Sagukai week: the prompt was dreams, so of course my brain went "haha, more like nightmares :) :) " what can I say, I'm predictable. still ship-light here _;; could be read as platonic, but in my head Kaito's more anxious bc Saguru goes to his heists more than Aoko and he's getting Attached.

Kaito's breath came in shallow, rasping pants, lungs burning with exertion. It felt like he had been running for hours, but it couldn't have been that long. All he was sure of was that he was being followed. Being watched. There were sirens all around, flashing lights, but somehow he'd still managed to avoid the police so far. Somehow he kept finding the right shadow, the broken door lock, the rusty dumpster to hide behind before they rounded the corner to arrest him.

He was up a fire escape now, arms and legs aching, a stitch in his side. The metal rails were rough and cold, and just a bit slippery from his sweat as he rested his forehead against them. Just a moment. Just a moment to breathe. He just needed to—

The creak of a door, right above the fire escape, and no alarm going off. Kaito froze, chest freezing even as it spasmed for air. Still. Still. They didn't know he was there, he wasn't in Kid's white anymore, he wasn't suspicious, just a random person on the fire escape and.

And looking down at him was Hakuba Saguru, expression unreadable.

Kaito rose shakily back to standing.

"You should stop," he said. "Before it's too late."

"I don't know what you mean," Kaito said, voice a bit deeper and slower than his natural tone, posture shifted to seem wider, heavier, not Kaito at all, just a man, a random man.

"You know exactly what I mean, Kid," Hakuba said, soft as a silk glove before it tightened its grip. "You can negotiate. You must be doing this for a reason. I know you. You aren't a bad person."

"You don't know me."

"Don't I, Kuroba-kun?"

Suddenly Hakuba was in front of him and Kaito tried to take a step back, but the railing was behind him, digging into the middle of his back as Hakuba's eyes seemed to pin him in place.

"Why do you do it, Kuroba-kun?" Hakuba said, too close, so very close that the words were practically breathed into Kaito's lungs and Hakuba's sharp, golden-eyed stare stabbed firm. "Aren't you afraid?"

"Afraid of what?"

"Of what happens after?"

Kaito opened his mouth to answer and Hakuba crumpled, eyes still open and accusing as his neck exploded into a fountain of blood. There was a horrible, rattly gurgle as he went down. The blood was warm. The railing was cold. Bits of viscera spattered Kaito's face and chest and the hole in Hakuba's neck could only be from a high-caliber bullet.

He had to be dead before he hit the ground, the clang of the metal fire escape steps as limbs struck at odd angles. But his eyes didn't stop staring.

Your fault, they seemed to say. Your fault.

Kaito's breath hitched. He had to move had to run had to—

A man with a silenced gun stood in a window of the opposite building, aim sure and steady. Kaito stared at him, unable to get his body to move. He saw the flash of the muzzle, the slight jerk of the gun and—

Kaito dragged breath into his lungs like it was the last breath he's get before he drowned. Sheets tangled his feet as he staggered free of his blankets toward the trash bin by his desk. His stomach rebelled just as he reached it, emptying its meager contents between frantic, pained gasps for breath.

Kaito's body was soaked with cold sweat. His hands were shaking in a way he couldn't let them do as a magician. Swallowing around his nausea, he tried to focus on his hands in the dim pre-dawn twilight.

There wasn't blood staining them. He didn't have half-gloves on and they weren't scraped from scrambling up rough surfaces. Just years of old scars, all faint and thin from razor nicks and dove claws and solder burns.

"Fuck," Kaito rasped. It had felt so real. "Fuck."

Of course, he thought as he buried his face in those scarred hands, he'd watch Hakuba die. They weren't even friends, really. It was all a cat-and-mouse back and forth. Ongoing argument. Conversation at best where neither one would let the other win.

Kaito had dreams where Aoko died. Dreams where she opened her door to greet him and was shot through with a dozen bullets. Dreams where Nakamori-keibu had a gun to his head and a dark-suited shadow at his back forcing him to step off the roof. Dreams where Edogawa Conan became a broken mess of limbs on the pavement when a jump failed, and Kaito couldn't catch his tiny body fast enough.

He saw Hakuba die over and over, more often than the others, and it was a cruel kind of irony to that because he shouldn't be the one his subconscious was most worried for. And yet detectives were stubbornly nosey and Hakuba had stuck himself in Kid's life, in Kaito's and he was the closest to figuring it all out. He knew too much and too little and Kaito couldn't trust him and wanted to trust him all in the same snarling tangle of messy feelings he didn't have time or patience to pick apart.

His breaths slowed, no longer burning in his throat. Kaito's hands still shook, but at a reasonable level. He was so tired.

Ever since the Nightmare mess went down, the dreams—nightmares really, who was he kidding?—had gone from once in a blue moon to more than once a week. Kaito had a terrible sleep record in the first place, but it felt like he was always running off fumes these days. He was going to slip up at this rate and he couldn't afford to.

The fact that Kaito had a mind for detail, a great memory, and had run into several murders over the last few months meant that his nightmares had so freaking many things to pull from these days it wasn't even funny. As a high school student, Kaito shouldn't know near so much about how to determine the time of death on a corpse as he did.

Well. Not like he ever claimed to be normal.

With heavy limbs, Kaito crept out of bed to the bathroom, helping himself to a handful of water. He used another to wash away the sweat on his face and neck. It dribbled down his collarbone in cold rivulets. The face in the mirror looked too old for seventeen. Kaito was going to have to put on concealer tomorrow to hide the dark shadows under his eyes.

Feeling only a little better after cleaning up, he staggered back to his bedroom. Thank goodness his mother wasn't here. Kaito wouldn't know where to start explaining his recent sleeping habits.

There was no chance he was sleeping again so soon, not even with how tired he was, so Kaito picked up his phone. A message from Jii-san about a new smoke bomb he'd commissioned. An email from his mother filled with glamor photos of the Vegas night life and very little content o n how she was actually doing. He should call her soon. Instead of her number, though, he found his hand lingering over Hakuba's cell number.

Hakuba warned him a few times when he didn't need to. Hakuba also tried to catch him and expose his identity in public. Hakuba had backed off of chasing lately and Kaito didn't know why.

His thumb brushed the call button and instead of canceling, he let it ring through. Kaito couldn't quite say why his breath stuck in his chest as he listened to it ring. And ring.

The call picked up right before it could roll over to messages, a befuddled "Hello?" coming tinnily through the speaker.

Kaito hung up. His lungs ached as he took a deep breath. The phone in his hand vibrated as Hakuba tried to call back. Kaito canceled it. Brought up messages instead.

Sorry, he typed. Didn't mean to call that number.

You're forgiven, Hakuba responded less than thirty seconds later. Though I must suggest you get sleep if you are so tired as to mistakenly call my number. It is four twenty-seven in Japan.

Kaito snorted. No shit. Hakuba probably didn't really believe it was a miscall either. Not tired, he lied.

Your sleeping habits are abysmal, Hakuba replied. Kaito could all but hear the dry tone of his voice. With that aborted call, at least he knew it really was Hakuba. And that Hakuba was alive. Since you are awake, care for a game?

Sure, Kaito said. Why not? Didn't really matter what game. Kaito curled around his phone, probably killing his vision slowly, and let Hakuba text word games at him. Just like a friend would do.

For a little bit, the bright rectangle of his cell phone screen warded off the terrors of his mind.