Author's note: (return of an author physically and mentally drained by having nearly succeeded in posting twelve fanfics in a row – exhausting. I'm not dead, thank you.) The ownies are all Gosho Aoyama's. Nah, don't cry. I know how you feel. –sniffles-

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Christmas Eve Is Already Cold (because I was bored and didn't want to find a fancy title for that one.)

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"Where was I, last year? What was I doing? Was it fun? Whom was I with?

"Funny I just can't seem to remember."

As if that last long year had wiped away everything that was her life before, and she stayed sitting here, unable to stop drinking, unable to stop thinking about them damn consequences. It would be so, so much easier to sleep.

"God, I hate Christmas Eve."

The living room was a greyish darkness, flickers of light entering through the window, speaking of moonlight the clouds didn't let in. They were all revolving around the table where she sat, slumped in her chair, fingers tightened around her half-empty glass. Bangs of dark hair were falling light on her face, but she didn't make any move to blow them away.

Her presents – for her friends, for her colleagues; she didn't have any family left to offer presents to by now – were wrapped up, the cards signed, all of them piled up in a corner, right there by the couch, in her field of sight. She gave them a Look.

There had been a Christmas tree there, last year. A Christmas tree with a lot of tinsels and lights. She remembered she had not been alone to trim it.

She lifted her glass to her lips. Alcohol was good when it came to forgetting, forgetting what she had already forgotten. She liked the taste of it, soft and short, a little fruity, but behind the appearance it knocked you down. Fortunate she bore it well enough…

The silence was broken by the alarm clock suddenly ringing the hour. It was night already – the greenish numbers on the black screen showed 8 p.m.

At that time of the evening, last year, everyone had been laughing around the table, munching on her cookies and drinking champagne. She could see the radiant smiles of her friends, she could hear the joyful tune of music ringing loud and clear from the radio.

At least Kid hadn't planned any heist tonight… it was cold outside. To have to chase him over rooftops and rooftops in the night, on such an evening, would hardly represent a Christmas Eve to any of her officers. Of course it would have been dreadful. Just as dreadful, she thought, as staying alone in an empty flat.

There were no lights, no laughs, no warmth. That was what she needed. Warmth.

She delighted in the looks of wonder and glee on the faces of her guest as they all gathered under the Christmas tree to open presents. Heiji-kun and Kazuha-chan were arguing – again – over which of them would open their gift first…

She shivered. She didn't need that, those memories – they only made her emptier when reality came back, blunt, harsh, colder than the illusion. An illusion was doomed to fade, wasn't it? But that one kept coming back and back.

One year.

One quick, small year, and the lights and the laughs had given way to loneliness and to silence. Nothing much had happened, though – just an evening, no, ten minutes in her moonlit sitting-room, some months away in the past already, and it had overwhelmed everything. It had crashed everything to the ground and left her to pick back the pieces. And reassemble them, as much as she could, so that it would at least look like reality.

She finished her glass and refilled it. Thoughtfully, she lifted it to her lips, and the bitter taste of alcohol running down her throat brought back more, more memories to drown herself in.

She had even received a card of Saguru-kun and Akako-chan, God knew how they'd found a way to send it. She'd remarked Ran-chan and Shinichi-kun were holding hands, and she'd even envied them a little…

She looked over to the window. Snow was beginning to fall, silently.

Great, white Christmas. As if she needed this. As if she needed those many more memories to remember, and more alcohol to forget. She didn't need this. She didn't need to remember, and when that would be fulfilled, she wouldn't need to forget either. It would be best that way.

She refilled her glass once more.

The door had opened and Kaito had come in, walking in without knocking like he was used to do, brushing the snow away from his jacket and boots. Everyone had cheered when he had entered the sitting-room, throwing confetti at the whole lot of them.

Please, Aoko prayed silently. Please don't let me remember what happened next. Please.

It was awful remembering him as the joyful, careless teenage he had been, with his laughs and his tricks, and the way he dodged from her mop after he'd flapped up her skirt, and then to know that in a few days there would be a notice card on her desk when she'd arrive to work, and she'd meet him again in that white phantom-like tuxedo of his, staring into his mask of glass that didn't as much as blink when his eyes connected with hers.

There had been laughs and there had been music… and with Kaito arrived there was nothing missing.

"Merry Christmas," she'd heard in her ear as midnight rang, and then there'd been the big, warm hug Kaito had wrapped around her from behind, pressing his chest against her back, making the two of them blush furiously.

Aoko – the Aoko from one year later – buried her face in her folded arms.

"Merry Christmas…" His voice still seemed to be fading away in the emptiness and the darkness surrounding. And she went on building up walls and barriers around her living-room, barriers like she'd learned to build the whole of this year – feelings overwhelmed, emotions shut up, needs and urges controlled in a way that could leave her no way to escape them one day – barriers so high she couldn't cross them again alone.

"Stop it," she said, but her voice was hoarse and toneless. "Stop it – stop interfering into my life, for goodness' sake!"

That was when the doorbell rang.

She startled, her eyes suddenly wide and afraid. It took her a little while to realise what exactly had occurred, and she had to uncurl her fingers from around her glass – they had crisped around it instinctively. She stood up. Her knees were weak at the joints.

The bell rang out once more.

She walked into the corridor and up to the door, her socks silently slipping on the parquet. "Who is it?" she asked out loud – no answer. She unlocked the door and opened it an inch. No one. She opened it wider.

Apart from a small box, standing there as innocently as if it had always been meant to be there, the landing was empty. When she stepped outside, the wind blew snowflakes at her, and chilled the bare skin of her arms. She shivered, stooping.

It was a square-shaped box, wrapped in red and green, brilliant gift paper. There was no card, nothing to indicate the expeditor, only her name, written in caps. She tore the paper off and opened the box, cautiously.

A jewel sparkled up at her. Bewildered, she picked it up prudently. By the sight of how the facets sent off the faint light of the night, it was a real one, not a fake. In fact, it was the precise gem she'd spent chief of the evening before surveying, only too see it snatched away from under her very eyes.

A Christmas card laid beneath it. She opened it.

-Dear Nakamori-keibu, it said,

What an incredible period is Christmas!

The lights are diffuse by the end of the day

Snow is falling, and one can even find

A jewel at one's doorway.

-Kaito Kid-

p.s. The scarf is for the cold. Don't worry, the cookies are not poisoned.

She dug into the box, and, sure enough, there was a scarf – white, of course (what else?) – and a small bag of cookies. She chuckled, almost despite herself. Had he cooked these alone? He'd always been a terrible cook.

Crunch.

There had been a crunch. Hadn't there? Just now. Down.

She grabbed the metal railing to get to her feet and looked down. There was a dark figure there, standing in the snow; head lifted up to the first floor. To her first floor. She couldn't discern his features, but that was probably because he didn't want her to see them.

She didn't care to think. She flung the scarf around her neck instinctively, and ran down the metallic stairs to the snow-littered ground, approaching him in a hurried, flustered way. He didn't move nor stepped away; he stayed exactly where he was even when she was close enough to look up at his face and whisper words he wouldn't be able to escape hearing.

She was silent, however. The animation from a second before had given way to sudden and unexpected calm. She stared up at him, into the blue eyes looking deep into hers, into that mask she all knew too well, and she even felt her heart sink at the idea that he wouldn't let her see the friend she used to know, that he could only be Kaito Kid to her from now on, Christmas present or no Christmas present – that there would only be masks.

Snow fell on, indifferently. The sky was black overhead; there were dark clouds roaming over the illuminated town. Not much sound. A motorbike roaring in the background, some streets afar. Mingled jingles of stores in the shopping avenues. Their own rapid, short breathing. It could go on and on endlessly.

Then, so rapidly she was too surprised to react (or maybe he wasn't that swift at all, and it was only the sudden move, after their stillness, that caught her off-guard), he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and hugged her close, murmuring in her ear in a elusive way, "Merry Christmas."

Tears came up again in her eyes, and she couldn't wipe them away because her hands were imprisoned against his chest. A moment of silence again, and then his embrace was gone, he was gone, and she was standing all alone in the snow swirling and whirling around her. And it could very well have all been a dream, for all she knew, had there not been his voice still echoing in her ears, "Merry Christmas."

She walked back inside, with her scarf and her cookies, and hoped again she would find some warmth in her deserted flat, even in her glass of alcohol, but after the strong prison of his arms pressing her against him everything else was cold.

She munched on a cookie. There seemed to be nothing better to do.

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Post-Christmas angst – sorry. I just felt like writing it. I guess.

(Reviews are always very much appreciated ')