Illusions were his specialty.
A quick hand there, a dove hidden there, and suddenly truth was defied as he preformed the impossible.
There were some who could see through his illusions, true. The shrunken Kudo had an annoying habit of being able to accurately decipher and repeat any trick he used. His Kansai friend wasn't bad either. And Hakuba sometimes managed to think outside the box and catch him pulling it off.
But they were exceptions to the rule. Normally, all he had to do was wave his hand and people were amazed. A flutter of a colored scarf or a wave of red rose petals was all it took to blind their eyes to the truth, even Aoko's.
He didn't feel too guilty, really. He was screaming the truth at them each time he preformed a trick, that they could easily see if they wanted to, like Kudo. It wasn't his fault they didn't choose to, that they were willing to fall for the smoke and the mirrors and the glittering lifestyle of a high-end magician. It kept him safe, that willingness to believe.
It kept him safe, it kept them believing. It allowed him to don the greatest and yet most flimsy mask of all time, a mask so close and yet so far away it might have been real once, but had been lost. He took a deep breath, like he usually did before any performance, and slid that mask on. To begin his preformance behind his illusions. So long as they believed the mask, they believed him. He stepped forward onto his stage.
Kuroba Kaito smiled at his classmates and wished them a good morning.
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