the parents come to him rather than the other way around.

Takumi's home visit was in two days. Tonight Saguru had three meetings and grocery shopping to get through. Well. Meetings first, then grocery shopping, then sleeping as much as possible. Not much grading was going to get done this week. Who was first on the list? Yamaguchi Hinata? Well, at least the address was close to the station…less walking required.

*o*o*

Saguru's impressions of the three families he visited that evening were largely neutral. Nothing stood out from the first and third, while there were a bit of concerning signs of alcoholism in the second home, likely the father, he was also aware that to some extent many Japanese businessmen were functioning alcoholics. It was a little detail that he made a mental note of in case it came back up again.

In all cases, Saguru thanked the families for their time and was sent on his way with small containers of snacks. That was a plus of home visits as the food gifts had helped get him through the week. If his cupboards weren't currently more or less bare, he'd head home now. But if Saguru didn't get groceries now, he wouldn't get them tomorrow either. He would get them now, find a quick meal for the night and call it a day. Although after snacks and tea at three homes, Saguru couldn't say he was all that hungry at the moment.

The store Saguru went to was as close to the rail station as he could manage, small, with far less selection than he would like. If he wanted foodstuffs that he was more used to eating, he would have to seek the far more expensive and distant foreign markets, and he wasn't going to put effort into that unless he needed tea. Tea was more important than finding spices he was used to or a brand of crisps he preferred.

Shopping was a chore. Managing a basket and a cane was impractical, using one of the rare available carts was more practical but they were difficult to maneuver as he needed more leverage to turn at times than his bad leg cold give him when the cart got heavier. And then he had to carry everything back. He missed shopping with someone. It was infinitely simpler when there was someone else to help split the load. Back when he still lived with his parents, the number of times he went shopping at all had been rare and few.

It was an evil necessity, Saguru decided as he moved through aisles of fresh produce, checking what was on sale and at its peak of freshness. Items went into his cart with efficiency and limited to his culinary ability—carrots, potatoes, and beans as they were familiar, and peas to add to his lunch. Skip fruit as it was currently too expensive—though a sale was coming for peaches that he noted for the future. Enough fish for tomorrow's dinner, chicken as protein for the rest of the week, skip over the tofu as he had yet to figure out how to make it palatable to his taste and not set his kitchen on fire. It was all terribly dull, tossing meal ideas around his head as he wandered down the aisles. He never got in the habit of planning out his week's worth of meals to shop for. Saguru walked into the store and devised meal plans as he went through the aisles, the food giving him more ideas than staring at a piece of paper and trying to come up with something. Mel had despaired over it and had taken over grocery shopping and meal planning. It wasn't that Saguru came back with too many groceries or ridiculously expensive arrays of food. He just tended to end up with unusual combinations, and since Mel did most of the cooking it made more sense for Mel to get food he wanted to prepare. Saguru smiled, picturing Mel's frustration at a Japanese market where he couldn't find the spices or half the ingredients he was working with. He'd probably take it as a challenge. Saguru almost laughed, but as his fingers brushed a carton of eggs the reminder that he wouldn't see Mel's determined-to-make-food-work face anymore left him feeling hollow. It was almost a year now. He would think that it would stop hitting him quite so hard by now.

Saguru rubbed his eyes as he turned into a snack aisle. He pulled a package of his favorite senbei into his cart and bypassed the rest, already plotting his course for rice, noodles, and flour. He reached the end of the aisle, turned, and the cart was jarred out of his grip as something—another cart—slammed into its side.

"Sorry! Sorry!" a young voice yelped.

Saguru pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to breathe even and slow. Because he had just been hit by Kuroba Takumi. And Saguru did not feel up to dealing with Takumi at the moment.

"Hakuba-sensei?" Takumi squeaked with something akin to horror. Saguru looked. Ah, mortification. And Aoko was behind Takumi looking amused, annoyed, and surprised all at once. Saguru nodded to her as Takumi backed his cart away, giving Saguru enough room to retrieve his own cart that was listing off to the side toward a stack of sports drinks.

"Good evening, Kuroba-kun, Aoko-san." He nodded to Aoko, leaning on the cart. Her eyes flicked to the cane he had hoped she would overlook.

"Hakuba-san." She smiled. Something in Saguru relaxed. Despite how their phone call had ended cordially, he had half expected her to be annoyed or suspicious or something like in high school.

Takumi glanced between them and positioned himself in front of his mother acting casually like it wasn't calculated. "You made her cry," he had said. "What are you doing here, Hakuba-sensei?" he asked.

Saguru raised an eyebrow. He waved a hand at his cart. "Shopping." Takumi flushed; Saguru knew he wouldn't have asked such an obvious question if his mother hadn't been there. It felt like an ill thought out attempt to switch attention to him rather than Aoko.

Aoko pushed Takumi aside with a firm hand on his back. "Takumi, go get the snacks you wanted."

"But Kaa-san—"

"Go. Senbei, chips, wasabi peas….whatever you want for your sleepover." Aoko stared her son down with a look Saguru could picture being leveled at criminals. Takumi's shoulders lifted toward his ears in a defensive slouch and he glanced at Saguru. Aoko cleared her throat and Takumi maneuvered his cart down the aisle Saguru had just left. "And get some Pucca to slip into your father's cupboards! It'll be worth the laugh as he debates whether the chocolate is worth the fish shaped pretzel shells," she called after him.

Saguru stifled a laugh. "I'm not sure if that's kind or cruel of you," he said. Kuroba loved chocolate but on the other hand…fish. It wasn't a weakness he had exploited though—that seemed to be reserved to Aoko.

"If he can't be half-assed to do his own shopping this week, he can deal with the results," Aoko grumped. "It's not like I'm leaving a fish head in his fridge or anything." She grinned after a second. "Though I bet his reaction would be great."

"He'd likely wake me from a dead sleep in the middle of the night," Saguru said, equally amused.

She laughed. It made her eyes scrunch in a way that called attention to laugh lines, and Saguru was glad that no matter what might have happened with Kuroba, she still laughed enough to form wrinkles. Aoko glanced past Saguru's shoulder toward Takumi, checking to see how close he was before leaning in. "About what we mentioned on the phone…you meant it right?"

Saguru rewound his mind to the conversation. "About K—Kid? Yes. I meant what I said. I won't be trying to catch him myself. And I won't turn our mutual acquaintance in."

"Mm." She nodded. "Good. I had to make sure." Her eyes sparkled with warmth and a bit of mischief. "With that clear, would you be interested in coming to the next heist? Seeing you there might trip him up completely."

He blinked. Go to a Kid heist? "I'm…not sure that would be the best idea."

"Not up for the chase anymore?" Aoko teased.

Saguru glanced at his bad leg and cane pointedly. She winced.

"Okay, bad choice in wording. I meant more the intellectual experience not…"

"No, I understand." Saguru gave her an apologetic smile, though he felt weary more than anything else. "I do not think it would be wise to go for reasons beyond my leg. It brings back a few more recent bad memories and I wouldn't be much use to anyone then." If he went to a heist with all the police there, it would make him think of Mel, and that night, and if there was a sniper…Saguru wouldn't be able to handle it. He'd end up back in the depressive spiral he had moved to Japan to escape.

Aoko looked confused for a moment, then oddly guilty. "I'm…I'm sorry," she said after a moment.

"For what? It is hardly your fault for my personal difficulties."

"I…" She looked away, guilt and embarrassment in the set of her jaw and her downward gaze. "When I heard you were Takumi's English teacher I wondered why you were back now after so long and…and I looked some things up after our phone call. I'm sorry about Meallán."

Saguru's stomach twisted unpleasantly at hearing Mel's name, mispronounced but still clear. Japan was the last place he had expected to hear it again unless he brought it up first or his parents tried to corner him into talking. "I would rather not talk about this in the middle of a grocery store," he said stiffly.

Aoko looked even more uncomfortable. She glanced over Saguru's shoulder again. "I'm sorry," she repeated. Her hands twisted around her purse strap. She never used to wear a purse in high school. Even after she started dating Kuroba, she was more of a tomboy. She wore dresses and skirts often enough, but she always moved like she was wearing pants. That she hadn't been overly feminine had attracted Saguru at one point. How much had she changed since then?

It seemed that neither of them knew how to interact with each other. It was so painfully opposite of his reunion with Kuroba that Saguru didn't know where to start. He cleared his throat. "I suppose I will be seeing you in a week."

"Ah…yes." Aoko bit her lip, looking conflicted and a bit hurt.

"We can discuss Takumi-kun's school performance then?" Saguru prompted. When in doubt, fall back on professionalism.

"Of course." Aoko forced a smile. "I'd like to hear how his studies are going. He avoids talking about school unless it involves sports or a madcap adventure with his friends."

"Please tell me you aren't telling embarrassing stories about me again," Takumi said from behind Saguru's left shoulder.

Saguru flinched, putting too much weight on his bad knee and freezing up in pain. Aoko looked concerned as Saguru straightened up, using the cart for support more than he was willing to admit. "It has been a long day," he said through gritted teeth. He looked away. "I should be going."

"We're going the same way," Aoko offered. "I need to drop things off at Kaito's…"

Saguru gripped the cart handle until his knuckles were white and his hands ached. His chest felt tight and he could feel his heartbeat in his knee. "I apologize; I need to finish my shopping."

Silence, and it was more of the strange, uncomfortable gulf of years between them. If he looked up, Saguru was sure he would see Aoko's lips press together like they used to do when Kuroba inadvertently hurt her feelings and her eyes go distant and full of discomfort. Saguru couldn't afford tact when he felt like he was going to either splinter into a thousand shattered pieces or lash out because he felt cornered.

"Kaa-san?" Takumi said uneasily.

"I'll see you in a week, Aoko-san," Saguru repeated. Hopefully Aoko didn't take it too personally. How was she to know he was coping with avoidance and she was one step away from destroying that?

"Take care, Hakuba-san," Aoko murmured back.

He didn't look back to see her expression or to acknowledge Takumi. He pushed past them as fast as his leg would allow and didn't stop until he was in the middle of the frozen food section, half the store away from where he left them.

*o*o*

Saguru spent another night staring at the ceiling. He hadn't stopped shaking when he finally got his groceries home. His hands shook like a man in the second stages of withdrawal and he had given up the thought of any sort of dinner. The papers that needed graded had been left on the table along with all the groceries that didn't require refrigeration. Saguru hadn't had the energy to bathe. It had taken everything to roll out his futon and lay down still clothed. His knee still wouldn't bend right. The therapist he had been seeing before he ran from England had told him that the pain in his wounded leg was partly psychological. Saguru had to agree. It never hurt or lost as much mobility as when he was upset.

The ceiling was too blank. He needed to put something up there to study if he spent so many nights staring at nothing. Every time his eyes closed Mel flashed before his eyes, mouth somewhere between a smile and a grimace as they had been taken off guard. They had been relaxed. Calm. Saguru had cried the first time he smiled after Mel's death because the last time he smiled, Mel had died. The only thing Saguru had to be thankful for was that that first horror of Mel dying hadn't been a head shot. If his last moment of Mel's smile had been seeing it explode into brain matter Saguru might really have killed himself trying to avoid sleep. Still, sometimes Saguru wondered if it wasn't worse that Mel hadn't seen it coming. It meant that as the light died from his eyes, Saguru had been staring into them. Somehow it was worse that it hadn't been instantaneous, but a drawn out battle in the hospital because it had dragged hope on that much longer.

One of the bullets had grazed Saguru's side as it passed through Meallán's body. Saguru hadn't noticed until hours later when one of the paramedics realized that not all of the blood on Saguru was Mel's.

He blinked stinging eyes, too dry from forcing them open. A rusty rail spike was being driven into his temples. Exhaustion headaches; his body got them as a warning as they were one of the only things he noticed back when he took cases. Not even he could hunt relentlessly when a migraine threatened to immobilize him.

It was one thing skirting around the topic with Kuroba. It was another having Aoko bring Mel's name into a conversation without a hint of warning. Especially...especially as the date of his death was only a few weeks away. He wasn't going to get any rest—between the nightmares that would come when he finally managed to fall asleep and the migraine he had, Saguru was guaranteed to have a miserable, sleep deprived day of teaching. Which would make the headaches worse.

Some days they'd fade if he kept still, quiet and the room dark.

The room was dark and quiet now and the headache was worse than it had been earlier.

He could take the prescription sleep pills still zipped in his suitcase. But that was a bad idea. He'd considered flushing the pills three times in the last month. Because having that many pills in one place was a bad thing. And they were addictive. And he didn't want to be addicted to any medication again after his issues with pain medication in the past.

Next door the window slid open and shut; Kuroba entering or leaving, he couldn't tell which. He couldn't remember if Kuroba had stayed after Aoko and Takumi showed up with groceries or if he had left shortly after. Saguru could still here their muffled argument and Kuroba's shriek at finding the fish-shaped snack among the groceries. He remembered Takumi telling them to shut up and slamming the apartment door on his way out. He remembered Aoko's voice taking on a higher, tighter sound and Kuroba's sharp, short responses. High school felt like a long time ago. It was a long time ago. God he felt old.

Saguru rolled over and tried to block the world and his body out. He was nowhere, no one, without a past or present or future. Just a passing thought that would dissipate in an instant.

Eventually, he slept.