a/n:
I've had this scene stuck in my head for years now and needed to finally let it out in the open air! these two just... why am I shipping together two characters who only appeared for a special little arc? someone please tell me?
. . .
fast forward
Two messy mops of chestnut hair pop out from behind the slant of a wall.
"...Aoko, for the last time, what are we doing here?"
"I told you already, I have a sixth sense for these things!" Aoko whispers under her breath, sounding a little too self-assured.
"These 'things', as in eluding security? Hiding in plain sight? Being somewhere we shouldn't because you had one of your crazy epiphanies?" Kaito's sarcastic mutter is accompanied with a pointed glare in hopes to make her see reason. It doesn't yield results. Then he's slightly frowning in somewhat of a realization. "…and here I thought I was the tenured criminal in this duo."
"What was that?"
"N-Nothing!"
"Shhh! You'll scare them away!" She hisses as if they're dealing with newborn puppies, quickly slapping a hand over his mouth, much to Kaito's chagrin, while a new figure comes to view.
Whilst the rest of their teammates have already left the premises, two players in particular happen to be lingering outside the locker room, in the deserted open hallway. One is just walking out, the other has specifically come to see him.
"Hey, you, the handsome one." Shigeo calls out, nodding like he's handpicking him out of a crowd.
Kazuhisa turns at the waggish words and a glow sparks up the depth of his irises as soon as he recognizes him. "Hey yourself."
Shigeo's grin goes stretching a tiny bit at the corners. "Nice game out there."
"Is that sarcasm?" The other teen asks with a reluctant smirk, although soft around the edges.
"Sarcasm? From me?" Shigeo splays a hand over his chest, letting out a theatrical gasp. "Never."
Kazuhisa exhales a faint chuckle, his amusement glinting like the sheen of translucent water that has yet to fully dry off his skin. "The same goes for you," He's lacing back to the previous topic. "Well played." Before one of his delicate brows arches slightly. "Handsome. Really?"
Shigeo promptly averts his gaze, clasping his hands behind his back to give the impression he's being aloof. "You can ask your adoring fans. Their piercing screams nearly blew my ears off." Just for show, he feigns annoyance, thumbing at the skin of his poor, poor ears as if checking they didn't fall off.
"Oh? And what about the 'cute' one?" At the growing frown he receives for his teasing inquiry, Kazuhisa proceeds to elaborate. "All I could hear was how cute 'number three' is."
Shigeo frowns further- unfortunately for him it morphs into the beginnings of the faintest pout- narrowing his eyes in indignation. "Excuse me? I'm not 'cute'... I am stunning, thank you very much."
"Of course you are." Kazuhisa concedes with an indulgent smile.
The overt sincerity behind the jesting is enough to throw warmth into Shigeo's cheeks, the smile he is met with leaving him momentarily disoriented. He blinks through the daze a few times too many, refusing to make known the way his breath hitches, let alone the feeling of his heart now thrumming up a new rhythm against his ribcage.
"Well," He clears his throat, quickly slipping back on his established, easygoing facade. "I just came to check on you. I'm willing to admit that last ditch effort made for a nice save, but you put too much strain on your shoulder."
"That's saying something," Kazuhisa observes him with that same glint of amusement, lips curling slightly into it. "Coming from you."
Shigeo feels an equal medley of abashed and proud under his scrutiny- for whichever reason he can't help his already competitive side and how it seems to flare into flames whenever they're playing against each other. His consolation is, at least he's not the sole one.
"Truce?" Kazuhisa suddenly proposes, holding out his hand.
Shigeo feels strangely giddy as he slowly extends his own hand to meet his halfway, having it loosely grasped in a handshake. Kazuhisa's hand is only slightly shaking from the effort of pitching, and while Shigeo is in much the same boat with the quivering, unlike his own, the other boy's hand is so, so warm.
Kazuhisa must read something cracking in his facade, because in the next moment his eyes are inexorably softening. His thumb draws soothing figures across the silky roughness of his skin, making his inhale inaudibly catch in his throat.
Shigeo is not sure this is part of a handshake.
Shigeo also does not care, not to mention he sort of never wants to let go.
Right when he thinks the other boy is about to, however- much to his striking disappointment- Kazuhisa takes his hand for himself, bringing it up to the height of his chin… only to lean down and tenderly press his velvety lips to the back of it.
Shigeo freezes
His brain short-circuits. He feels distantly liquefied inside his body. A spark of molten electricity dances from the root of his hair, to the slope of his shoulder, down the curve of his arm, sizzling his skin where the satin of lips has yet to leave.
"Any plans for tomorrow?" Kazuhisa asks so casually as he slowly, finally lets go, as if nothing came to happen.
"I…" Shigeo mumbles with an unlocked jaw, mouth drawn open a sliver- is he daydreaming right now? Is he? What are words? What is the foreign concept of language? What does everything else mean except for this breathtaking moment? "...practice?" His voice goes a little high toward the end, as if he's the one doing the asking.
"I'll come pick you up at seven." Kazuhisa offers, requests, demands. Whatever.
Whatever. He'll take it. He'll take everything that is so generously offered to him upon a silver platter.
Words fail him at the moment, thus, he accepts with a shrug, diverting his gaze and nodding. Or shaking his head. He's not entirely sure.
Kazuhisa meets him with another one of his softer smiles, before, almost in a haste, he's turning to go.
"It's a date, then." He calls over his shoulder.
Shigeo is left standing there, practically rooted to the spot, watching his silhouette growing gradually smaller in the distance. The exhaustion of the game lifts off, almost surreally so, only to give way to the strangest sensation of a couple thousand wings flapping around inside his stomach.
"…this smug asshole." Shigeo whispers to himself, unable to stifle a wide and excited grin from blooming across his face despite the flush heating his cheeks.
The soft impression of Kazuhisa's warm kiss has yet to leave his skin.
"I told you!" Aoko whispers with boundless excitement, then her voice goes dropping dramatically, as if narrating a wondrous tale. "Rivals, ruthlessly fighting on the field, but off the field they… melt."
"...Wait what?"
Aoko ignores him, already launching herself into her imaginary tale.
"And it all started with that first, fated fight, which ultimately led them to… finding each other." She whispers in bated- dramatic- breath.
"Uhh…"
"Now listen to me. Girls don't want boyfriends. Girls want a real connection, a beautiful bond. True love blooming." Her breathy tone is soon going on a 180 flip and she is suddenly facing away, seemingly screaming her woes at the endless void. "Stop it with the overdone love triangles and cheap shots at predictable couples already! Make the real love happen you cowards!"
"Oookay." Kaito side-eyes her with only a tiny amount of fright. Although he's mostly unimpressed. "...be honest with me, have you been eating raw sugar packets again?"
Aoko quickly flicks her gaze elsewhere, fiddling with her fingers and replying in a pouty voice. "...that's beside the point."
"Seriously? You know you can't handle a sugar rush. Last time you even ended up biting off- ugh, whatever." Kaito shakes his head in exasperation, as he is used to do when his best friend is involved. "And you're a little too impressionable. So they like each other, fine, it's really not that dramatic." But, like a flash lighting the sky without warning, something about her words strikes an abrupt chord with him. "Wait a second. You said something about rivals fighting on the field.… why does that sound so familiar?"
Aoko perks up at that. "Oooh, do you have a rival too?"
Kaito mulls over the bewildering word with the lightest frown. "...Rival?"
All that comes to mind is…
… a certain shrunken detective, who can go from adorably innocent, to dangerously cunning, to dangerous period at the drop of a hat and given the set of circumstances (most of the time involving Kaito himself), the sleuth being none other than Edogawa Conan aka Kudo Shinichi aka 'a crush in the makings' he doesn't want to admit to himself.
"Hmm?" Aoko hums thoughtfully, curiously tilting her head. "Why is your face so red all of a sudden?"
But Kaito is too immersed in his own world to be paying attention anymore, with palms unconsciously squishing his own cheeks like he wants to slap himself to get rid of the mental images his traitorous mind is subjecting him to. "…Stupidly adorable Tantei-kun with his stupidly soft cheeks making me feel stupidly mushy things…"
"A-Achoo!"
"Oh no, Edogawa-kun, are you coming down with a cold?"
"It's 'cause of all that yakitori he ate!"
"I'm not sure you can catch a cold from eating yakitori… and besides, that was you Genta-kun."
'And they say I'm the one who's self-absorbed.' The shrunken detective thinks with the tug of an exasperated little smile while the kids walk ahead, their shrieking laughter echoing behind them as they jump from one topic to another, quickly forgetting about him and his supposed cold.
"Bless you." Ai says as she comes to walk beside him.
"Thanks." Conan mumbles distractedly, looking for a tissue inside his pocket.
"They say when you sneeze, someone is thinking about you." Ai states out of the blue, managing to catch his eye. Then, the hint of a mischievous smirk is lifting the corner of her mouth. "...could it be a certain phantom is thinking of his dear rival?"
Taken off guard, Conan startles in place.
His rushing, kicking instincts- made up of sheer panic and no small amount of denial- instantly scream at him to run off as fast as he can, maybe find the nearest hole to throw himself into and live there until any sort of insinuation disappears forever and ever-
Quashing down the derailing, ridiculous (and tempting) train of thought, he lets out a quiet scoff, forcing himself to keep walking ahead, behave normally, as if nothing happened.
"Don't even joke about that..." He ends up muttering sourly.
Ai's smugness seems to grow tenfold. "Whatever you say." She pretends to relent as she walks ahead too, joining the others, for the moment leaving him in peace.
'...stupid thief.' The detective thinks to himself, wearing a stubborn scowl...
...betrayed by the touch of rose blush adorning his cheeks.
. . .
a/n:
haha, watch me actually write a whole fic about these two stellar players falling hard for each other