Author's note/Disclaimer: MK and DC are not mine… or anyone else's but Gosho Aoyama, unfortunately.
Aoko awoke at noon with a very sleepy mind. She had spent half of her night chasing Kid and the other half in the police station, typing a report. It was five in the morning, when she had came home.
"Dumb Kid," she growled, wandering in her flat. "I'll become a bat if this goes on."
She burned some toasts and fell on the couch, looking up at the sitting-room's ceiling. Her dreams that night – or else, what had been left of that night – had been odd and complicated, as if she was lost in some labyrinth and she couldn't get out.
The phone rang. She glared at it. She wasn't in very good terms with her phone lately. She picked it up nevertheless.
"Hello? … Hey, Keiko! It's been a while! … yeah, I know… I've been working a lot… what? A photo? … Yes, I remember. Okay, I can take a look for it, but… are you sure? Okay. Fine. Look, I'll call you tonight. … no, it must be in the old albums… right. See you."
He hung up, wondering why Keiko was suddenly so eager to find an old photo, back in their high school days. She kneeled beside the shelf, digging into the ton of Kid files she was keeping there, until she found the old album she had forgotten there months before.
It was dusty, and bigger than she remembered. The pictures inside had been stuck in no order, as if she had been drunk when classing them. Most of them had been taken by her father, or sometimes by her mother when she had been very little and she wasn't dead yet. She had taken some others, and there were some that friends had given her.
She turned a few pages. A whole lot of faces were looking up at her, some that she recognised immediately, some that puzzled her exceedingly.
One of her Christmas parties.
Her father and mother at their wedding – she wasn't even born.
Hakuba's arrival in high school.
The dreadful first experience of horse-riding.
Her mop.
Herself when two, laying on a baby bed.
Oh, she had been sick, that day – was she asleep?
Akako at that Halloween skiing party…
Her father, holding the jewel he had just taken away from Kid – one of his biggest successes.
A cat…
Her first meeting with Ran and Kazuha… Kudo and Hattori weren't on that picture. Yet there must be another one with them on it… yes, here was one… and along with them…
…
She should have known. She should have known.
She turned the page quickly, trying to avoid those piercing blue eyes – and there he was again, and there… She turned another, then another one. Why was he everywhere?
She stopped turning the pages and stared at a picture of him. He was everywhere, wasn't he…
Well, is that surprising? she thought. He's my childhood friend, after all. We've always been together, in the same schools, in the same classes…
Kaito trying to flap her skirt.
And the usual conclusion: her purchasing him with her mop.
She smiled. That had been fun. It would stay in everyone's memory. "You know, darling, when daddy was at school there were two kids who kept purchasing each other with mops all day…" "What's a mop, daddy?"
High school classes. Kaito was there too, reading a newspaper, as usual. The front page showed a picture of the Kid.
A picture of the Kid…
And it had been him. All along. He was reading papers about himself. He was boasting over himself. When they were arguing over it, it was himself he was defending, and how, how had she never been aware of it?
How did he succeed to fool her all that time? They were always together.
"I hate you," she said between her teeth. "I really, really do."
She turned the page. There. The picture Keiko wanted.
She was in the street, in a crowd of people, her fingers making a peace-and-love sign.
And Kid was walking in the air above.
Literally walking.
Aoko had always wondered how he'd done that trick. Her father himself hadn't quite understood.
And really, she had seen nothing of it… not even that night, when she had asked Kaito to accompany them at the heist, and he had declined, although he liked Kid so much… she had seen nothing of it all because she had refused to see it. Refused to see the truth when it was just before her all the while, just before her eyes. She had lived in an illusion and she had contributed to create it.
And it hurt, to see one's world shatter to pieces.
Her head was bent over the picture, her hair hiding her yes away.
A tear fell on the dark sky. Then another.
She hated it when she cried.
Okay… so this is it. Oh, and about last chapter, I got some people saying it needs to be transformed, and I know it does. I'm working on it right now , but as this story is probably going to be a rather long one, I'll just post the next chapters and replace the "Phone calls' chap when I'm done with it. Next will be called: "The night when he was almost caught"…