Author's note: I still don't own anything, neither the characters nor the song. It's called "Spider's web", author Katie Melua.

------

Music is the remaining of what once were

------

She couldn't actually remember when she had begun to learn piano. It just seemed… natural. Maybe her mother had taught her – they said she had been a great musician in her time – before she died. But that was long ago. And now, her childhood sounded so far.

Fortunately, she still had her father – even if he was never there, always chasing Kid… and there was Kaito, too. The two men in her life. Tousan and the best friend… okay, something more than best friend. Her relationship with Kaito was like no other she ever had with other guys. Kaito wasn't a boy, a friend, a love… he was Kaito. And it simply involved all of it.

These last days, he always seemed so far-away… he said he worked and that work took them apart. And it hurt her heart, to see him away from her when they had always been so close. It worried her, as though she could feel something would happen in the future they would both have to suffer from.

She looked up at the old piano standing alone in her messy sitting-room. Like every night, her father was gone at the police station… She had hoped he would only stay tonight, as there was no Kid heist, but he had called her, saying he would come home late, and she should hurry to bed 'cause she had school on the morrow. And she'd heard… like notes from a song she used to know and she had forgotten.

To Hell with Tousan and his recommendations.

She walked to the piano, her fingers brushing the dust on the keyboard. Slowly, she sat on the chair – it had been so long since she hadn't played. She felt a little frightened… what if she had forgotten everything, just like her dad seemed to forget his love for her.

Of course, her dad loved her – he just didn't show it. And was that better?

And she began to play – much better than she had ever thought she could play, singing a song she heard the same day, or maybe the day before, on the radio…

After a few minutes, she felt more confident, and she began to relax.

'Cos the line between

Wrong and right

Is the width of a thread

From a spider's web

She was so concentrated she didn't even hear the front door open then close slowly, nor did she see in the mirror the tall, dark figure advancing behind her.

The piano keys

Are black and white

But they sound like

A million colours in your mind

Kaito paused right behind her and she didn't even see him, nor felt him. He raised a hand and brushed his fingers against her hair. She leaned slightly into it, probably thinking it was the wind, or maybe not actually being aware of it.

Should we act on our blame?

Or should we choose the moments away?

Should we live?

Should we give?

She paused for a second, catching her breath, unable to take over the next sentence. She gasped, however, when a deeper voice began to sing it.

Remember

Forever

The guns and the feathers in time

"Kaito…"

He smiled down at her, and they both began the choir.

'Cos the line between

Wrong and right

Is the width of a thread

From a spider's web.

"What are you doing here?" her eyes asked him as they sang and her fingers ran on the keyboard.

"I came over to visit my best friend," his answered with a softness she had never suspected him to ever give away.

The piano keys

Are black and white

But they sound like

A million colours in your mind.

When the song was over, they both remained silent. Aoko leaned swiftly against his chest, and he put his hands down on her shoulders. She could feel their warmth, his breath against her hair. She sighed – the cold, empty world where she had begun to play had vanished in their friendship's laughter.

"Always remember this song," Kaito said softly.

"Why?"

"The piano keys are black and white… never forget that." His voice sounded sad. Sad and secretive, hiding away from her.

So far-away for a moment she felt he was a perfect stranger.

------

Back, twenty-two-years-old Nakamori Aoko shook her head to erase her mind of her own seventeen-years-old self's memories. Those ones, those who talked about Kaito and herself, about how they used to be so close, were the most painful ones. The worst part was that a single thing – anything – could bring them back, fresh and hard, a simple song, or two friends laughing in the street, or a red rose in a flower shop… anything.

Anything like a piano standing alone in an empty room.

Too bad the jewel Kid aimed tonight was in a showcase in the same room. The other cases had been removed, but the piano was too large and heavy.

And why did they have to tell her that the place to survey the gem was the chair beside the piano?

To sit there… again… she hadn't touched a keyboard ever since she was seventeen, ever since Kaito had sang with her that very last time.

She tried to concentrate on the case in front of her, but there was a large empty space and, most of all, the black surface of the instrument in between.

She turned on her chair to check the windows and the cameras. Half of the Task Force was in the stairs and the other floors of the building, but the other half was watching her lonely figure on the screens.

She pivoted and her ankle hit one of the keys. A loud C echoed through the silent and empty room. Very loud.

The song began with that note… did it?

Which song?

She played hesitantly the first measures, and suddenly found her back in time, flashbacks crashing in her mind like evasive birds.

"No," she said, more for herself than for anybody or anything else. It meant, "Don't do it. You're not seventeen anymore. You're not an immature teenage girl. You have responsibilities. You're twenty-two, you're a police officer, Kid can show up anytime…"

Another part of her mind, however, was thinking that Kid was Kaito, too, and how would he react if he heard her play and sing that song again? Or had he forgotten all about it?

Sometimes one didn't care a damn about logic and all that kind of crap.

And thus, she began to play.

Should we act on our blame

Or should we chose the best moments away?

Should we live?

Should we give?

In the cameras' room, she reflected, they were probably all wondering why on earth she was playing the piano – such a song, too – at this very moment. The hour when Kid had said he'd appear was approaching very, very fast… had she forgotten about it? Should they go and remind her? Or was it just a strategy to capture Kid?

They decided to leave her alone. After all, it was her responsibility.

Remember

Forever

The guns and the feathers in time

Now that was the part when Kaito had joined her. Five years had gone… but she remembered it all perfectly and if she closed her eyes, she could almost feel herself back in her old sitting-room, the one where she had lived her whole childhood and she had left never to come back.

'Cos the line between

Wrong and right

Is the width of a thread

From a spider's web

Kid would show up very soon. She needed to stop. Stop it right now, she was too much concentrated, she didn't even pay attention to the gem anymore… stop it, stop it… but her fingers just kept running on the keyboard, blind to any attempt of reasoning.

And here came the words she had attempted to avoid for the last five years.

The piano keys

Are black and white

But they sound like

A million colours in your mind

Fortunately, the cameras pointed at the case, and thus at her back. If they hadn't, and showed her face instead, the task force would have wondered why two lonely tears began to run down her cheeks.

'Cos the line between

Wrong and right

Is the width of a thread

From a spider's web

A noise at the window right in front of her caused her to jerk her head up. And there he was, in his white suit, the hat and monocle perfectly in place, his impassive face staring at her…

Impassive…

But she thought she had caught… something like a flash of surprise in the blue eye she could gaze in.

She kept singing, never looking away, almost hoping he would join her, once again…

The piano keys

Are black and white

But hey sound like

A million colours in your mind

He didn't.

---------

He stole the jewel with incredible easiness that night.

He restored it to its owner, however, about an hour later.

Aoko knew she was to get all the responsibility for Kid's getting to steal the gem so easily. It wasn't the duty of a police officer to play the piano when she should have been chasing Kid.

But she didn't care a damn about it.

There was a note attached to the jewel when she had found it on the doorstep where Kid had respectfully left it. It was a simple card, with the usual picture showing Kid's arrogant grin, but the words she was alone to understand:

Thanks for remembering the song.

Kid was a bit like Kaito, wasn't he?