Disclaimer: I don't own DCMK.

A Touch of Magic

2: Magic

There were times when he couldn't help but look back. He was human after all, it was only natural, but he'd always felt that though it was important to remember the past it was far more important to look forward.

After everything that had happened though he felt it was probably a good time for some self examination.

When he'd first woken up he'd assumed that once he was able he'd head back to the Nakamoris', give the blond fool responsible for this mess a piece of his mind, straighten everything out, and go back to life as it had been. As it should be. Yet the longer he stayed here the more he felt that he didn't really care if he ever saw home again. It had only ever been home because it was where he lived after all. Not that he hadn't had fun there. He liked the Nakamoris. But ever since his mother had passed away the place had started to feel a bit confining. He'd learned everything he could from there years ago (not to be arrogant or anything, but it was true, even Uncle Ginzo had admitted it) and life around the place was far too structured for his liking. He still wanted to give Hakuba a piece of his mind, but, well, in the end it wasn't really all that important.

What was important was that a new feeling had been growing in his chest for the last few months. He couldn't put a name to it yet, but it was warm and bright and it seemed as though he could suddenly see a lot more possibilities in the world than he had before without the Nakamori school and its expectations hanging over him.

There was a choice here, he could feel it, but for now he was content to wait and see where the wind would take him.

X

It was on a slightly drizzly evening that a girl with long, brown hair came knocking at their door. Shinichi answered it and smiled in some surprise at the sight of her.

"What are you doing here in this weather? There's a storm coming in."

"This shouldn't take long. I just came to ask you something," the girl explained, waving away his concern. "You see, Sonoko, Eisuke, and I want to make a parade entry for the midsummer festival coming up in a few months. We were wondering if you could help us. I mean, we'd be representing all of Sorgan so we want it to be perfect."

"Isn't it a bit early to be thinking about the midsummer festival?"

"We wanted to collect suggestions and brainstorm before deciding what to make. And you know Sonoko. Eisuke and I wanted to make sure we gave her enough time to change her mind a few times before we start the final project."

Shinichi snorted. "That makes sense. Well, I don't know how much help I'd be but I could try. Just let me know what you'd like me to do."

The brunette beamed. "That's great."

"It certainly does sound fun," Kaito commented. "If you need more hands, mine are free."

The girl turned at the sound of his voice and blinked in surprise. "Who're you?"

Grinning, he swept her a deep bow (and, surprisingly, didn't have to mask a wince at the exaggerated motion. About time!). "Kuroba Kaito, at your service. Might I know to whom I am speaking?"

She gave him a slightly bemused look before laughing and inclining her head in return. "My name is Mouri Ran. So you're the one Shinichi pulled out of the river. I take it then that you're feeling better?"

"Very much so, thanks to my lovely host," he added, watching Shinichi out of the corner of his eyes. He was rewarded by the red tint that surfaced on the painter's face even as he rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"You shouldn't say things like that," he informed the still grinning magician. "It's strange."

"Hey, I'm just being honest. Can I not express my gratitude?"

The painter gave him a deadpan look and turned back to Ran. "So when exactly do you think we'll start working?"

"Probably not for a while but it would be nice to get some feedback on the suggestions we get. So you'll both help? Great. Well, I'd better run before the rain gets much harder. Have a nice evening." Waving, she turned and ran out of the yard.

"She seems like a nice girl," Kaito remarked as Shinichi shut the door and they retreated back to the dining table where he had been helping Shinichi sort through old clothes, picking out the pieces that really weren't fit for anything but use as cleaning rags and setting aside anything that might need mending. Personally, Kaito would have opted to throw the whole drab lot out and he'd offered to conjure some new clothes for his host like he'd done for himself, but Shinichi had refused (Kaito had found that his host didn't seem comfortable with being given things, though he apparently didn't need to think twice about giving them away).

"She is," Shinichi replied, glancing back towards the front window and the gray skies beyond. "We grew up together. She wrote those cooking instructions you saw."

"Ah, no wonder the name sounded familiar. She was the one whose mother was a sorceress, yes?"

The painter nodded. "She wanted Ran to study with her, but Ran's decided she'd rather improve her cooking skills and open her own restaurant—maybe in one of the larger towns near here like Beika."

"Beika huh? I think I've been there before."

"Most people in the villages around here came from or are related to people who came from Beika. Lately a lot of the younger villagers have started going back to learn new trades or start their own businesses."

"Makes sense," Kaito mused. From what he remembered Beika was a rather prosperous town. "What about you?"

He was answered by a puzzled look. "What about me?"

"Any plans for moving?"

"Not unless I have to." Blue eyes flickered again to the window, taking on a slightly distant look. "I like it here. It's…where all the memories are."

X

The storm that night was fierce. The howl of the wind made the window panes rattle in their frames and the heavy pounding of the rain sounded like a hundred beating drums. Every few seconds lightning burned across the sky and the roar of thunder would temporarily eclipse all other sounds of the storm.

Letting out his breath in a slightly annoyed huff, Kaito flicked his fingers and set colored lights dancing across the ceiling. A gesture had them spinning and forming patterns before dispersing to bounce from the walls, ceiling, and floor like excited little will-o-wisps.

His keen ears caught the sound of movement from the next room. Well, that was no surprise. No one could sleep through this din. Sitting up, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and padded outside.

A single lantern had been lit and set on the floor in the middle of the house's main room between the dining table and the front window. Shinichi was sitting beside it, arms wrapped around his knees, watching the storm as it raged outside. It was a rather odd sight.

Curious, Kaito wandered over and sat down beside him. Shinichi started at his arrival, having only just realized he wasn't alone anymore.

"Sightseeing?"

Shinichi gave him a blank look. "What?"

Chuckling, he waved at the window. "The storm."

"Oh. I guess you could call it that." He glanced down and Kaito noticed that there was a pad of paper lying on the floor in front of him. On it a piece of the roiling, gray sky lay splashed in black ink cracked by thin, white streaks of lightning.

"Wow." He leaned in for a closer look. "I thought you only draw the river."

"I never said that."

He quirked an eyebrow at that. "No, but you kind of didn't have to."

Shinichi let out a quiet laugh of his own before going back to his work. "I guess not." They sat in silence for a moment before he spoke again. "I guess it was more of a challenge than anything else. My father said that if you can catch all the light in the river—not just the lights on the surface but the little lights down below and the ghosts below that—then you might be able to understand what reality is."

"Sounds like an interesting venture."

"Do you think so? Sometimes I think even I find it a bit stupid, but I can't seem to stop trying, even if I can't show him anymore. Strange huh."

"No, not really. I think I can understand that." Letting his own indigo gaze wander back to the window, Kaito noticed for the first time how the water clinging to the glass seemed to be gilded gold on the edges by the lamplight.

Where all the memories were, he thought. It certainly felt true, sitting here in the dark with only the feeble light of one lantern and the blinding but brief light of the lightning to see by. He could almost feel the days long past stirring in the shadows, but they were old. And he wondered if perhaps Shinichi wasn't so much holding them as clinging to them.

X

The dining table had become something of a center of activity for the painter and his guest over the last three months. Kaito spent much of his first few weeks of mobility sitting at it, watching Shinichi going about his household chores. Even after he could move freely again he found himself doing the same, though now he would lend a hand where he could. It was where they ate all their meals and did most of their talking.

Seated again at said table after lunch today, Kaito sat back and held his monocle up to the light coming in through the open windows. He'd spent the last three days carefully mending the glass and the weave of the magic laced through it, and now it gleamed flawlessly back at him, looking for all the world like it was brand new.

Seated across the table, Shinichi watched him with growing curiosity. "It's really important to you, isn't it?"

"It was my father's," he explained, turning the eyepiece over in his hands before holding it up in front of his right eye with a grin. "But it's not just that. This nifty little thing has the power to let me see auras."

"I take it that's supposed to be useful."

"Yep. Wanna try it?"

A beat of silence. "What?"

"Do you want to try it?"

"But I'm not a sorcerer," Shinichi pointed out.

"I can activate it for you." Without waiting for an answer, Kaito bounded to his feet and stepped around the table to stand beside Shinichi's chair. The painter jerked his head up to look at him (looking kind of like a frightened animal, he thought), and he took the opportunity to slide the glass lens over one, blue eye. "It might be a bit disorienting at first. If you get dizzy, just close your eyes and count to ten."

Shinichi did just that, counting to a very slow ten before opening just the eye behind the glass. He blinked slowly, jaw going slack. For a long moment he just sat there, staring at the world through the glass, breathing slow and careful as though afraid he might disturb something.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Kaito asked finally, breaking the silence.

Shinichi remained still for another second before closing his eyes and reaching up to remove the monocle and hand it back to its owner. "It's… I never realized the world was so—so bright. All that shifting light and color… And you say you wear that when you're practicing your magic? I was getting confused just sitting still!"

The other laughed, flipping the lens up over his own eye and winking at the younger teen. "You get used to it. It takes time, but believe me, it's worth it. Auras can tell you a lot about a person without them ever having to open their mouths. For example, I can tell that you have never even attempted to practice magic. That's pretty strange these days," he added as an afterthought. "Most people try at least once."

"I guess I've never had much interest in magic," Shinichi admitted. "I don't have a gift for it anyway, and most of the sorcerers I know are—" He cut himself off, looking suddenly embarrassed.

"Bad experiences?" Kaito guessed.

"It's nothing personal or anything," the painter said hastily, "it's just that most sorcerers I've met or heard about tend to be… How should I put this…"

"Stuck up? Overbearing? Think they're entitled to everything?"

Shinichi blinked at him, mouth opening and closing but no sounds coming out.

Kaito laughed. "I've seen the type. They give us all a bad name, but sadly they tend to be the ones that stick in people's minds. What can I say? We're not all bad though."

The other looked down, obviously still embarrassed. "I know. I didn't mean to imply that you were… I—uh, you're nothing like that a—and—I was just—"

"It's all right, really," Kaito cut in, hiding the grin that wanted to surface at the mortified panic he could just see spreading across his host's features. "I'm not offended or anything. Practitioners come in just as many shapes and sizes as the rest of the human race after all. I've met plenty I can't find a good word for myself."

"Power gets to people sometimes," he added, his face and voice growing serious. "My father always told me that the purpose of magic is to give people joy—to protect life and bring light, but not everyone sees it that way."

Shinichi nodded slowly, his own expression growing thoughtful. "It would be nice though, if everyone thought like that."

"More and more people are starting to actually, but it'll take time," Kaito replied. "By the way, I'm not a sorcerer. I'm a magician."

"I didn't realize there was a difference."

"I suppose it would be more accurate to say that magicians are a type of sorcerer. Where sorcerers can rely only on their own powers when casting spells, we can draw upon outside powers if we need to. We can also conjure things that last," he added, snapping his fingers and producing a white rose from thin air. "I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say sorcerers can't."

"What you're basically saying is that you're at a higher level."

Kaito could feel his own grin widening as he laughed. "That's right." Glancing down at the flower he'd created, he thought for a moment then offered it to Shinichi.

The other blinked as he took the bloom automatically, noting absently that it didn't have any thorns though it otherwise felt just like a normal, living rose. "Why are you giving this to me?"

The magician's expression grew serious. "I just realized I never properly thanked you for saving my life."

"You don't have to. Besides, I didn't really do anything. It was the doctor who treated your injuries. You can thank him when he comes by to check on your recovery."

"But you watched over me while I was unconscious and you're letting me stay here in your house now." Indigo eyes caught bright blue ones and held them in a steady gaze. "Thank you."

Shinichi gazed back at him for a moment then looked away, a fain, embarrassed flush creeping onto his face. "Really, it wasn't any trouble or anything. Anyone would have done the same." He paused, glancing again at the rose. "Um, so…what am I supposed to do with it?"

The magician hid a smile. "Putting it in some water would probably be a good start. Flowers tend to like that."

TBC

A.N: I'm kind of surprised my how many people showed an interest in the actual magic. I wasn't originally planning on talking much about it since I thought it'd bore people, but I hope this helped. Anyhow, see you next time!