Tea, Anyone? Chapter 5: Present As Gift, a magic kaito/まじっく快斗 fanfic

Present As Gift

Disclaimer: Nothing belonging to me excepting the plot bunny. My own fault if I let it go free in my flat…

Dear readers,

I shall thank you greatly for having managed to get so far as to be reading this newest chapter of my story right now! As mentioned some chapters before, you might want to make yourself a nicely steaming cup of tea, grab some sweet chocolate cookies, lean back and get comfortable in your chair, before reading this chapter of Tea, Anyone?

It has turned out almost as long as the first two chapters and is considered a kind-of-maybe-sorta link tying the last two chapters to the first two. And believe me when I say that everything about this story – excepting the first chapter – was improvised.

I hope you enjoy this (hitherto last) installment of my plot bunny's story! Have fun reading!

XXX

Kyû/Ku/9

XXX

It truly was fortunate, he supposed, that Baaya had gone to a neighbour's house for one of their small get-togethers that day. Like this, he had the whole house to himself and was free to entertain a certain well-known amateur-magician without any outside interference for an as-of-yet undecided amount of time. Hakuba couldn't have managed this better if he'd planned on it. Or was it the larcenist's unusual luck having a hand in this more-than-lucky coincidence? For it was rare that his housekeeper left him to his own devices; their little sessions only took place once every other week or so. (After all this time he still hadn't found a system to their tea sessions' seemingly random dates.)

His hands worked on automatic as he prepared the tea and the hot chocolate. Long used to the process and only just remembering to keep one careful eye on the chocolate preparation, he let his mind wander. So, he'd finally deigned it time to come over. Almost absent-mindedly, he wondered what was going on in the brunette's head at that moment. He'd seemed a tiny bit skittish as he'd entered Hakuba's house, but whatever little tension that there might have been in his shoulders when he'd stepped over the threshold had already dissolved when Saguru had thrown a second look at him.

Putting both cups and saucers on a tray once they were finished – why had the tea taken way less time to prepare than the hot chocolate, again? – he slowly ambled towards the living room. Suffice to say, he was extremely curious and very much interested in what the thief had come to talk to him about. His steps quickened involuntarily, but only for a short time before he had to make sure that the liquids on the tray didn't overflow because of his enthusiasm. Cautiously, he got to a halt a few metres before the door leading to the living room. After checking that everything was still alright, he smartly entered the room, finding its previous occupant having perched himself bird-like on the upper end of a sofa facing him, opposite of the bookshelves at the other end.

He hadn't made much noise when he'd come in – the carpet having muffled any of his footsteps –, yet it still appeared to have been enough to alert the other teenager to his entrance, for without turning around Kaito addressed him with his next words.

"I hadn't known your family was into art."

Right. Hakuba put the tray down on the coffee table that was located in the middle of the room gingerly, before he considered what to answer to that. Coming from that person, he thought it did hold a certain kind of irony, didn't it? Raising an eyebrow in a silent question as to where this conversation was heading, he replied with deliberate openness.

"Yes, well. I would think it is not too surprising, seeing as my father is the Superintendent of Tokyo's police force." What now? The question was hanging in the air sans any of them having spoken it. Comfortable silence permeated the room. One of the two doors leading into it was open, him not having had a hand left to close it and not having bothered to do so with his foot, either. It was better if there was at least one exit still open to the night-time larcenist, of that he was sure.

Most probably it wouldn't matter in the great scheme of things, what with the thief's talents at escaping the best of safes sans much apparent effort, but Hakuba wanted it as a sort-of peace treaty between them. There you go, this action embraced the two of them charily, you can leave whenever you want, not whenever I care to let you out. Wasn't it weird that now – more than a year after having begun as a consultant in the Task Force – he didn't particularly want to cage his prey?

To him, it was comparable to a bad soap opera, the way his opinion had changed and been changed and mutilated to no longer resemble his one-time wish of catching the thief-in-white and arresting him and putting him behind the bars of a local prison cell. Still, he couldn't help but ask himself why it had taken this much to make him notice the inconsistencies swarming around the persona of the phantom thief. Before he was able to ponder this too much and before the silence grew distinctly awkward, the magician spoke up once more, having turned his eyes and head to his left, directed at a painting of his mother's house back in Great Britain, not that Kaito would know that. Or did he?

"You know, my father had good taste, too, when it came to art. He had even had a portrait done of himself, once."

Was that… an invitation or was his mind playing tricks on him? It was mid-afternoon, so the sun was shining in from their left and the big windows on the one side of the room illuminated the room in pale yellow and soft vanilla colours. He imagined what kind of portrait it had been that Kuroba's father had ordered done. With a slight snort, he wondered if it was one of himself as Kaitô Kid. But that was impossible, wasn't it? It would be the perfect piece of evidence. No thief in their right mind would do something like that. The idea was discarded as ludicrous as soon as it came up.

So was it one of him in full regalia as a magician? Kuroba had talked often enough about him wanting to be like his father for Hakuba to realise that his parent most probably had been what the teenager was striving to become at the moment, namely a famous magician.

Kaito, in the meanwhile, had turned around at hearing this almost-involuntary puff of air leave his mouth and was staring at him curiously, both hands loosely settled over the sofa's backrest. Hands On The Table again, was it? His earlier statement certainly opened the conversation up wide. Another huff escaped him as he considered his next words, eyes directed at the tea on the coffee table that he was standing beside right then.

"Oh? I wonder if you would want something like that to be done, as well." Just to imitate his father. To be like him. What would it need to have the younger Kuroba do one of himself, as well? Arrogance? Self-confidence? Task achievement? Whatever that was all about…

Kuroba had looked away, back towards the painting of the house once more. It hung at eye-level, easily reachable for if he ever yearned for company and no one was around. The painting was easily accessible, the original, though, understandably, wasn't.

"I believe Okaa-san had it done for him. Probably as a surprise." There was some musing there. The brunette's relaxed stance showed his easing into the situation better than any of his words ever could have. Hakuba did well not to take every single thing that the other teenager uttered at face-value. He knew from first-hand experience just how well-versed the other was at lying and twisting the truth into something else entirely. And yet…

Closing his eyes slightly, the Hakuba heir wandered towards the armchair closest to the chimney – his favourite among all the seats available in the room – and let himself down slowly, like an old man having returned home in the evening just to do that. Before he could open his mouth, however, Kaito had interceded neatly.

"What is it like?" This got raised eyebrows from the detective.

"What is it like, living in such a big house? Your father is gone all day, isn't he?" The creamy yellowish hues played alongside his hands as he considered his answer.

"You know that my housekeeper, Baaya, is living here, as well?" he sidestepped the question. His strategy was as obvious as though he'd proclaimed it loudly in public. It garnered no reaction whatsoever from his conversational partner.

A beat, then, "Say, what do you think of Kaitô Kid?"

What? As unrelated as it was, this threw him for a loop at first. Wasn't it obvious what he thought of the phantom thief? He thought he'd made it clear to everybody in class what he thought of this particular larcenist? His surprise must have shown on his face, for the magician went on to clarify what he meant with an attitude and a look bordering on a glare that screamed that he was the slow one in their conversation and did he honestly have to spell it out for him?

"What is your real opinion on him? Not what you think in front of the class, not what you think in front of the Task Force – Nakamori-ojii-san's renditions of that were enough already, thank you very much –, what do you think of him?" Frank honesty and boldness that bordered on riskiness. How did the amateur-thief manage not to make enemies out of all his acquaintances, again?

Now that was a loaded question. What could he say that wouldn't offend the other? Did he want to prevent offending him or did he want to be truthful? Were those two things mutually exclusive in this case? What was his opinion on the self-proclaimed gentleman-thief?

Taking the still-steaming tea cup into his hands, he thought about what he wanted to say. The brunette teenager's gaze had found the hot chocolate cup by then and, without leaving it out of his sight – as though it could disappear at any given moment if he did – he went around the sofa and closer to the table. Step by step by step, until he stood right before it. Hakuba had followed the process absent-mindedly and was now reminded of a cat eyeing a spectacularly crazy canary doing loopings on the coffee table. He surmised that the craziness was getting to him and calmly sipped his tea. The bitter taste it left on his tongue was refreshing in its difference. It gave him an idea. In the end, he decided to be blunt.

"He's a pain in the neck. On too much sugar all the time for it to make sense. An irritant at best. A bloody nuisance at worst." A slim line of affection coated his words. Even the swearing flowed over his lips like the honey he'd put into his cup. The tea had certainly helped his tongue.

Belatedly, he noticed that the other had taken up his position in front of one of the two windows, cradling the hot chocolate in his hands carefully. Light shadows had entangled themselves in the other teenager's clothes' folds. It was around then that he realised that the magician had gone immobile under his words. He blinked in bemusement. Was that…? Was he… bothered by what the detective had said? What about his words was bothering the magician? Shouldn't he be the one bothered, rather?

He would have all the reasons in the world for it, too. Yet, he was the calm one, stoically sitting in the armchair beside the unused chimney piece decorating his living room, waiting what the other would do. Light yellow hues passed the sides of the amateur-magician on their way into the room. Silence drank them in for a moment. Kuroba took a sip from his cup. A course of action was set. The carefully measured-out words poured from the kaitô's mouth soon enough.

"You would think the consultant of the Kaitô Kid Task Force was less partial to one specific side." As clipped as the syllables were, they cut a path that had already been carved out by the detective himself, testing the waters and treading the ground for obstacles and bumps in the road. They didn't find any.

Head tilted to his left, the alleged phantom thief regarded the sleuth tentatively. Abruptly, he turned and headed towards the bookshelves again.

"I noticed there is a copy of Sherlock Holmes on that shelf."

Hakuba's head reeled from the turn the conversation had taken with this sentence. He couldn't help the sarcasm that slipped out, frankly, he couldn't. Dripping with it, his words followed that statement immediately.

"You may have noticed, I am a fan." Amused, deep blue eyes journeyed back to him from the other side of the room. That colour certainly was unique, wasn't it? At least among Asian people. What side of the family had that com from, he mused idly. And was that a quirk of the lips that had darted over the magician's face briefly? He couldn't have imagined that, could he?

If this conversation dragged on like this – jumping from one topic to the other all the time – he was sure he would grow weary sooner rather than later, as he'd hoped. Why did the pest insist on springing things on him sans pause? … Somehow he was curious about what was going on in his classmate's brain. Did it look like this? Random thoughts strung together with tenuous links to associations that stretched as far as to Bali? With him absorbed in his thoughts this much, he almost didn't catch Kaito's next quietly-uttered words.

"As expected."

His shoulders deflated in confusion, at that. Would it be best to just give up trying to understand Kuroba? It might be better for his continued peace of mind, he conceded in the private confines of his brain. That might, however, be detrimental to any future plans seeing as he would surely not be rid of the thief-turned-classmate (or was that classmate-turned-thief? Nothing seemed sure any more;) anytime soon.

Not knowing what to do or say next rendered him speechless for the moment, so he brought the cup to his lips anew and relished in the warm tea streaming down his throat. He allowed a soundless sigh to cross his mouth and closed his eyes in blissful tranquillity.

"What are your thoughts… on Lupin?" The shattering of the momentary peace was accepted with a grace that belied his inner turmoil. What in heaven's name was the thief on about now?

"An adversary." Two people scrutinising one another on a street; a carriage passing by. "A nuisance." A watch taken during a case and returned after a successful deduction. "A pest." Briefly, he was completely taken in by the similarities. Didn't these nouns describe their relationship's progress to a T? Not important. What was important was Kuroba's answer. Or his next rapidly-fired question, whichever came first.

At that moment in time he finally knew what had been bothering him all along. The thief, their relationship (their friend-ship?), their question-and-answer-spiel, their cat-and-mouse-game and all the nuances that were lying around the room and everywhere they had met for tea during the nights all these months that he'd been setting it up, the thief never outright said what he meant and went to great lengths to disguise – not only himself – but also his speech and words and his behaviour. All those things were flying about their meetings like so many flies around a meal that analysing whatever utterances the thief gave only led to more and more confusion and a steadily-growing-worse headache that he'd been harbouring for months now. Had it become this much of a habit already that the thief didn't even have to think about what he was doing any more?

Kuroba was both held back and driven forward by what he perceived as the "middle ground" they were treading on by then and their "truce" that they'd set up more than a few meetings back. Even so, the paradox didn't end there. And that was exactly what was plaguing the sleuth; it was still undecided where they stood and he was floundering in the muddy river bank like a drunk, trying to find a way to cross over without drowning in the attempt. All of a sudden, this truth left him unsettled. The brunette's perpetual restiveness fluttered about him like a butterfly's delicate wing beats, in comparison.

The inside of his head suddenly beating like a bass drum, he took the initiative for the first time in this conversation.

"Where do we stand, according to you?" He allowed for a few seconds' worth of a pause during which both watched the other, one startled and guarded, the other determined and serious, and then continued.

"We can't keep doing this – this – balancing on a tightrope forever. Where do we stand, what are we?" To each other didn't need to be said out loud.

A quick breath taken in, a mischievous frown thrown his way, before Kuroba added cautiously,

"If you mean to say-"

"I don't mean it that way. I don't swing that way, you know?" He thought he'd made that clear when he'd attempted to swoon Kuroba's love interest, no matter what he said to the contrary. It seemed they couldn't not misunderstand one another every time one of them spoke. Or did not speak, his mind supplied helpfully, as he remembered the scene in the classroom, nigh a week before.

Or it wasn't a misunderstanding at all and the brunette just wanted to mess with his brain. Hakuba was weary enough not to waste any more thoughts in this direction. It would lead to too big headaches, anyway.

"Right, right." The magician made a placating gesture with his hands that was aborted midway. He considered the other pensively, all the while sipping his warm chocolate. What he was thinking about in that specific moment in time, the sleuth didn't even want to begin contemplating. The eyes that were staring at him were serious, considering. For once, none of the mischief and barely-thought-of schemes of which the class – or, him – would usually be the victims of were visible within their usually-unfathomable, darkish blue depths.

None of the two appeared to know what to say now. Their conversation came to a tentative standstill. Whoever broke it next would determine the direction their friendship would head towards, the detective realised.

XXX

Ichi/1

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They stood there, in the middle of the entryway, for a few moments, before he guided her into the house, away from overly-curious eyes and noses poking into other people's matters. When the door closed behind them, and only then, did he dare speak up, still embracing her with his right arm.

"You haven't changed an inch."

"You're one to talk. I wouldn't have recognised you had I not known that particular disguise before…" A beat where she looked up at him tenderly, then, "I am happy you came home. Welcome back."

"And I am glad to be home. Thank you." For everything. For waiting when the chances of him ever coming back dwindled into single digit numbers. For giving him hope to see her again. That was all that had kept him going, back then, back there.

His arm went up to loosely drape around her shoulders, a familiar gesture, a long-thought-lost half-hug that she drew comfort from now. Their eyes had never lost each other's, only shortly having to move away to direct the two of them into the house.

"Kaito…?" He left the thought hanging in the air around them, two warm syllables that swam around the two of them in joy and hope. Fondly, she shook her head.

"He's at a friend's house. He'll come back a little later." And that was all there was to say. They had the house, each other, to themselves – for the moment. Languidly, he yawned, the motion going through whole body before he opened his eyes once more to stare into amused brown ones a little lower than himself. He got lost within them, and let himself, for just a moment, just one more minute, before the world would resume its course, once more. God, how he loved her. It hit him then, just how much he'd missed out while being away from his family, as he let his eyes travel over the acquired wrinkles – not that there were all that many in the first place – that had accumulated on her face, notably around her eyes and mouth, over the last few years.

What all the silent, continuous worrying about him had brought into his wife's life, he didn't even want to imagine. All those years…. It had to have been a nightmare.

He'd kiss it better, though. And he'd start right then, he decided, by putting a gentle, careful kiss on her forehead.

XXX

Jû/10

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When his classmate didn't say anything for another fifteen minutes and he noticed his cup was empty, the Hakuba heir had had enough.

"Could you bring me that book over there, on the side table to the left of the bookshelf you are standing at?" Might as well make himself comfortable while waiting for the next time that Kuroba deigned to address him. The alleged phantom thief definitely seemed more content with looking around and inspecting all the things that were exhibited in his living room than with directly talking with him at the moment. To be honest, he'd grown tired of watching the other do so by then. Not one of them had found the right words to restart their conversation and define their interaction.

Nevertheless, their balance hadn't tipped towards one or the other way, either, their topic of interest having been sidetracked for the moment. That made the detective a little less weary and wary of what was still to come. Another one of the truths that would shatter his world to pieces, once more? An unearthly secret that had been dominating the thief's world for so long already that he only managed to talk about it via multiple utterance and misguidance? It certainly was no wonder that he was as tired of these distractions as he was.

He was startled out of his ponderings, when Kuroba laid the book onto the small table, right beside the tea tray. The empty cup that had formerly held the hot chocolate was put right onto it in the same smooth motion. Questioning eyes landed on him. He waved them off with a negligent gesture of his hand. Hakuba would put it back into the kitchen after his classmate had gone home for the day. The brunette averted his eyes after that, still standing right in front of him, with the side table in-between the two of them.

Balancing on a tightrope, indeed. This was the proverbial fence that stood between the cat and the dog, he mused to himself quietly into the silence of the room. Who would take it away? What would be left of them if it was put away? These thoughts distracted him, so he didn't quite catch what the thief had uttered in the meantime. He looked up and asked,

"What was that?"

Blue eyes landed on him, suffused with a determination that left him feeling bemused all over.

"I asked if you got enough sleep last night."

Words, said just the night before, jumped into his mind all of a sudden, having snuck up on him from behind and letting him experience a very special sensation of a déjà-vu that had already been lived.

"Then, Tantei-san, let's move this somewhere else, shall we? I would hate to think you didn't get enough sleep tonight, after all." Tension leaving the air around them, a puff of smoke and the thief having disappeared along with it. Bemusement being left in his wake.

That was as much of a confession as he was going to get, probably. Hakuba blinked hard, twice. The situation didn't change. The barely-veiled challenge in the blue eyes opposite his was taken and discarded by the sleuth in the fraction of a moment. A smile spread across his face. Now, this was what he'd had in mind when he'd challenged the thief's position in their friendship? rivalry? in the first place. He answered, with all the time in the world at his hands.

"I did, indeed, have a good night's rest. Thank you for asking." Challenge accepted. The moonlighting magician was – and would be – safe and a welcome guest in his house, no matter what. He wouldn't have to fear for his freedom, nor the divulging of his secret identity, in here. Apparently, that was all it took to make the thief a bit more truthful while talking to him. How did one circumvent a habit long established by months and months of secrecy and hidden robberies stacked one upon the other in one's mind's eye? It wouldn't do to go too far, too fast. Even coming this far as to have the thief reveal this much should be counted as a victory, already.

"I was thinking… what did you think about the idea of having a thief stealing jewels and bringing them back again after a fortnight?"

That threw him for a loop, anew. He should simply give up and get used to the thief jumping wildly from one topic to the other. But, actually, that was something that he'd been wondering about already, anyways. Why steal something if one brought it back less than a month later? A search. A perfectly disguised, well-executed search. A search for that one gem that was an "immensely powerful item", maybe, something that "could change everyone's lives"? He wondered what the thief would do with such an item should it indeed fall into his hands one day.

"I believe he may not have found what he was looking for yet. I wonder what he would do to the thing he is looking for?" A very recognisable prompt. His curiosity at its finest. It didn't help matters, at all, but it was something that he was, in fact, immensely curious about. The amateur-magician turned his head upwards, as though he was asking himself what Kaitô Kid would do with that kind of item.

"Hmmm, difficult." Hakuba didn't buy into the poker face that the other had put on for one moment. "How does smashing it into a hundred pieces sound to you?" With that, the blue eyes were once more fixed on him, reading his body for something suspicious. There was nothing to be found.

That statement did make him raise his eyebrows in askance. Would he really go so far as to destroy it? And then he was reminded of the nature of the item in question. If it existed – or not, all in all it wouldn't make too much of a difference, he thought – then all sorts of people would be after it, wouldn't they? Was that the reason the thief had been shot?

He found himself nodding in agreement, before he had even properly pondered the matter. The sleuth wouldn't be doing differently, had he been the one confronted with this kind of situation.

XXX

San/3

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They had made their way into the living room, where they'd sat down in the couch, arms still encircling one another. The contact was welcome, needed even. "I'm here", it seemed to say better than many words could, "I'm here and I won't leave." Tôichi had let his hand travel over his wife in wonderment. In the end, it had rested on her head, tangling in her hair and anchoring him there. He wasn't about to leave anytime soon. The evening had moved on and the outside had changed into night.

The two of them had done well, son and wife. His family. There were some things that should never be taken for granted in life and this was one of them. How precious they were to his heart, they had never let him lose sight of his goal of coming back. The magician was glad. His exhilaration at seeing his wife – alive and well and unharmed and for real – after all these years again knew no bounds.

And yet, he was weary enough to concede that a good meal and sleep were clamoured for a tiny wee bit more after he'd reassured himself of his wife's welfare. As if summoned, his stomach let loose a loud growling noise that she could not have missed. A light colouring on his cheeks, he turned his head towards his better half with an eyebrow raised.

She sighed playfully and hit his ribs, once. "Oh, alright. Meat and rice sound good to you?"

"Sounds great." Her slight weight against him retreated to the kitchen to prepare him a meal, the clinking sounds and her joyful humming a comforting link to memories from long ago, when he hadn't disappeared yet. She'd lost none of her exuberance, had she? He hoped that his son was the same, that he'd inherited the sturdiness from his parents.

Or was he fooling himself? Listening closely, he thought he could detect a hint of brittleness to her voice that he had never known to be there before. Abruptly, he got up and darted towards the threshold that separated the two rooms. There, he stopped. The sight that greeted him was one that he hoped to never see again. It was one of his wife crying inconsolably while she was preparing his meal. Oh, what a fool he was! He should have known, really.

Their families – on both sides, that was, – were not known for their poker face for nothing, after all. He approached her with silent steps and a pitifully guilty expression on his face. Tôichi truly should have known that she was just hiding her tears.

Gently, he wrapped his arms around her from behind, startling her in the process of adding a bit more water to the rice. And didn't it tell him a great deal when she hadn't even noticed him coming closer? Hugging her tenderly while her tears flowed freely, he swore to himself that he'd not make such a mistake again.

XXX

Ku/Kyû/9

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Hakuba was reading by the time that the moon had come up and told them of the late hour that their impromptu meeting had journeyed into by then. He'd let his classmate have free reign over all of the room's items and furniture, only checking every now and then that the thief hadn't left, yet. Whenever the magician would bestow on him another truthful, direct utterance, he would do something more productive and conducive to his peace of mind, namely reading.

Having taken up the position at the bookshelf after alternating for a long time between mindlessly ambling around the room and curiously regarding the detective, the teenager had taken to touching the books' backs, going down a row on the shelf that was on eye-level and all the while keeping an attentive eye on the sleuth. A beat of silence, a moment of indecisiveness, then he plunged on with a vengeance that was similar to a train hitting the Hakuba heir head-on.

"He died, you know."

It took a moment before the sleuth could detract his eyes from the book's page and properly think about the statement that he'd been given. Almost immediately, his thought process ground to a forceful halt. Died? Who? Kid? Was he talking about-

"Tou-san."

Oh. Oh. Now that explained everything. And nothing. He laid the book onto the coffee table, all the while keeping an eye on the thief. His shoulders deflated a bit in what one might consider as a faint expression of disappointment. Saguru had hoped… what? He'd hoped that the other was still alive? That he'd be able to meet him one day, some time into the future? That he'd drink tea with him?! This was ridiculous. Honestly, he should have known.

Still, a certain feeling of… sympathy for the other teenager's pain found its way into his heart as he sat back in his chair. It couldn't have been easy. Growing up without a father, a mentor-of-sorts… it had to have left its mark. When had Kaitô Kid disappeared again? He resisted the urge to make a mental note to look up the elder Kuroba's death date and compare them. It wouldn't be right.

Deep in thought, he debated taking out his notebook and asking about the details. One glance at Kaito, who was still waiting with one eye pointed at him, poised and rigid as though to spring away quickly at any sign of him somehow taking this the wrong way. Or… well, at least worse than he was taking it already. He thought. Mayhaps.

The silence that ran transverse through the room tasted of undecided actions, words that threatened to leave the Hakuba heir's lips unchecked and were stopped just in time. It was about then that he noticed that he truly didn't know what to say. What was the best answer to this statement?

'I'm sorry that you had to cope with this – most probably alone, from what I see you don't have a great many people you can call "friends" – for all these years and that you're apparently still coping with his death by way of becoming a thief just like your father' just didn't seem justified, nor a reasonable thing to say at all.

The situation called for something better, something more suitable by far. What to say, what to say? Hakuba was searching to put into words what he thought and Kaito let him. The silence stretched out, long past the breaking point and was going farther, farther away from them still. Both stood where they had placed themselves, one beside the bookshelves, the other on the armchair right beside the chimney. It was dark, outside.

"I'm… I'm sorry." He said at long last. Nothing else fit, really. No words would appease the brunette's mind, none would put it at ease or somehow miraculously settle the matter one way or another. It was a great loss that the other teenager, his family (His mother? Did he have any grandparents that were still alive? He hadn't mentioned any during class, had he?) had suffered and now had to deal with.

He breathed out, heavily. A whirlwind of something made its way through his body. Hakuba couldn't put a name to what it was. Sympathy? Commiseration? It had to have happened long ago – probably around eight to nine years ago, if rumours about the Kid's disappearance were to be believed. Was it appropriate to direct something like sympathy to someone who'd lost a relative that long ago? His mind drew a blank when it came to the proper handling of such a situation, at that moment.

Silence of the comfortable kind permeated the air around them.

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Roku/6

XXX

It was ironic, what turn their evening had taken. They had the whole house to themselves, and wouldn't be able to use it to their advantage any time soon. The two of them had ended up on the couch after he'd steered his wife away from the kitchen – with him switching off any and all appliances on the way. He didn't care as much about dinner as he cared about his wife's peace of mind, after all. That was his top priority, has always been and will always be.

His poor, poor Chikage. What worries she'd had to have lived through (A kiss on her head, given to her hair, given to reassure her), what troubles she'd had to face when raising a son single-handedly during his absence (another kiss on her face, clumsily donned between her left eye and nose as a thank you that could never be said)! Words would never be enough to repay her, he knew. What had they thought when he'd disappeared from the stage just like that? When they hadn't been able to find even so much as a hint of him having survived the trick, had they believed him dead?

That would explain the continuous tears and sobbing that his wife did against his shoulder. A sigh heaved itself up out of his body. He was doing that a lot, lately.

"I'm here." He said. "I'm here, and I won't ever leave your side again. I swore that, didn't I? When we got married? To never be separated, neither in life…"

"Nor… in death." Her voice choked out forcefully. With watery eyes, she regarded him. The warmth and determination of that look would haunt his dreams of nights to come, he was sure of it. Never again. Always with her.

He smiled, a true smile, one that promised her his life, their future. And sometimes, no words were needed between them to convey their feelings. As if he'd offered her a gift of unspeakable treasures, her eyes lit up in delight and she jumped into his arms enthusiastically, as though they didn't already embrace her. Surprised, all he could do was brace himself and try not to fall onto the floor. With all the moping she'd been doing until then, he'd completely forgotten just how much of a ball of energy his wife could be. Slowly, his smile developed into a cautious grin.

"We good now?" he asked, slightly sarcastically.

"If you ever, ever, do something like this again, I'm going to drag you back here myself and dismember you. Piece by piece. Slowly." Tôichi was conscious of the fact that every single word of the threat in his wife's voice was real. Nonetheless, and even in the face of this threat, all the tension left his body.

He never planned on disappearing like that again. Ever.

Life was good, now.

AN:

:_P

Anybody who thought that this would be the great resolution between Kaito and Tôichi, raise your hands!

…

*me*

Aaaawwwww.

Pity the characters didn't want to have that happen in here.

T'was a respectable chapter, anyways, methinks. What do you think? Please be so kind as to leave a review, I'm always jumping up and down in happiness whenever I get any of those! =^_^=

This, my dear readers, is the (so far) last chapter of Tea, Anyone? It was quite the ride and I enjoyed every single bit of it. If you have any inspirations for me to write on, I'm not adverse to those, I can assure you. (This fanfiction was supposed to be a one-chapter story only, after all. Somewhere at the beginning, at least. How in heaven's name did it evolve to a five-chapter-story I'm still not sure…)