Hi again guys, thanks for the views, favs, follows and review, especially last chapter's reviewer:
Spade-san (Guest):
Thanks for reviewing again, it makes me want to finish translate next chapter as fast as possible ^^
And it's truly some development back there, isn't it? But unfortunately, this chapter will be more serious and… ok, no spoiler, please just read on xD
Anyway, here's next chapter as promised~
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Words count: 2,694
Rate: M, for alcohol and slightly suggestive adult theme.
Warning: typo(s), grammar error(s), possibly OOC; alternate timeline; chara(s) death; possible BL/shonen-ai
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Disclaimer :
Detective Conan and Magic Kaito fully belong to Aoyama Gosho
This story belong to reiei
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Now, let the story begins…
o.O.O.o.o.O.O.o
Chapter 6
- 6th Shake -
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Shinichi feels a pair of unknown lips crashing into his and bubbles of strange feelings surfaced up, spreading into his whole body. No, it's not like this is his first kiss or something, but this just feels different. Like, this is hotter, more dominating – red flared up across his cheeks when he realizes just what the hell he had been thinking. He musters up all of his remaining energy and panicky pushes Kaito away, make the young man in front of him sway back and tumble down.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, Kaito?!" Shinichi snapped, reflexively wiped out his mouth with his sleeves, trying to wipe away the strange sensation in vain.
Still glaring holes at Kaito, Shinichi's getting more and more concerned at how the other man just sit down with no care for the world. He just hang his head down, he can still get some mumbles like 'don't remember' and 'Hakuba bastard' and some other things he can't make up. Shinichi frowns; he doesn't understand how the ex-thief seems more depressed than the first day they live in together. Hesitating, he slowly creeps closer and tries to pat Kaito on the shoulder – right when the ex-thief suddenly stands up. It makes Shinichi flinches and takes a step back, guards up.
"Oi, I won't think twice to punch you if u dares to do something strange again," he swore.
But Kaito ignores him. He takes a step closer, 2 steps, 3 steps, and then he unexpectedly collapse, unconscious.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
When Kaito wakes up, it's morning again. But this time he's in his bedroom – or Shinichi's guestroom to be exact – and his hangover are not as bad as the night before. He vaguely remembers that this time he'd only emptied 4-5 bottles of beer. So he decided to gets up and goes to the kitchen, grab a glass of water and asks Shinichi – he heard the coffee maker's turned on which means Shinichi's in the kitchen – whether he has any headache medicine or not.
"Good morning, Shin. Do you have any headache medicine?" he greet as he enter the kitchen, fingers massaging his temple to reduce the headache even for a bit. He, however, doesn't miss how said detective's shoulder grows tense when he hears his greeting, which makes him raise his eyebrow.
"I think there's some medicine in the second drawer of the first cabinet from left," he answered, still doesn't turn back to face Kaito.
Kaito says his thanks, open said drawer and easily find the medicine. Then he grabs nearest glass in the shelf, fills it with water and gulps the medicine down with it. Finally Kaito decided to sit down in the dining table where Shinichi had been seated there first with his cup of morning coffee.
"No coffee for me?"
"Make it yourself," Shinichi said right away. Somehow he seems more tense than usual.
Kaito, who's already familiar with Shinichi's hostility, just laugh it off as he gets up to make his own coffee. His headache was subsiding bit by bit and he begins to remember about what had happened last night.
He was going home from Kawahara-san's – the old bartender and Fantasma's owner – place when his depression phase two started. It's because he accidentally saw Aoko and Hakuba as they were coming out from one of the many clothing shops in Ginza. He regretted not taking Kawahara-san's offer to rest in his place for a bit longer.
In the end he hurriedly turn back and went home though another route, stopped by a passed konbini and spend his remaining changes for more cans of beer. Ah, maybe he really drank more than 5 cans of beer. Right when he was home, he drunk his ass away with no care for the world. He turned the TV on just to disrupt the intoxicating silence, just to drive away clock's painful ticks. And when he's in his last can, he heard a door being opened.
That time he was so out of it because of the beer and hic chaotic feelings made him do things without thinking. So when Shinichi came in, and refused to answer his questions, his fear of being abandoned yet again by his closest people drove him to–
"–I kissed him," he unconsciously blurted that part out as his grips on the cup of coffee loosen and make it fall down on the table with a clank. Fortunately, the cup doesn't break, only spilling half of the coffee inside. That hot coffee stained the light blue linen table cloth and his arm, which successfully pulls him away from his thoughts.
Shinichi gives him a glare for staining his table cloth, but then he looks away again. Vaguely, he catches tints of red spreading in the detective's face.
"I'm sorry, Shin, about last night…," he tried to apologizes, thinking of some excuses that can logically explains his behavior last night. But apparently he fails. Even he himself doesn't know why he behaves like that last night, so how can he explain it to other people? So he doesn't say anything. Suddenly very interested in the stain in the table cloth.
"Forget it," in the end Shinichi is the one who broke the silence. "You were drunk last night, so you didn't realize what you were doing."
Kaito lifts his head up a little. He sees the detective in front of him with that gaze as if he's a child who had been found out hiding an adult magazine under his bed, or so Shinichi thinks. Kaito's about to apologize again, but he freezes up when he sees bandages peeking from under Shinichi's shirt sleeve. His body tenses. His gaze locked at the bandage in Shinichi's arm.
"Shin, that… Is that from last night? Did I hurt you?" slowly his gaze shifted to hold Shinichi's blue orbs. Panic, concern and guilt clearly emitted from his eyes.
"Ha?" Shinichi squinted his eyes, trying to get what the young man in front of him was talking about before he realize the ex-thief was talking about his injury.
"Ah, this. Not your fault. It's all because of my own carelessness at work," he explains calmly as he sips at his black coffee again.
Even after hearing it's not his fault, Kaito can't say he is relieved. There's no way he can be relieved knowing his kind host is injured, right?
"What kind of injury? Have you checked it in the hospital? Have it been sterilized yet? You'd better take a day off today," he says with a frown.
Shinichi stares at him quizzically for a moment then he chuckles. "You're behaving like a mother hen. It's just a scratch, no need to go to the hospital. And I've cleaned it, don't worry."
"Are you sure? You do know it'll be bad if it's get infected, right?" Kaito seems unsatisfied by Shinichi's answer. He'd get up from his chair already and is standing beside the detective to see the injury with his own eyes.
"Kaito!" Shinichi yelps involuntary, afraid that Kaito will do something strange again when the young man grips his arms and undo the bandage. After seeing that it is really just some minor injury, and have been washed right, Kaito gives out a heavy sighs.
"Don't make me worry like that, Shin," he finally says.
"I've already said I'm fine, why are u still worried?" Shinichi protests, tries not to roll his eyes off in annoyance. "What about you? You didn't come home last night and made me worry."
Kaito seems a bit tensed up, remembering last night incident and all the reasons why he didn't come home.
"Sorry, something happened… and I didn't have the time to contact you," that's the only excuse he can thinks of. He still doesn't want to tell anybody about last night, there's nothing they can do to change it after all.
He heard Shinichi let out a snort and get up from his chair, 2 empty cups in hands, while heading for the kitchen sink.
"Do you have any cell phone?" he asks while washing both cups away.
Kaito who'd seated back in his own chair turns his head to Shinichi, "Nope. My old phone's long dead. And nobody will contact me anyway."
"For now, yea, but I'm sure you'll need it later. At least it'll make it easier for you to contact me when something comes up and you won't be coming home, vice versa."
Kaito seems to weighing his offer before finally nodding, "I think you're right. I'll do it then."
"Good," Shinichi answer briefly but satisfied. Then as he finished washing the cups and places it back in the shelf, he goes toward the door, heading out.
"Where're you going? Work?" Kaito frowns, gaze following Shinichi.
"Aa. I haven't even finished last night's case report yet," Shinichi says without even stopping.
"Even when you're injured, how diligent of you," Kaito grumbles, "Ah, tonight I'll be late so no need to wait for me!"
"Where are you going to wander off?"
"How crude, so just you know, I'll be going to work."
"Stealing?" Shinichi asks skeptical.
"Hey, I'm retired in that department."
Kaito doesn't know whether Shinichi heard him or not, and even if Shinichi heard him and responds, he won't hears it. They're busy in their own morning routine. Even then, somehow, they've feel a little bit closer now.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
That night, Shinichi really finds his house empty as he comes home from work. Kaito is working at Fantasma on Kawahara-san's offer; coincidentally one of his employees was retired a few days ago. So he decided to drown in his work instead of pondering over his broken heart. Well, he is skilled in interaction department since long time ago. It's not hard for him to adapt and befriend his new co-workers. And he's starting to get interested in the art of bartending, even when his skill is, of course, still low compared to his co-workers who'd received their education in bartending and have been on the department for far longer than he is. After all that bar is quite famous, even if the place is not that large, so it's only natural to find some high skilled bartender in this place.
And somehow, he's starting to do magic again. It's indeed just some minor tricks, but it's enough to make his audience amazed. Only in a few days and gossips about his show have spread, attracting many young women to come and see the 'handsome magician who works as a waiter in Fantasma' – or so they said.
And when Shinichi first knew about him working at Fantasma, it's purely accident. That time Shinichi and his fellow officers were celebrating a wedding of one of their friends. And of course when he's ordered to bring their orders to their table, he's surprised to find Shinichi there.
"Kuroba?!" was Shinichi's first reaction upon seeing him. Kaito himself gaped for a moment there, truthfully he doesn't even remember who else was sitting there.
"Shin? What're u doing here?"
A second later he realized how stupid his question was. Anybody who comes to a bar should've wanted to drink, right?
"So, you're working here, eh?" Shinichi asked back, ignoring Kaito's stupid question.
"So it seems," Kaito answered with a big grin. "Here's your wine," he said as he placed the last bottle at their table. And then with a 'pop', a red rose appeared in his hand, "And please enjoy yourself."
He left the rose at the table and stepped away. He took a glance back and saw Shinichi smiled from the corner of his eyes. Maybe the detective was reminiscing from when he was chasing Kaitou KID? Who knows? But he was sure he'd succeed to trouble Shinichi with series of question from his fellow female officer who was interested in him, and that made him smiled in satisfaction.
It's almost been 2 months since then, and so far Kaito enjoy his new job. There's only one shortage though, this work makes he has only so little time to meet Shinichi. How could he not, seeing he comes home late at night when Shinichi's asleep and goes to work when Shinichi's not come home from work yet, while the detective goes to work when Kaito has just went to bed and comes home when he's working.
Even though they're living under the same roof, email and some short call are their only communicator now, be it only to tell Kaito to go shopping when they're short on groceries or to take the trash out when Shinichi forgot to do so in garbage-pick-up days. And sometimes Kaito asks Shinichi to bring his forgotten wallet at home to the bar, which he treats Shinichi to Fantasma's best cocktail later. And even if he'll never admits it, sometimes he purposely left his wallet at home only for Shinichi to come see him at the bar later.
One day, when the autumn wind is blowing, Kaito is cleaning up the counter when he heard Kawahara-san called for him. Then, right away, he approached the old man who is his boss too. Apparently somebody's standing beside him, even though the bar shouldn't be open yet. The solemn man only gives a nod in reply to Kaito's smile.
"What's wrong, Kawahara-san?" he asks as he stand in front of the owner of Fantasma.
"This man is looking for you, Kuroba-san." He says as he point at the man beside him. Then said man take out something from his breast pocket and show it to Kaito. Ah, police badge. No wonder he feels like he has meet the man before, must be one of Shinichi's friend that's coming here with him before. But, what's with the formality?
"I'm sorry to bother you while you're working, Kuroba-san. You're living with Kudo-kun, aren't you?"
"Yes," he replied briefly, wondering what trouble makes the man looking for him and what it has to do with Shinichi.
"Do you know where Kudo-kun might be right now?"
That makes him raise an eyebrow. "No. But he should be at his office around this hour, no?"
That man gives out a heavy sigh, clearly disappointed with his answer. The man put away his badge before replying, "Yes, usually. But Kudo-kun hasn't returned to the HQ since yesterday afternoon."
Kaito's countenance is turning tense. He feels something bad is coming.
"We've been to his house but it's empty. When is the last time you've meet him, Kuroba-san?"
"I don't really remember when," Kaito said honestly, "We've never really meet at home. He's working when I'm home and vice versa, and a few hours we're both at home we spent our time sleeping. You polices don't have holiday in weekend and so my job here in this bar. So, that's it," Kaito hives a shrug. "Have you tried his phone yet?"
"Yes, of course that's the first thing we've done," Kaito relieved finding no offense in the man tone about his question – that seems stupid in second thought, they're detectives, of course they know what to do in situation like these, "Unfortunately, we've lost contact with him since yesterday's lunch break. We've been hoping that he'll at least tell you where he'll be going, but it seems we've been wrong."
"Wait, do you mean… Shinichi's missing?"
And oh, Kaito really doesn't like this.
.
To Be Continued
.