Saguru woke to someone clearing their throat pointedly. It took a moment to open his eyes, but he'd already placed the sigh that followed as belonging to Haibara Ai.
"Amusing as it is to see two grown men passed out on each other," she said, arms crossed and bordering on impatience, "I need to do a checkup and I only have twenty minutes before I have to be somewhere else." She was dressed nicely in a blouse and skirt instead of a lab coat thrown over whatever comfortable clothing she happened to be wearing at the time. The usual medical kit hung from one hand.
Against Saguru's neck, Kuroba groaned. Saguru's face heated when Kuroba burrowed closer to Saguru's side, clinging like a sloth. "Nooooo," Kuroba mumbled. "It's too early and I barely got any sleep."
"Tough," Haibara said. She set the medical kit on the free chair and rolled up her sleeves.
"Rude," Kuroba grumbled. He sat up. The loss of his warmth left Saguru's right side noticeably colder.
"Call it karma," Haibara said.
Saguru slid off the bed to give them space. The books he'd brought were stacked neatly on the bedside table. He should let the Kudos know he was there. He'd rather stay with Kuroba.
"How much longer do I have until I can go home, Doc?" Kuroba asked as he opened his yukata so Haibara could check the abrasions along his shoulder and side. "I can walk a bit, make it to the bathroom and back, no infections; a hospital would send me home by now."
"No, a hospital would be running tests wondering if you were human by now," Haibara said. She checked bandages, noticeably less than last time Saguru saw them changed. The wounds under them were completely scabbed over, looking less like raw meat and more like burns that had had a month to heal. "You have to be careful stretching these," she said. "Scabs and new skin don't have the elasticity of healthy skin. You're going to tear something and end up bleeding all over and risking infection with a bunch of tiny tears."
Kuroba rolled his eyes when she wasn't looking. "I've been injured before."
"Not this badly." She went over each injured spot, cleaned it, put ointment and re-bandaged. She reached Kuroba's hip and Saguru glanced away. "The hardest bit is going to be keeping the leg brace from rubbing the more you try to walk," she said. "And the bullet wound on your leg. It tore a lot of muscle fibers. Even after it heals, you're probably going to have twinges for a long time."
"That's how bullet wounds go. How's my leg?"
"I don't have the equipment to check on your tendons," Haibara said. "You need to see a professional for that."
"Fair enough." Kuroba sighed. "But can I go home? Don't get me wrong, the hospitality here is wonderful, but I'd hate to abuse it any longer than I have to."
Haibara hummed. "Can you? Physically you could go home, but is your home watched?"
"Hakuba?" Kuroba asked.
Saguru looked away from Haibara carefully probing the tendons around Kuroba's knee and calf. "I didn't notice anyone watching in the last few days, but with yesterday, perhaps waiting a bit longer is best. If you intended to go to your mother's home for a while, you would have to ask her."
"Damn," Kuroba sighed.
"Quit whining," Haibara said. "Hakuba-san, you should talk to Kudo. This morning's press is going insane as apparently there was a massive online info dump that makes the Wikileaks look tame in comparison." She tilted her head, eying Saguru unnervingly. "And you were in the news again. Someone got a picture of you leaving the police line yesterday."
"Lovely." There'd be speculation about why he was there, questions on if he was on the case against Kid, or perhaps questions about what he had to do with the internal police investigations once that came out. They wouldn't be able to hide the internal investigations thanks to Kuroba Chikage dumping her files online. "In that case, Kuroba, the area is likely watched by reporters if not our irritating shadows."
"Guess it doesn't matter if I'm stuck here a bit longer then. Water my plant for me?"
Haibara raised an eyebrow.
"Will do," Saguru said. "I'll go see Kudo now..."
"See you later," Kuroba said, cheerful enough for the moment. "Oh, and Hakuba?"
"Mm?"
"Happy birthday. Forgot to say it last night."
Saguru blinked, calculated the date. August twenty-ninth. And two days before school started back up.
"You forgot it was your birthday, didn't you," Kuroba said, laughing at him.
"Shut up, Kuroba." Saguru rubbed his forehead, his eyes still ached, not enough sleep. "I haven't finished my lesson plans for next semester." There had been so much happening and so many things to occupy his time... Mum was going to want to see him too, and then there was the reports he had to write up for Aoko, and checking up on Millard, and... Damn, there weren't enough hours in a day.
"Good luck," Kuroba said.
"Thanks."
*o*o*
"Saguru, I came to surprise you at your apartment this morning, but you weren't there."
"Apologies, Mum. I've been a bit busy."
"Enough that you're not sleeping?" Mum asked, concern echoing down the line.
"I stayed elsewhere," Saguru assured her. She didn't need to know that he'd only slept a little bit.
"Ah," Mum said. "You're with Kuroba."
"And several detectives working on this crime organization case."
"But you came for Kuroba," she said, amused now.
Saguru rolled his eyes. He wouldn't win with this; she knew him too well. "Yes, Mum, I spent the night because of Kuroba. I...haven't been sleeping very well since the last heist," he admitted. "I sleep better knowing he's nearby."
"Ah." All teasing left her voice. "I'm glad you can stay then. Wherever that is."
"I'm not telling you. You can wait until I'm done here to pester me about my birthday."
"You used to love your birthday when you were little," Mum said.
"And I got older." There wasn't much fun in birthdays after you reached the point where you could just buy yourself anything that caught your fancy. Mel had liked them though. He'd always insisted on celebrating Saguru's birthday together, usually in some way that left Saguru exasperated and amused by the end of it. Last year he'd been too deep in grief to notice the day passing. Waking up next to Kuroba was a decent way to start it this year.
Mum hummed, disagreeing with his reasoning. She still enjoyed birthdays too, perhaps because it gave her an excuse to drag people into socializing. She let the topic go for the moment though. "It's sad news with the leaks on the internet. It's all the news is covering this morning. I thought your father was going to choke on his tea when they brought the topic up."
"It's good news, actually," Saguru said. "It makes cover up harder with it so public. Some people will be going to ground, but this gives the chance to break down their infrastructure in places of power and make it harder to ever reach the scale it's at ever again. And it's international information too. That gives police across the world information to fight back."
"I think it was the global bit that had your father choking," Mum said. "I think he was picturing a bit smaller scale that you were dealing with."
"To be honest, I wasn't aware of quite how large this was until I started reading some of the files that ended up being released online." There was knowing that a group was multifaceted and incorporated into niches around the world and there was knowing. No wonder Kuroba felt so powerless.
"Mm, well, now that you've woken the beast, don't go relaxing. I don't want to wake up to find your name on the telly on who's been a latest victim."
"I know." This was only the beginning. The victory of last night felt smaller and the weight of all that still had to be done was crushing when out that way. They had to take their victories when they could in whatever form they came or they would go mad. "I'll find time to come over later in the day," he promised.
"I'll hold you to it," Mum said.
*o*o*
There was a surprising lack of reporters outside the school. There had been two staked out near Saguru's family home, and a whole groups lingering at police stations, and even a few koen, trying to get opinions on the police investigations. The last few days had been chaotic from the fallout. Saguru had gotten phone calls from London, calls from work, calls from Aoko, his father's old connections, Kudo's connections, and even people Saguru hadn't known even had his number. He hadn't been sure what he was going into when he returned to work after summer holiday. When he'd left, he had just been outed and was being pressured into attending a Kid heist. It felt like a lifetime ago and he'd forgotten to be worried about how it could affect him in the long term.
Compared to outing a criminal organization and nearly getting shot a handful of days ago, facing coworkers and a classroom of teenagers wasn't very scary at all.
The students went silent as he entered the room, all eyes on him. Saguru caught four students sidling back to their desks from where they'd grouped around Takumi. Takumi looked like he was considering the window as a potential escape route. He set his teaching materials on the front table and stood as casual as he could pull off, like nothing had changed.
"Welcome back. Hopefully you all had a pleasant break—I won't ask if you've managed to complete your summer homework. Yet." There were a couple sheepish faces in the mix, but most were still alert and fixated, an underlying tension filling the room. "Yoshida-san will take roll call, and then we can go over upcoming events." Saguru doubted they'd actually get around to talking about any class events. The narrow focus meant that the moment he allowed them to, they'd be asking questions, and a few were already fidgeting in the way that said they wouldn't even wait that long.
He was right as before Yoshida could get to the front of the room to go call off names, Fujiwara in the back of the room raised a hand.
"Sensei! Are the rumors that Kaitou Kid is dead true?"
"Any matters regarding Kaitou Kid are not related to school," Saguru said, "and as such won't be discussed. But as police have stated, as of now there is no conclusive evidence that Kid is alive or dead."
"But you were there right?"
"I was." Saguru pinned the girl who spoke with a firm stare. "I also was not deeply involved with the heist prevention efforts; camera watching is not a good venue to catch the subtleties of Kid's actions." None of it lies. Fujiwara lowered her hand sheepishly. "Now if we could—"
"Are you going to stay our teacher if you're involved with the police investigation?" Hikawa in the front left asked, not even bothering to raise his hand.
"I have no intention of leaving my position at the moment," Saguru said. "And at the moment I am here as your homeroom teacher, not as a detective. Yoshida-san, roll call, please." That seemed to do the trick for the moment. Saguru met Takumi's eyes for a second and saw gratitude and relief. It was going to be a stressful day for both of them. Even so, as roll call finished and Saguru straightened his work notes to discuss upcoming events, he was glad to be back. He had missed detective work more than he'd thought, but returning to teaching after the stress of the past few weeks was like stepping back into a bit of normalcy. He could do with a bit of normalcy.
*o*o*
"So I still have a job," Saguru said to Kate during lunch break. They'd missed each other this morning and Saguru had had to go to the office for the first part of his break to be told that he was under watch but allowed to continue working for the moment. It was about as much as he could hope for really. Kate gave him a wide smile. So had some of the other teachers; there were more staff who were sympathetic than he'd expected.
"You do! I'm glad." She leaned on the back of her chair, twisted around to talk to him, looking as intense as some of his students had that day with questions bubbling up in her. "We weren't sure you know?" She lowered her voice. "I heard that a police officer wrote to the school board about your moral character but don't tell anyone that."
A police officer, hmm? That had to be Aoko. Saguru owed her then.
"It looks like you had a pretty exciting break though," Kate said. "I watched the news. Between that Kid heist and then the internal investigations with the police, and that net leak—you are involved with that, right? I kind of figured when they mentioned the Kid investigations and help from outside sources, what with all the," she waved a hand, "things going on."
"Exciting is one way to put it." Exhausting would be more accurate. "I don't believe that I'm going to be able to go back to peacefully minding my own business."
"Do you want to?" Kate asked. She looked him up and down. "You look tired, but honestly you're more...focused than I've seen all year."
"I feel more like me," Saguru said after a moment. He couldn't help but touch the pocket with his pin in it, and the pocket watch nestled below it. "I think I'm done feeling sad. I'm not sure I'll ever reach the point of not feeling sad when I think about what I lost but..."
"Not wallowing in depression?" Kate said. "Good. That's good." She clapped him on the shoulder. "You'll have to come out to another get together. Gotta be more social if you want people in your corner."
"I'll try." He paused. "Do you think people will be in my corner?"
"Of course," Kate said immediately. "You haven't made any enemies at least, and despite the board being full of traditionalists, most of the staff is more liberal. I know it's probably really uncomfortable to have your life story out in the open, but it's a sympathetic one, and you're an alumni. There's long time staff advocating for you." Erika. It had to be since she was one of the only teachers still here from back when Saguru was a student. He glanced across the room and managed to catch her looking in his direction at the same time. He gave her a grateful smile. "You'll get through this," Kate said. "It doesn't hurt to come out for drinks again sometime though."
"Thank you," Saguru said.
Kate waved his thanks away. "We're friends, right?"
"Right."
Everything and nothing had changed, Saguru reflected as Kate turned back to her desk. The same students in his classes with the same ones to keep an eye on. The same coworkers, who as a whole didn't seem to view him differently. The same hastily made lunch of leftovers on his desk and a pile of papers to grade. A whole criminal organization unearthed into the light. It was too simple, going too smoothly. Even counting Takumi's jump into the trap, it was still too smooth.
He wanted to feel content at the progress made, but all that he had at the moment was a feeling in his stomach reminiscent of missing a step on the stairs, the moment of open air before the jarring return to solid ground.
A student arrived, probably to plead again for an extension on their summer homework.
Whatever the feeling was, it wasn't going anywhere. He had plenty to do until the other shoe dropped.
*o*o*
"Grading?" Kuroba asked, in the kitchen of the Kudo manor instead of his guest room. They were alone for the moment, Ran and the children gone to bed and Kudo off working overtime as he had every day since they sprung the trap. He would be doing so for quite a while more by the look of things.
"Mm." Saguru crossed out incorrect conjugations and nitpicked poorly written sentences with red pen.
"You don't have to come all the time now that you're working again," Kuroba said. "I know it's a lot further to get to the school from here than our apartment building."
"It's fine, Kuroba. I'm here because I want to be." He'd stay the night again today, and perhaps the next day, and return home a few days after that, rotating in attempt to not overstay his welcome though it was probably long past that point. "Besides, it is nice to have the company."
"Can't argue there." Kuroba sighed. "It's lonelier with the girls back at school, though they still want me to read them bedtime stories so that's fun at least."
Saguru smiled, diagramming the proper grammatical structure of the current paper he was grading. "I think they've all but adopted you as another uncle."
"No arguments there," Kuroba said. "I like kids. It's been too long since Takumi was that age."
Though ruminating on the Kudo girls brought up other thoughts... "Do you visit Koizumi-san's daughters?"
"Mm. Not so much. I've met them a few times." Kuroba spun a tea mug around and around in a circle. His dexterity was improving by the day, enough that when he got bored with that and began twirling his teaspoon, it danced between his hands almost as seamlessly as he used to manage. "I haven't had the chance to interact with them like Kudo's kids. Kinda don't think Akako wants me to. They're her kids at the end of the day, not mine even if they're mine biologically."
"I see." Not unexpected. A bit sad though. "And Aoko doesn't know about that."
"No. Don't know if I'll ever tell her. I'll tell Takumi sometime though. Uh. When he's not mad at me still."
"Why not get it all aired out at once and all his anger out of the way?" Saguru said lightly. Kuroba snorted. "Does Aoko know about Kudo-san?"
Kuroba's hands stilled for a moment and he breathed out slowly. "Was it obvious?" he asked, resigned.
"No." Kuroba and Ran had been nothing but polite to each other. There was always the fact that both Kudos had taken Kaito in that hinted at deeper attachment, but if it wasn't for Midori's resemblance to Kuroba and Kuroba's greater comfort with her over Haibara in his personal space, he'd never have guessed. "You've both been fairly neutral toward each other. It was an educated guess."
Kuroba sighed again. "I guess him letting me stay was a dead giveaway, huh?"
It was Saguru's turn to freeze, hand clenched tight around his pen. He set it down slowly. "Actually, I meant Kudo Ran."
"Oh."
"Both of them?"
Kuroba flushed, unable to meet his eyes. "It was... I was in a bad place at the time and. Look, I don't do things like that usually."
"I didn't think you did," Saguru said. He knew it had to be an odd situation or things wouldn't be...whatever they were with the Kudos. But what he couldn't get his head around was, "You're attracted to men?"
Kuroba stared and laughed, once, incredulous. "You really didn't—yeah, Hakuba. Yes, I'm attracted to men and women. It's more of a person thing than a...y'know, never mind." He started fiddling with the mug again, spinning it so it juddered against the table noisily. "How did you figure it out? If it wasn't Kudo?"
Midori was the Kudo's secret to tell, and yet... "I guessed," he said after a moment. "Between their comfort and familiarity toward you and letting you stay, it seemed like an obvious conclusion that something more was between you at some point. Between your implicit trust in their codes of honor and their ease with having you in their home... Your comfort with physical proximity..." Saguru picked his pen back up and finished the sentence he'd been writing. "You, however, just proved that guess correct."
"You guessed," Kuroba said flatly. "I guess at least I don't have to worry too much that I had some obvious tell. It's not even like that anymore; it was really just a...a thing that happened once... Hell, I had a whole conversation with them with Aoko in the room and even if we've been divorced for years, don't think for a moment that she wouldn't flip out if she realized I'd slept with a married couple."
Saguru winced. Mops were a thing of the past. It was far more likely that something would get broken. "I wouldn't have guessed at all if I didn't know you so well." Granted Aoko knew him just as well. It explained so much though. Why Kuroba could trust Kudo and both Kudo's ease at having an injured Kid in their care, Kuroba's defense of Kudo the one time Saguru brought him up, and that Kuroba had sent Kudo a birthday message. Kuroba wasn't someone who could be casual with intimacy. "Outside of your trust, there wasn't any specific behavior that led me to notice."
"I really don't normally..." Kuroba waved a hand. The mug juddered to a stop.
"I'm not judging you. I'm the last person who would judge for a non-normative...arrangement." Relationship? Could the word be applied here?
Kuroba frowned at the wood grain tabletop, rubbing the healing side of his face absently. "I was in a bad place. I lost Jii and then there was everything with Aoko and reworking Takumi's visitations and they were attractive and...it was nice to not think for a while." He sighed. "The not thinking bit didn't last very long and—"
Saguru caught his hand, pulling it away from his face. Kuroba frowned, caught between embarrassment and irritation. "It's okay," Saguru said.
"It isn't. I'm not really good with no strings sex it turns out."
"You'd hardly be the only one." And probably not the only one from the encounter to feel that way.
Kuroba dropped his gaze to where their hands were still linked. He didn't try to snatch his hand back, so Saguru didn't either. "Nothing really changed after. I'm a thief, he's a detective, she's a detective's wife…"
"Had you hoped something would change?"
"I don't know what I was thinking back then." Kuroba shrugged, winced a bit at the motion and Saguru only noticed because he was looking for micro-expressions. "I wasn't thinking really."
"You were grieving."
"It doesn't really make it an excuse. I was familiar enough with grief by then to know that I probably would always be grieving at least a little."
There wasn't really anything comforting to say to that. Saguru was in that position of grief himself even if he was beginning to crawl out from the hole of depression grief had left him in. He gently squeezed Kuroba's hand once more. "For what it's worth, they seem to hold you in high regard despite their objections to your night job."
"Well." Kuroba sighed. "Seventeen years is a long time to know someone."
"It is."
Kuroba cleared his throat and pulled his hand free. "But then you'd know that," he said with false levity. "You came back and fit into things easy enough."
"Mm." If he fit, it was through Kuroba's efforts, not his own. It was tempting to reach for Kuroba's hand again, but without a reason to, Saguru couldn't bring himself to do it.
"…I haven't been with many people since the divorce," Kuroba said after a moment. "It's never felt right. Not when I'm still Kid and not when all the reasons Aoko left are still between us."
"Are you still Kid now that you found Pandora?" Saguru asked.
Kuroba hummed, neutral. "Do you think," he asked, "I could escape jail if I testified? Against the organization?"
"Reparations?"
"Something like that." He stared past Saguru at some grim vision only he could see. "Kid can't die until his legend does. I could vanish Kid forever, but that leaves the police at loose ends for their evidence. Could say it was an anonymous source, but in the end, it had more weight with Kid behind it, doesn't it? Kid pulls back the curtain one final time and reveals the insect swarm behind it." He blinked and focused on Saguru again. "So I don't think I'm quite done with Kid after all." He smiled, but it was only a curve of lips, no heart in it at all. "I've spent so long thinking I'd never retire that I don't know what I'll do if I do retire."
"Live," Saguru said. "Live and do anything you want."
"Anything I want, huh?" Kuroba's smile gained a bit of warmth. He sat back, stretched as much as his body let him without protesting. "Mmmmh!" His back popped audibly. "Hell if I know then. I've been Kid longer than I haven't. What will I fill the time with?"
"Somehow I think you'll manage to keep busy." Kuroba managed to keep himself occupied even in a sickbed; he'd find some new hobby or something easily if given the chance.
"True. Maybe I'll do informal shows again," Kuroba mused. "Keep that bit of Oyaji's legacy alive instead of Kid. At the park. No stages involved."
Saguru would like to see that. See Kuroba put on a show that wasn't fueled by desperation or to cover up something else. A show just for the joy and challenge of it for the sake of mystifying those who watched it.
"Will you stick around to see it?" Kuroba asked.
Saguru looked into bright blue eyes and their directness staring back, no judgment. Kuroba's hand was still so close on the table if Saguru were to just reach out and take it. Kuroba liked men. Saguru looked away too quickly, too telling as he couldn't control a light blush. "I plan to be," he said to his stack of grading.
"Good," Kuroba said. His voice was warm. Intimate, Saguru's brain offered and he shoved the thought away. Kuroba's hand caught the corner of his eye and he looked up to see it palm up in front of him. "So, got any more of those pens? I'll help you finish that before you're up all night."
"I can do my own work," Saguru said.
Kuroba smiled. Fond. The crinkle around his eyes and the slant of his smile were soft and Saguru was hopeless. "I know you can. I could use the practice regaining dexterity though. Practicing your stupidly neat handwriting should do the trick."
"My handwriting isn't stupid," Saguru said. He was already reaching for his bag and another pen though. "Haibara isn't going to get angry with me if I let you do this is she?"
"I'm cleared for reading and writing and pretty much anything that doesn't involve a ton of bending, lifting, or moving around." Kuroba clicked the pen and twirled it—clumsily; it slid to the edge of his grip before he regained control. "Grading some high school English papers isn't even hard."
It was getting late and Saguru did want these done tonight and to have time to catch up on sleep. Kuroba certainly could have answered the homework easily enough so Saguru could trust him to grade it... He slid a quarter of the pile across the table.
Kuroba eyes the difference between them, then clicked his tongue before turning to his task.
"It's my job," Saguru muttered. Kuroba ignored him, testing out the pen on a napkin, re-familiarizing himself with Saguru's handwriting. The grading seemed to slide by, helped along by Kuroba's presence. He started humming at some point, voice shifting pitch depending on the song and its original singer. Saguru didn't know most of the songs, but it was nice. Sipping tea and marking up papers in the bubble of Kuroba's spell. It was nearing midnight when he finished the last one. Kuroba finished a bit before him, humming gone soft and mellow, closer to a lullaby than the catchier tunes he'd been humming earlier. The borrowed pen spun lazily in his hand as he watched Saguru. Saguru couldn't say how long he'd been watching, found he didn't mind either.
"Thank you," Saguru said, hand out for the papers Kuroba had graded. Across them was a passable copy of his handwriting, growing better as the stack went on no doubt.
"Any time," Kuroba said. He handed off the papers, saving the pen for last. That, he placed directly into Saguru's palm, fingers brushing for a tangible moment against Saguru's skin. Saguru forced his breathing to remain steady.
"We should. It's time for bed," he said, like he was fifteen again and tripping over his tongue in front of his first crush. Kuroba likes men. He blinked hard, shoving that thought down and away and for a time when he didn't have Kuroba in front of him. "You need any help?"
Kuroba waved him off. "I have a crutch and a brace and too much energy," Kuroba said, levering himself up on said crutch. The bruising had finally faded enough to use it without aggravating it and his ribs were healed enough for it not to hurt too badly. "I'm fine."
"Of course." Kuroba had to have his independence. Still, Saguru moved at his pace down the hallway to their guest rooms. "Goodnight, Hakuba."
"Goodnight." Saguru stared at Kuroba's closed door a beat too long. This was ridiculous. Nothing had changed. Yet when he closed his eyes to sleep, the words echoed through him again and again. Kuroba likes men.
*o*o*
His phone was buzzing, buzzing, buzzing by his head, but Saguru just wanted to turn over and ignore it. It could be Aoko. It could be Kudo. It could be his mother or Millard or Takumi or Kuroba or any number of other people calling at...uh, three twenty-four in the morning. He scowled at the red numbers of his alarm clock blinking mockingly across the room. The phone stopped buzzing. The room went dark again. Saguru relaxed. Whoever it was could leave a message and— The phone began buzzing again. He groaned. His thin sheet bunched at the foot of his futon as Saguru rolled to grab his cellphone. It was probably Aoko, probably another body found or the person they captured had died or...or it was Hiroto.
The English letters above the green phone icon gave no insight to why Hiroto would call him in the middle of the night after a month of mutual avoidance. It was curiosity that made him pick up in the end, alongside a feeling of dread; nothing good ever came out of middle of the night phone calls.
"Saguru?" Hiroto said the second the phone call connected. "Oh thank goodness, you picked up." There was an edge of panic to his voice, and he didn't raise it past a rough whisper. "Saguru—I mean Hakuba-san—I mean," he took a sharp breath, and that edge of panic sounded a lot closer to the edge of hyperventilation.
"Breathe," Saguru said, cutting through the jumbled mess of Hiroto's words. "What's wrong?"
"Sorry. Sorry for. For calling, I wasn't sure. What to do." Another inhale, less ragged. "I'm at work. I think I found something that I shouldn't have. Files. I was reorganizing my boss's files because I noticed they were a mess yesterday. There were. Locked folders, but I have the passwords for everything and. I recognized a name? From the info dump that was on the news? And some emails? I'm not supposed to touch that but I did and now I wish I didn't because they'll probably know and this is why I should have just kept my head down and done my job and not tried to do more than average."
"Hiroto." The rapid breathing on the other end was his only response, but the babbling rush of words had stopped. "Where are you?"
"We do business contracting not—!" The words burst out through the phone speaker, the loudest so far. Hiroto breathed a bit more then answered the question, "The staff bathroom. I had a phone conference call tonight, but I was the only one today so I stayed late while everyone else left. It's my first solo project since the promotion and..." he trailed off. "I'm pretty sure I'm alone. My boss has had oversea meetings this week and I've been taking care of some of his work here."
"Are you in any danger?" Obviously Hiroto felt like it or he wouldn't be hiding in a bathroom to call Saguru, but it would help to have a bit more of a perspective.
"I don't know? Would they know if the files were touched? Would they come find who did it? Am I being watched and I don't know it?" He was moving back toward panic again and that wasn't going to help anyone.
"Hiroto, give me an address and I'll be there."
"Really?" Hiroto sounded so small and doubtful that Saguru felt a bit bad for ignoring his apologies as long as he had. The guilt didn't change that he hadn't been mentally equipped to handle it at the time though.
"Really." He memorized the address Hiroto told him. "Eighth floor?"
"Eighth floor," Hiroto confirmed.
"I'll be there soon, just keep calm in the meantime."
Saguru left Hiroto to calm himself in the bathroom and tapped out a message to Aoko and Kudo. If this had to do with the organization, then they would need to know. And I might need backup, he thought grimly.
He dragged a hand down his face. He had work in the morning. He had work and the trains were no longer running, so he'd have to take a cab, and there went another night of sleep. He got up to get a pair of goddamn pants.
o*O*o
AN: Ok, so there is literally only one time Saguru refers to Ran out loud, and initially I had it as 'Ran-san' but deeper thought to the matter, he'd be super formal unless otherwise indicated he could be casual and so I changed it to 'Kudo-san' (I honestly can't remember if the changed happened here at , but it did other places this is posted) (and the only reason I have his thoughts be 'Ran' is because otherwise it would get very confusing very fast who Saguru was thinking about. Shinichi is 'Kudo' first in Saguru's mind, and Ran would have been 'Mouri' except she married, and yeah... _ ) Point being, there was a single word edit a month or so ago, so if you remember reading differently, that would be why. And that's how this scene worked out. It was one that I had in mind pretty early on in this and ended up writing twice because of it. Original version no longer fit by the time I got to that part in the story. (because I have a habit of writing out of order when I get stuck) For those of you who saw Kaito/Shinichi/Ran in the past revelation coming, Yay! You picked up on the hints! I tried to not make it literally come from out of nowhere, but I honestly don't know how successful it was because there's 'subtle' and then there's 'you'd need to be in the author's brain to notice this detail' ^_^;; For those who didn't see it coming, uh, surprise? :D But it's in the past.
That aside, now most of the excuses Saguru's brain has been supplying just got thrown out the window. He's not straight hon, take that into perspective. ^_^
Surprise, Hiroto returns! To be honest, I was surprised writing this, trying to figure out where to go when Hiroto ambushed my brain with a polite smile and a "We're not done yet"
(And holy crap guys, we're so close to the end now. o_o Thanks so much for following along with this and making my day with your comments. This has really been a great experience working on this fic because of it. Just 4 chapters (aaaand a few extras. and a prequel _) to go!)
