Chapter Five: Miracle (Alternative Ending)

A/N: This last chapter DOES continue where the previous one left off, but I'm calling it an alternative ending because I have some more chapters for this story I'll be publishing as post-story chapters set in the same AU that disregard the events of this chapter. Just letting you know. ^^

A nurse walked into the room, intending to check on her patient and perhaps to offer her patient's Soulmate a drink of water. Kuroba Kaito's mate had been there in the hospital room with him since he first arrived and had refused to leave the room for even a moment once they'd let him in.

She wasn't surprised, really, when she walked in the room and saw her patient sleeping soundly in his Soulmate's arms. The messier-haired boy was drooling slightly on the other person, whose arms were wrapped protectively around her patient, not seeming to mind the drool as he stared down at the Kuroba boy with loving, half-lidded eyes.

The wakeful boy noticed her entry after a few moments, belatedly reacting. "Oh. Uh... Hello," he said politely. "Do I have to get off?" His smile quirked downwards a tiny bit, but the nurse shook her head.

"No, it's fine. You two are hardly the first Soulmates I've dealt with, and Kuroba-kun is in well enough shape to have company." The boy blushed at her words. She pretended not to see as she continued to look over Kuroba's charts. "You should be able to take him home tomorrow." She injected some more morphine into Kaito's IV, a small amount, since his injuries weren't too horrible or pain-inducing. She mostly didn't want him to wake up from pain: Sleep was a must-have for patients recovering from such ample blood loss. Even with a transfusion, his body would need a lot of rest to begin functioning properly again and to replenish the extra blood it was now lacking.

"Make sure he sleeps well, even after you take him home. No strenuous activities, alright?" She said with a wink. The boy blushed a dark shade of red, clearly embarrassed.

"I wouldn't... We... We're too young and... I..." He seemed to lose his own words and she laughed lightly.

"Just take care of him."

He nodded vigorously before looking down at the sleeping form in his arms. "Always," he promised, his eyes not once leaving his Soulmate's sleeping face as the nurse strolled back out of the room.

'Soulmates,' she thought to herself in both exasperation and fondness, glancing down at her own Soul Mark across her right index finger. "I'd feel better if you kissed me." She smiled at the sloppily scrawled brown words.

Soulmates were usually fun patients to have... So long as both of them lived, of course.

….

Kaito was discharged a day later, and Shinichi, true to his word, took him home. Not to the Kuroba home because Shinichi had hired a cleaning crew to clean the blood off the carpet and they wouldn't be done for a couple of days (the cleaning solution had to be applied and allowed to soak several times to properly remove blood from a white carpet floor). Shinichi took him back to the Kudo manor, Kaito staring up at it with wide eyes as they exited their cab.

"Wow, my Soulmate's rich. I guess I kinda already knew that, but I hadn't really thought about it." He looked over at Shinichi. "Does this mean you can buy me fancy chocolate for Valentine's Day?"

Shinichi scoffed. "I don't know about Valentine's Day. For White Day, maybe. You're the one who's gonna get me chocolate for Valentine's."

Kaito laughed. "Oooh, is that so~? And when did we agree to you being the dominant one in this relationship?"

"Dominant? Hell no. I know by experience, namely my mother and childhood friend, that the female is the one with the real power in most traditional relationships. Besides, you did sleep in my arms pretty much the whole time you were in the hospital, and as you've said yourself, you're capable of cross-dressing perfectly. You're also the one who's attracted to shiny things." Kaito huffed in mock anger as he stepped past Shinichi into the Kudo manor. "And you just walked through the door as I held it open for you."

"That's because I just got out of the hospital. If you'd just gotten out of the hospital I would have held the door open for you," Kaito argued. Shinichi rolled his eyes. "But, I guess you do have a point, since my mom also definitely had all the real power in my family. What that woman wants she gets," Kaito said with a slight shudder. "She can be down-right terrifying, but I guess that's what one can only expect from the former Phantom Lady."

Shinichi's eyebrows shot up. "The what? Really? That was your mom?" Shinichi had read in an article about speculations people had. Some thought that since the Phantom Lady disappeared right as the Kaitou KID appeared that they'd had a teacher-apprentice relationship. Apparently, that hadn't been the kind of relationship they'd had at all. "You really are a high-class thief, aren't you? You're practically a purebred!"

"That's mean, Shin-chan~! I'm a person! Not a dove or dog or horse or something! Besides, if anything I'd say I'm a purebred magician, not thief. I consider myself to be a magician first and foremost, after all, and my mom did use magic in her thievery."

Shinichi nodded. "Yeah, I suppose so." He really just didn't want to argue with his Soulmate. He figured that doing so would be bad for him on multiple levels.

Shinichi led Kaito on a tour around the house before, ultimately, they ended up in Shinichi's bedroom, where Shinichi insisted Kaito lay down and try to rest some more and Kaito only agreed under the condition that Shinichi lay down with him. Shinichi was going to refuse, claiming that he had work to do and that somebody had to make dinner, but upon seeing the now bright, vivid indigo eyes shining up at him, a vibrant color that Shinichi hadn't seen since before he was nine, if ever, the detective found that he couldn't refuse. They curled up in Shinichi's king-sized bed, Kaito tucked once again safely into Shinichi's arms as they both dozed off.

"I love you," Shinichi whispered, and he felt Kaito shiver in his arms.

Kaito frowned and pulled away a tiny bit. "Hey Shinichi, has your Soul Mark ever burnt?"

Shinichi tensed and frowned. "I'm so sorry, Kaito. Yes, it has. Soul Marks burn in pleasure and recognition whenever a person's Soulmate speaks the words that are written there. When you spoke your first words to me, my Soul Mark burned in recognition. It's not supposed to be a painful burn though. It's like the heat of the sun, like soft electricity through my veins. It's wonderful. I'm sorry you can't have that Kaito. I'll never say those awful words to you again, and I know that you wouldn't be able to ever enjoy the sensation anyway if I did."

Kaito nodded. "Yeah. I felt that burning too when we first met. It was kinda... Bad and good. Mostly bad," he admitted quietly. "But I already knew most of that. I meant has your mark ever burnt when I wasn't speaking your words to you. Because I think I get the same feeling minus the bad when you say you love me."

Shinichi smiled, his brow knitted in confusion. "It's always nice to know you're loved, but... I'm sorry Kaito. I really doubt it's the same. Soul Marks use real magic for the burn…. Still, I'll tell you I love you as many times as you want." Kaito shivered again at his words, his spine tingling with a pleasurable sensation and the skin on his left forearm feeling hot. Kaito hummed.

"When did they say I was supposed to replace the bandage on my arm? It feels kinda warm. Do you think it's infected?"

Shinichi scowled. "Since they stopped the bleeding and cleaned it up well enough half way through that first day, they didn't need the bandages anymore after that. They said you can take them off whenever you're ready. They only left some on because they thought you wouldn't want one of the first things you saw when you woke up to be the wound, and... And your doctor didn't know if you wanted anyone but him to see your mark, given what it says... If it doesn't feel right though we should take a look." Shinichi sat up and pulled Kaito with him, both of them sitting on the bed.

With careful fingers, Shinichi began unwrapping Kaito's arm. Kaito studied Shinichi's expression through his eyelashes, trying to gauge his reaction, concerned by the guilt that was already showing on Shinichi's face. His Soulmate stopped with just a bit of bandaging left on the arm and looked up at him. "You don't have to look if you don't want to," Shinichi said. "If it were up to me, you'd never see these words again. You've read them too many times as it is. Even once was one time too many."

Kaito shook his head. "I'm hoping it won't be so bad now that I know you don't mean it, and I'll always wonder how I really feel about them now if I don't actually look and see. You don't have to look, either. You'll just be torturing yourself over nothing."

"It's not nothing," Shinichi said firmly. "And I won't look away. I'm here for you, Kaito. I'm with you all the way."

Kaito smiled at him and nodded. Shinichi returned the smile before pulling off the rest of the bandaging.

The two of them gaped. Kaito's arm looked... Not bad. Better than not bad. All the cuts had healed over past the point of average healing, so that not a single scar from them remained on the entirety of Kaito's arm. Even more startling, perhaps, were the words.

Kaito had, so many times in his life, looked at those words and wished that they said almost anything else. He knew for a fact that Shinichi had felt the same way before too. Their recent experience in the hospital sprung to Kaito's mind. In that moment when Shinichi had just finished telling Kaito about himself and properly professing his love, Shinichi's eyes had looked like they wanted nothing more than to be able to change the words and ease Kaito's suffering.

And change, apparently, they had. Kaito remembered feeling a burning sensation at that time, when Shinichi'd said he loved him for the first time in the hospital. Remembered that every time since then the same words had invoked a pleasurable tingling up and down his spine and a burning on his forearm skin. Now he knew why.

There in the same spot, written in the same azure coloring and elegant, cursive handwriting, right where the old, painful words used to be, was a new mark reading "I love you."

Shinichi, despite having had a specialist he could consult with about marks and having read everything there was to read about Soul Marks, had never heard of something like this happening before. For a Soul Mark to change words... He hadn't known it was possible! He'd read fictional stories about curses which could alter marks and demons which mixed marks up at birth, but never something like this, and never about anything real.

Kaito was the first one to react. A broad, genuine smile formed on his lips and he turned to Shinichi, smirking. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I've heard many great things about you~!" Shinichi instantly felt the euphoric tingling that coursed through him when those words were spoken, his Soul Mark heating up in recognition. And as Kaito wrapped his arms around Shinichi and Shinichi instinctively did the same, his shirt ridding up enough to expose his own vibrant, indigo mark, they realized that their Soul Marks were positioned in just such a way that Kaito's pressed firmly against Shinichi's when they wrapped their arms around each other, Kaito's left forearm touching above and behind Shinichi's right hip, directly on his mark. The words burnt pleasurably where they rubbed together. Shinichi smiled back in pure fondness and joy.

"I love you." Kaito shivered once more in response, and Shinichi leant down and firmly locked their lips together. Kaito positively melted against him.

～終わる～

A/N: Overly sappy ending. Dang. Why does this happen...? Well, hopefully you guys enjoyed it anyway. That's it for the main story-arc of this AU, but I'll be posting some post-story chapters soon, so stick around if you want to read more about what happens next. Things like Kaito and Shinichi meeting each other's friends/families and how their Soul Marks and Soul-Bond effects their lives even after they've gotten together. These next chapters largely disregard chapter five, so Kaito's Soul Mark will still read: "What? NO! I don't want YOU as my Soulmate!"

Thanks so much for all the love and reviews this story has gotten so-far! You readers have been great, and I hope you'll stay tuned for the chapters to come. In my opinion, the upcoming chapters, at least the next three, are better than the last few have been. ^^