Hint thingy: sudden POV changes in this chappie. Short italic sentences are Kai's thoughts and bold italics are his mom's.
When he didn't come back that night, she wasn't too worried. When he didn't even call, she got nervous. When the next day was almost half over and there was still no word, she started imagining the worst.
She didn't want to think about it, Kaito was a smart kid, a resourceful kid. He could take care of himself. He was independent, always coming and going, sometimes without a word, and sometimes late at night.
Every time, he came back the next morning. If it took longer than that, he'd call and say he was at a friend's house. She knew full well that he wasn't, but since he always came back she decided not to press it. She had an idea of what he was doing, a very good idea. But as with his father, she had no proof. No proof beyond the fact that she never got to sit and watch a Kid heist with either of them.
It was a dangerous hobby, if she was right in her hypothesis, but she never made a move to stop him. Indeed, she even did her best to help. Whenever a Kid heist came up, she made sure to not plan anything for the evening and the day after. When he got mysteriously injured, she'd pretend not to see the hidden injury and covertly lighten his chore list until it healed.
Maybe she'd always taken it for granted that he would come back, and the full reality that he could be caught or even killed had never seemed possible. It was possible. Very possible.
Fearing the worst at last.
Whenever the phone rang, she'd jump to her feet and answer it. Whenever the doorbell rang she was at it in a second. But disappointment after disappointment was beginning to wear away at her hope, and replace it with despair. For Kuroba Hiromi, the same cycle continued until around 2 o'clock in the afternoon when it abruptly ground to a halt.
The doorbell rang.
Hiromi almost dropped the pot she'd been washing, and instead she set it neatly in the sink before running off to the door. She took a second to will herself to calm, before she reached down and turned the knob.
--
'I can't.'
Paper crumpled.
--
At first she didn't see anyone, her spirits falling as she scolded herself for getting so excited over some kid's prank. But then her eyes landed on the teenager waiting on the sidewalk, hopes rising as she saw the resemblance to her son. It could be him. All it would take was some gel to tame the wild mop of hair her son had.
But something told her he wasn't. He wasn't even looking her way, instead he was staring out at the street, his arms crossed a little—waiting?
There was a sound somewhere below her line of vision, and her eyes moved. There was a small boy standing on her doorstep, hands stuck in his pocket and a baseball hat pulled low over his face. "Yes?"
--
'I don't want you to see'
--
"Are you…Kuroba-san?"
"Yes…" He didn't look up when he asked, nor did he when Hiromi answered. He just stood there, hands in his pockets and looking down at the ground, "Can I help you?"
--
'Not like this. But I have to…'
--
"I was told to give you something." The hand withdrew from his pocket, bringing with it a crumpled piece of paper. He slowly began to smooth it out, "He told me to give it to Kuroba-san and then he gave Niisan the address."
Hiromi glanced over at the teenager waiting by the road. Was he the boy's brother? Was that why he was here?
The boy held out his hand, offering her the paper. She took it, the skin of her fingertips brushing lightly against the small palm. Her eyes dropped to the missive, eyes filling with tears. It was in his hand.
--
'let you know…'
--
"Thank you, boy…" A few tears stained her cheek before she could say anything. The boy stayed quiet, but she could sense the discomfort the tears were causing him.
"If you see him again, tell him to call me, alright?"
The boy's head bobbed up and down, dark brown hair shifting a little in the movement, "I will."
--
'I will come back'
--
He turned away from her, setting off down the walk. The boy crossed the last few feet of distance at a run, heading up right beside the teenager on the street, taking the elder's hand in his own. After a moment's conferring, they set off down the walk, the very image of two siblings.
Hiromi held the note close, letting the tears fall. They weren't tears of despair, but of happiness. He was alive. He would come back.
The caricature at the bottom proved it was real.
'Wait for me, 'kaa-san. I have something I need to do.'
Her answer.
'Always'
--
'Always'
--
Kaito felt marginally better as they walked away from the neighborhood, heading for the bus stop that would lead to the next part of the trip. He hadn't been sure if he could face his mom like this, so he'd written the note ahead of time, as soon as he heard Kudou mention the trip in fact. It was a backup, in case his courage failed him and he couldn't go through with it.
It had, and he wasn't proud of it. He'd taken the easy way out, changing his voice when speaking to her, avoiding any speech patterns that would cause her to think of him, and hiding his face. But it was worth it.
From the minute he heard her voice, he knew how worried she'd been. Worried because of him. It had cracked his resolve, and sent him automatically running for the back-up plan. No matter how cowardly it made him feel, she wouldn't worry any more.
--
'I don't know how'
--
He'd always known his mother suspected that he'd taken up his father's ways. It would have been hard for her not to come to the conclusion. But she'd never confronted him about it, so he'd never told her. It had always been better that way; if the police ever caught him she'd be safe from being called an accomplice.
Leaving Kid's caricature on the note was his way of confirming her suspicions, trusting her with the secret, as well as giving her something that only Kaito would know. Kaito and Kid's handwriting were different—he had little trouble shifting his patterns, much like his ease with his voice—so a letter in Kaito's hand, with Kid's signature...No one would be able to replicate it.
--
'But it was nice to see you'
--
The bus was noisy; it was always noisy on the weekends. Kaito was positioned between Shinichi and the window of the bus, his height just barely allowing him to stare out the window comfortably. He hadn't spoken much since informing the detective that he was finished, and he could tell that his silence was bothering him.
"You didn't tell her, did you?" Apparently Kudou had been patient enough, using the noisy cover as a cue to start speaking. Amid the various other conversations, someone would be hard pressed to make out what he was saying.
Kaito shook his head, "She knows I'm fine, I did tell her that much."
--
'Of course I could tell, I know everything about you.'
--
"Why didn't you?"
Kaito fixed Kudou with a strange look, trying to keep his expression from showing his irritation. He understood the detective was concerned, but he didn't have to explain everything. It wasn't like it was Kudou's business.
If being a little quiet ended up getting the detective nosy, he decided he'd just have to keep a firmer hold of his mask. He'd been letting it slip a little since the night's talk, figuring that since the detective knew, he didn't have to put so much effort into maintaining it.
"I didn't want to. Just drop it, Kudou." Don't show irritation, followed up by a dismissive shrug and a smile, "Where are we going anyway? The mall I get dragged to is the other direction."
--
'Scars can tell a lot, Kaito.'
Hiromi smiled to herself, a slender finger tracing the edge of the photo. She'd been right. Somehow, someway, she'd just seen someone who'd been lost to the stream of time. It was someone who only lived on in the family's photo album, and in her memories.
The picture was of her son, at least 7 years younger than he was now. His face was twisted into a happy smile, excitedly showing his palm to the camera, a small x shaped scar clearly visible. It was the same scar she'd just felt on the palm of the boy.
If it weren't for the slight brush of her fingers against the raised skin, she would have never known.
She remembered when it'd happened. It hadn't been any special sort of day. She'd been in the kitchen, her hands methodically scrubbing some of the larger dishes. A song Toichi loved had been stuck in her head all day, and she'd been humming it to herself as she went about the house.
Hiromi had just finished the second verse before a strange noise broke it off, snapping her train of thought in half before drawing it to the next room. But it wasn't the noise that made her drop what she was doing, but the small whimper of pain she wouldn't have noticed if she'd still been humming.
A mother's instinct has, and always will be, the most powerful force in the world. There are stories of what a mother can do when driven by the need to protect her child, or to make sure her child is alright. Hiromi was well used to this instinct, Kaito had always been a troublesome child—always finding some way to get into trouble or getting himself hurt—and let it wash over her and carry her away into the living room. .
Kneeling in the center of the room, hunched over with his hand cradled close to his chest, was her baby. There were various small instruments scattered across the carpet, but only one caught her eye. It was long and thin, the silver point stained red with blood.
"Kaito!" She was soon on the floor with her son, trying to coax him to show her his hand, "What happened?!"
Blood was beginning to pool in his palm as he grudgingly held it out to her, seeping out from the wound nearly smack dab in the center. She could see tears gathering at the corner of his eyes, but her little boy did not cry.
"Mom…has been singing Dad's song…" He finally answered after she'd returned from fetching the first aid kit, feeling a little embarrassed when she'd stopped tending to the stab wound to look at him, "I wanted…to surprise you with one of his tricks."
She'd smiled sadly and hugged him around the shoulders, "Some of Dad's tricks are dangerous, Kaito. Neither he, nor I want to see you get hurt with them."
Kaito apparently took her words to heart, leaving the more complex—and slightly dangerous—tricks alone until he'd grown into the rebellious teenager stage and unearthed them again. The wound on his palm never fully healed, but she knew how lucky they'd been with it. Hand wounds always had been tricky, and there was a scary chance that Kaito would lose some of the mobility and speed with it—a magician's worst nightmare.
Hiromi flipped through a few more pages, stopping at another photograph. This one was near the back, having been taken recently and displayed an image of Kaito less than a year ago. He was waving at the camera, a wide smile on his face and an arm around his best friend's shoulder. He had clearly been enjoying the fiery blush the action had caused, a thought that amused Hiromi to no end.
And there, barely visible in the semi-close up shot, was the very same scar.
Once again, she'd discovered her son's secret. And once again, she would keep it.
The photo album closed.
'I won't ask.'
'Just come home safe.'
--
"I know." Shinichi flipped open his phone, checking the time. Kaito's question had reminded him of the reason he'd chosen this bus instead of the more direct route. They had roughly five minutes until the stop he was waiting for came up. He hoped she was ready to catch this bus, when he'd called earlier she said she would need some time to get ready and gave him an approximate. She'd told him to go on to the mall without her if she missed the bus. "We're meeting someone."
"Ooh?" The kid drew out the word, most likely remembering the phone call earlier. Shinichi sighed, shaking his head in a bemused fashion as he imagined the teasing he'd be subject to once they got home.
A/N: Sorry about the wait, I meant to get this out on/around the 4th of July. But parties and being dragged to a friend's house(twice cut into my writing time and then once I did finish I decided to wait until the weekend. I think I'll start putting a bit of a break in between chapters, ya know, give more people a chance to read and review each one. It'll also give me more incentive to write for my other stories(mainly Masq and FDT) rather than just updating this one(no matter how much I like it…I gotta work on those two…)
Anyways, I hope the chapter was satisfactory. I've noticed it seems to be a little slow…I think once Kai settles in I'll have a time skip…then get the plot(gasps there's a plot!?) rolling.