#nltsa

[lisatelramor]

Gift Box

Happy Holidays! Fun story, I wrote this in August for some reason so I've been sitting on this waiting for Christmas to post :P This is ACTUALLY the last thing in the NLTSA universe. No more. Really.  =_= *side-eyes my brain* Hope everyone has a good holiday season and a happy new year!!!

***

Kaito twisted pieces of a puzzle box around in his hands as Takumi did assigned reading on the living room couch. It was Takumi’s favorite spot since Kaito and Saguru moved in together, a much plusher replacement for Kaito’s old one that had been slowly falling to disrepair for years. The steady tick of the bookshelf clock and the occasional flip of pages were the only sounds at the moment, and while normally Kaito would be soothed by the peacefulness, he couldn’t reach that calm today.

He slipped a segment of wood free, testing panels for which one would budge next, mostly on automatic. Kaito’s real attention was on Takumi and the way Kaito’s heart beat a bit too quickly for sitting calmly in their living room. “I was thinking,” Kaito said.

“Mm?” Takumi turned a page. “About what?”

“About life.” Kaito twisted a carving. “How we’ve settled here. The future.” A careful glide of fingers along a seam and one of the three hidden compartments in this box slid open. Empty of course because he hadn’t put anything in it yet. “Whether Saguru’d say yes if I asked him to marry me,” Kaito said as nonchalant as possible, heart beating too fast as he waited for Takumi’s response.

Takumi stopped flipping pages. “You’re going to ask him to marry you?” he asked, eyes wide.

Kaito didn’t blame him for being surprised; marriage had very different connotations and memories attached to it for Kaito compared to Saguru. Kaito hadn’t thought he’d want to marry again. It wasn’t like either of them needed it to be happy or have a meaningful relationship. It just turned out that Kaito was still more of a romantic than he’d thought he was capable of being. Kaito fiddled with the next part of his puzzle.

“It’s just a thought,” he said. “It’s not like we’ve talked marriage really.”

“Tou-san—”

“But hypothetically, how do you think he’d feel if I asked?”

Takumi set down his book. “Honestly?” He gave Kaito a small smile. “He’s pretty much married to you already.”

A year and a half together. Kaito’s fingers tapped along the box’s edge. That wasn’t too short of a time to consider a lifelong commitment right? Kaito’d proposed to Aoko after a few months of dating. Of course they’d both been idiot teenagers then. Saguru never told him the story of how he’d ended up getting engaged, but Kaito bet he’d done things properly, dating for at least half a year and figuring out compatibility. Not skipping half a dozen steps and having a rush wedding.

“That’s cohabitation and dating,” Kaito said after what was probably too long of a pause. “And if I asked him to marry me, I don’t know if it’d set off his grief again.” Losing a spouse violently would make marriage a touchy subject.

“If it did, it wouldn’t be for long,” Takumi said with confidence. “He’s gotten a lot happier and healed a lot I think. Didn’t you say something about that when you guys got back from the London trip? Mel was Mel but you’re you, and it’s not replacing anything or something like that?”

Kaito smiled. Yeah, they had had that conversation. And he’d come out of London feeling more secure in their relationship.

Takumi nodded as he saw the smile. “There you go then. He’d probably agree on the spot.”

At that Kaito snorted. “I doubt that.”

“Fine, or stress about it for a bit, have a talk, then say yes. Because he wouldn’t say no.”

“He could.”

“I have eyes, Tou-san.”

Bold words from the kid that didn’t really get romance or interest on a personal level. Kaito slid open the second compartment of the box.

“So you are going to ask him,” Takumi said.

“Maybe.”

Takumi rolled his eyes. “If you’re waiting for some kind of approval from me, just go ahead and ask. He’s practically another parent already and married isn’t any odder than dating.”

“We couldn’t get married in Japan anyway,” Kaito said after a moment. The third part of the puzzle box was giving him problems. None of the panels would shift. Ah, wait, there was a little strip that acted as a key…

“Hakuba-sensei is a British citizen and it’s legal there. And Japan honors foreign marriages even if you can’t marry here. Which you know.” Takumi gave an annoyed sigh. “Also, you know Shiemi would hunt you down if she didn’t get the chance to be in your wedding party. She has a new betting pool how long it will take before one of you asks.”

Kaito almost laughed. Really? They expected them to marry that much? “I’m guessing you paid into it?”

“I’m not telling you anything. That’d skew the results and I’m too fair to do that.”

Kaito did laugh then. Just telling Kaito that there were bets was interfering with how things might turn out.

“So marriage,” Takumi repeated pointedly.

“Maybe,” Kaito said. The final two parts of the box opened in quick succession now that he wasn’t wound up with nerves. Takumi wasn’t uncomfortable with him potentially getting married and he thought Saguru’d say yes.

Kaito reached into his pocket. Was it really a maybe when he’d gone out and bought a ring already?

“Is that what I think it is?” Takumi asked as Kaito slid the ring into the fourth and smallest box compartment.

“Maybe.” He reversed the puzzle, pulled a pressed flower out to put in the third compartment. Reversed it again until he reached the second compartment where he placed tickets to a science conference he’d seen that looked like Saguru would enjoy. Reversed to the first and easiest to find compartment, the box now almost back to how it was initially.

“Tou-san,” Takumi complained when Kaito didn’t add anything else to his statement.

Kaito grinned to himself and put a riddle in the first compartment, one that told of a treasure at the end of the puzzle and clues to how many compartments the box had. And—if Saguru strained at some sideways word meanings—a hint about why Kaito was giving it to him. Kaito slid the compartment shut and re-locked all the bits he’d undone until it looked like a perfectly ordinary decorative box. “So, I was thinking that this could be a Christmas gift.”

Takumi gave him a long look before he sighed. “You want him to figure it out with his mom watching when he reaches the last bit, don’t you?”

“Still just a maybe,” Kaito said, though by this point he wasn’t even convincing himself. Nerves still fluttered in his stomach at the thought of actually doing this, but they were the kind of nerves he used to get before a complex heist. It kind of was a bit like a heist, putting all the pieces in motion and waiting for the payout. He really hoped Saguru was on the same page with this. He should subtly test it as the weeks led toward Christmas to be sure it wouldn’t end badly. But yeah, the idea of Saguru reaching the last compartment while they all had a lazy Christmas morning with Saguru’s parents and Kaito getting on one knee was just… really appealing in more ways than one. He loved every time he still managed to surprise Saguru in some way. He hoped to keep doing it the rest of their lives.

“…I get to be there to record it.”

“Knew I could count on you.”

Takumi snorted and picked up his book. “You didn’t have to check if I was ok with you remarrying you know. It’s your life.”

“And you’re my son and I never want to make you uncomfortable if I can help it,” Kaito countered. “Well, not in that kind of way.”

“I like Hakuba-sensei. You can keep him,” Takumi said, settling back down to continue his readings.

“You know he’s given you permission to use his first name by now.”

“He’s Hakuba-sensei until I graduate,” Takumi said. “Too weird otherwise.”

Kaito snickered. The puzzle box went on a side table. He’d wrap it tonight and hopefully have the courage to give it to Saguru by the time December swung around. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” Takumi said, already half absorbed back into his work.

Kaito closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. In his head, there was a long-stretching future, Saguru by his side. And maybe, just maybe, two hands overlapping with matching rings, revisiting a London sunset.

***

Saguru unwrapped his present to find a box. An intricately carved and beautifully inlaid box that had to have cost quite a bit. Curious, Saguru tugged gently on the top. It didn’t open. Kaito grinned Kid’s signature grin in his direction, so that meant the box had to be more than it appeared. A few cautious presses against carvings and something shifted. “A puzzle box?” Saguru asked.

“Yep,” Kaito said. “Your gift isn’t just the box, but what’s in it too.”

Mum laughed from the other couch. “What a fitting gift for him,” she said.

Takumi grinned too, eerily like Kaito’s smile, and Saguru guessed he knew what the rest of the gift entailed. Color Saguru intrigued.

“You gave me this last so I wouldn’t be playing with it all morning, didn’t you,” Saguru accused.

“Now that most of the gifts are open, you can play with it the whole rest of the day,” Kaito said. He seemed to be enjoying the fuzzy robe Mum and Otou-san got him, all bundled up with the too-sweet cup of cocoa Mum passed around.

Saguru tugged him closer and kissed off the faint chocolate mustache Kaito was developing. “Thank you.”

Kaito kissed back before pulling away. “Have fun. You’ll have to come up with something to store in there.”

Saguru had a few ideas already. He was a sentimental person when it came to the people he loved; he had a few keepsakes that would fit in a small compartment or two. “How many boxes are actually in this box?”

“That’s for you to find out, Guru,” Kaito teased.

Saguru swatted at him absently for the nickname, already testing the box for trick panels.

He was peripherally aware of Mum refreshing everyone’s cocoa and a board game being brought out, but he let himself tune out the rest of his family to contemplate Kaito’s gift. It didn’t take very long to find the first compartment. Inside it was a riddle. Saguru glanced at Kaito and Kaito sent him a mischievous grin.

It wasn’t as complex as some of Kid’s riddles, but he got the feeling Kaito had left out something important in it. ‘Treasure’ was too vague for Kaito’s usual standards. But some of the lines implied permanence and others the passing of time, and all that Saguru was sure of was that there were a total of four things in the box. If he considered the riddle the first, that left three more to find.

Saguru went back to work on the box. Whoever made it, it was subtle work. Finding the seams was difficult, and pieces only moved if they were prodded at just the right angle too.

He slid open the second compartment and found tickets to the upcoming international chemistry conference that was going to take place in Tokyo come February. He’d offhandedly mentioned it a few months ago when he’d spoken to a few people in Hakuba laboratories who hoped to submit some academic papers. He hadn’t realized Kaito’d remembered that or that he’d remembered that Saguru used to go to this sort of thing whenever he could in the past. There were two tickets there, so Saguru could bring Kaito if he wanted and drag him along. Knowing Kaito, he’d probably understand a good deal of what the different research was too.

Touched, he set the compartment to the side and kept going.

The next box was trickier. It took Saguru almost five whole minutes to realize that one of the decorative inlays slid free to act as a key to the next compartment. Inside that was a pressed flower. Saguru recognized it as one left from a bouquet he gave Kaito on their six month dating anniversary. Because Kaito often kept flowers on his person, a lot of people didn’t give him flowers, and he’d been far more touched by the gesture than Saguru had expected. That evening had been particularly romantic and Saguru couldn’t help smiling as he touched the fragile petals.

Kaito’s smile was softer when Saguru caught his eye, a private moment passing between them. He might just keep that compartment reserved for the flower when he closed the box up again.

Saguru didn’t rush the last compartment, taking a moment to marvel at the craftsmanship once again. It took a very particular kind of mind to come up with such a complex puzzle box. Saguru was half tempted to ask Kaito if he’d designed it.

As he released the final lock, he marveled at how small it was. The first and third compartments had been built into the sides of the box, and the second had been part of the base. But the final one was built into what would have been the lid of an ordinary box, a small compartment that needed half a dozen carvings shifted just to reveal it and about as many more to make it pop up enough to pull its lid free. As Saguru lifted the last piece away, he heard movement across the room. It was peripheral awareness though, because at the bottom of the tiny compartment, sitting in a felt-lined nest was a ring.

There was a touch on his knee and Saguru looked up to find Kaito kneeling in front of him. “Kaito?” he asked, not quite daring to believe it was what he thought it was.

Kaito took the box from him and tipped the ring into his palm. His warm, callused hands cupped Saguru’s as Kaito gave him the gentlest, most loving smile Saguru could remember him directing his way. “You know me better than anyone else ever has,” Kaito said, looking him in the eye, “and you had the patience to puzzle me out.” Because Kaito didn’t open up easily. “I didn’t think I’d fall in love again, but you came into my life and filled broken bits of me that I didn’t even know were there. I’ve been happier since I’ve been with you than I have been in over a decade and I can’t see that changing in the future.”

Saguru’s breath caught in his throat, words and thoughts frozen in this moment. There were only Kaito’s warm blue eyes and his hands holding Saguru’s grounding him and holding his whole attention.

“Hakuba Saruru,” Kaito said, “would you tie your future to mine?”

Saguru made a sound in the back of his throat that he couldn’t categorize. He didn’t cry easily, but there were the beginnings of tears prickling at his eyes. He wanted to hold this brilliant man so tight they merged together, or maybe kiss him until they both were light headed from lack of air. Saguru twisted his hands in Kaito’s hold to grip him back. “Yes,” he choked, the word barely making it from his throat with the sudden rush of emotions. “You. Kaito.”

Kaito grinned so wide Saguru’s cheeks hurt just looking at it before he kissed him. Saguru almost missed the feeling of a ring being slid on his finger. Damn it, he loved this man.

From the other side of the room there was a happy, high pitched sound, and Saguru abruptly remembered they had an audience. Mum looked, when Saguru pulled back from the kiss, like it was not only Christmas, but her birthday, anniversary, and New Year’s all lumped together. She looked so happy for him that she might start crying. Saguru’s father only looked deeply amused, content with this turn of events.

Takumi was filming. Saguru covered his face with embarrassment. “I can’t believe you proposed to me on Christmas.”

“Well,” Kaito reasoned, “it’s a very romantic day for Japanese traditions.”

“And just dramatic enough for you,” Saguru said drily. He couldn’t stop smiling though. The ring on his finger was silver-colored instead of gold like his previous ring, and engraved with a simple swirling pattern with the exception of a tiny four leaf clover worked into its center. Saguru had no doubt that it had been custom made, which raised the question of when Kaito had started planning this, and how long he’d been thinking of marriage. It wasn’t that the topic was never mentioned, but it wasn’t something they went on about either. “How long…?”

“Well he bought the box in early October,” Takumi said, apparently now done filming for the moment. “So it’s been at least that long since he decided he was definitely going to propose. Don’t know when he got the ring though.”

“Kaito?”

Kaito flushed, one thumb worrying at the knob of Saguru’s good knee. “I… may have looked into it a bit after our London trip.”

“That long?”

Kaito blushed darker. Saguru rested his forehead against his. “So is this ring part of a pair or…?”

“It’s a set. I, um, wasn’t carrying the second one around with me though,” Kaito said. Which implied he did carry both rings around for at least some period of time.

“You were worried I’d say no?”

“Well we never really tackled the topic head on,” Kaito muttered, hiding his face in Saguru’s knees.

Saguru tugged at him until he looked up and he could pull him into another kiss. Takumi looked like he was torn between finding it cute and the instinctual discomfort of seeing a parent being intimate.

Mum bounced to her feet with a clap of her hands. “I’m breaking out the fruit cake and brandy.”

“Already?” Saguru asked, pulling back from Kaito’s distracting lips.

“It’s time to celebrate! This calls for a drink!”

Kaito started laughing against him and Saguru couldn’t help but laugh too, feeling bright and light inside.

“To the future,” Kaito said when Mum pushed a far-larger-than-necessary glass of brandy into his hands.

“To our future,” Saguru said, with a much smaller and diluted glass—Takumi’s hopefully not brandy at all.

The cheery clink of glasses like bells heralding a happy future. Saguru took a drink to that.

[mikauzoran]

Ask Game: Next on your “to read” list?

No one asked, but I wanted to do these, so… ^.^;

2. What’s next on your ‘to-read’ list? (Fan fiction or otherwise)

Oh, gosh. My “To Read” list is a never-ending monstrosity akin to a hydra. I read one book and three more take its place.

Right now on the non-fanfiction side we have:

- The rest of the Discworld novels (I’m on the tenth one.)

- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

- Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol

- The Devil’s Pool by George Sand (I’m not sure if I’m reading it in English or French yet. I might read in English first and then try it in French.)

- Something by George Eliot (I loved Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda, so I’m hoping to read some of her other work.)

- Ovid’s Metamorphoses

And on the fanfiction side:

- double blind date by @komorebirei (Lovely, why is the title not capitalized? I know it’s a stylistic thing, but...I’m curious as to why. If you knew how long I’ve been wondering about this, you would laugh at me. XD <3)

- Now Get Me Out of Here by @lisatelramor (You don’t know me, but I adore your HakuKai content...at least what I’ve read of it. ^.^; I’m sure I’ll read more in the future. NLTSA was brilliant. Keep being awesome!)

- When Bunnyx Brings a Baby by @funnydoesntlookdruish (You don’t know me, but I really enjoyed The Bravery of Adrien Agreste, and I look forward to more of your work in the future. ^.^)

- Girls Night Out by Squabbler and @lnc2​ (You don’t know me, but every couple months when I feel like reading fanfiction, I know I can go to your bookmarks because you’ve already done the work of finding quality content for me. Thank you.)

- Holiday Kiss Series by @ominousunflower (I’ve been meaning to read this for forever. ^.^;)

Ask Game.

[staybeautifulandbfearless]

BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!💜👌😭🙌 #DemiLovato #NLTSA #TNLT #LOVEHER #PERFECT #demi @ddlovato

[jonasmclovin]

[lisatelramor]

Finally painted those sketches from my fic Not Left To Stand Alone that I was meaning to do. The one of Kaito with a sparkler is from chapter 17 during the post-firework sparkler party at the apartments. (You have no idea how frustrated I am with my drawing abilities because I have an IMAGE in my head so clearly of Saguru just looking at Kaito like a lovestruck fool with Kaito in the glow of the sparkler, but this is as close as I can get with my skill level. Plus sketch cuz I never know if things are better before or after I try to ink and color =_=)

That’s the vague idea of how Shiemi looks, and one of Hiroto, and a soft-happy Saguru :)

[lisatelramor]

In Another World

So for funsies my brain decided it would be hilarious if Robo!Kaito characters met Neighbors!Saguru/Kaito and then this sort of ... happened. It’s probably not going to make a ton of sense without the context of Not Left To Stand Alone or Be a Better Me, but eh. It literally was just playing, posting because someone else might find it funny too.

*

“I told you that wouldn’t work,” Ayato said to the idiots who’d been doing dubious experiments in the basement. He grimaced and rubbed soot off his face. “Ugh. It had to be something exploding, didn’t it?”

“Apologies,” Hakuba said in the stiff, formal tone that Ayato hated. “But according to the calculations, it should have worked.”

“Back to the drawing board,” Kaito-bot said, pinching singed hair between his fingers.

Ugh. They’d been trying to work out a better lasting core for the robot since they had learned that it started to wear at about the five-year mark, and glitch in the half year it took to re-work the original design. That said, neither Kaito, nor Hakuba were actually an engineer. Even with Agasa and Haibara helping, it was still only in prototyping.

Ayato sighed and glanced around. A mess. A mess that looked a lot worse than the mess that had already been down here, plus new scorch marks! What great re-decorating! Not.

“I’m going up to check on the doves,” he said, “while you two make sure nothing is on fire. If you broke any of dad’s things, I’m kicking you in the shin, Hakuba.”

“Oh no, whatever shall I do,” Hakuba said, deadpan like the bastard he often was.

Ayato still didn’t get what Kaito saw in him sometimes.

“Not kicking me?” the robot asked.

“Hell no, I’d break my toes.” Ayato flashed Hakuba a middle finger for his resulting eye roll, and hurried up the secret passage.

Ayato stepped out into a room that was both abnormally dusty, and way less cluttered than the one he left earlier. He’d say his mother dropped in to clean, except the dust was a clear sign no one had been cleaning here in who knew how long. Unless… “Did the explosion knock dust from the whole house?” he muttered. Weird.

Doves. He needed to make sure that hadn’t scared them half to death. They were used to small explosions, but that hadn’t exactly been small, and if Ayato hadn’t been wearing noise canceling headphones to listen to podcasts while commentating on the sad attempts to improve the core, he probably would still have his ears ringing.

He rounded the familiar turns of his house toward the stairs to the patio he kept the dovecote on… and ran into himself.

Not his robot-clone, and not another teen. This one looked like a cheap knock off of his dad, and for a half second, he actually thought Kuroba Toichi came back for the dead with less style and a bad haircut. If Ayato could come back from death, why not his dad at this point?

“What the fuck,” Ayato said.

“Language,” the not-Toichi old-Kaito said. Then, “What the hell.”

“How is that any better?”

“Please tell me I don’t have another illegitimate child running around. I can’t have another child running around. It’s statistically improbable at best.”

“But not impossible?” Ayato asked, with horrified fascination. Then the rest of that sentence hit. “Another illegitimate child?”

“How old are you? Not old enough to be from the same time as the twins—”

“TWINS?”

Old-maybe-Kaito made a face. “Don’t shout. I have a headache already. Now who are you and why are you in my house?”

Ayato let out an indignant sound. “Your house? This is my house!”

“It really isn’t.”

“And who are you? Why are you here?”

“Kuroba Kaito,” the old-Kaito said, apparently actually another Kaito. (How was this Ayato’s life? How many times was he going to run into people with his face??) “And I’m here because I own the place and need to feed my birds.”

“Doves. They’re doves.”

They stared each other down. “And you are…?” old-Kaito asked after a moment.

“Kuroba Kaito,” Ayato said, “now Kuroba Ayato. And I’m going to check on the doves.”

There was another awkward silence as neither of them backed down. The older Kaito sighed. “Well. Either one of us is lying—” He said it in a way that clearly meant you are lying. “—Or something very strange is going on. Akako-level strange.”

Ayato shuddered. “Please don’t bring her up. She’s awful.”

Other-Kaito shrugged. “Not the worst person to deal with once you reach an agreement. And I’m almost convinced you really are a version of me.”

“Why not you another version of me?”

“How old are you?”

“…Twenty-three.”

“I’m older, so I have seniority. …Does Kudo Shinichi mean anything to you?”

“If you mean is he annoying but fun to mess with, yeah. If you mean is he a child too, also yeah. Or he was.”

“Couldn’t cure you?”

That confirmed that Shinichi existed here and had been turned into Conan at some point. And that this Kaito was also in the know with all of that.

“Can’t. It’d probably kill me to try.” Since his previous state had been dead it really wasn’t worth experimenting.

Other-Kaito’s face scrunched like he wanted to know more and at the same time had never wanted anything less. “Right. So, I’m guessing some sort of world-hopping accident occurred.”

“You don’t look surprised.”

“Oh, I definitely am, but plenty of weird things have happened in my life.”

“Same,” Ayato said with a sigh. It seemed no matter the world, Kaito would attract some kind of chaos. Honestly, Ayato should be more shocked at all of this. But maybe he just wasn’t processing yet.

“Kaito,” a familiar voice said as someone entered the room behind the older Kaito, “I thought I heard—oh.”

Ayato stared at what appeared to be an older Hakuba. Hakuba stared back.

Ayato had spent over half a decade spending time with Kudo Shinichi and (more reluctantly) Hakuba Saguru at this point. He’d never call himself a detective, but observation skills had become even more a survival tool than when he’d been moonlighting as a thief. So Ayato couldn’t help but catch on details immediately. Like the cane. The gray in Hakuba’s hair and the crow’s feet around his eyes. Casual clothing that the Hakuba Ayato knew would never be caught dead in. And then there was a ring on his finger. Ayato zeroed in on it, somehow surprised even though his own Hakuba had been in a relationship with the robot and Aoko for over a year now. On impulse, he glanced at Kaito’s hand.

The rings matched.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Excuse me?” old-Hakuba said, somewhere between confused and insulted. Then, “That isn’t Takumi-kun.”

“Nope,” old-Kaito said, hands sliding into his pockets. He moved stiffly, not like a magician should, like he just couldn’t move the way he should, and ah, there was a real possibility he couldn’t… How many injuries did Ayato accumulate even before he died?

“Takumi?”

“My son,” Kaito said easily.

He said ‘illegitimate child’ earlier, so yes, he probably had children, but it was still like taking a smack in the face. “Is this the illegitimate one?”

“Oh, no, he’s the only legitimate one.”

“Of course,” Ayato said faintly. He kind of wanted to know how many children this other Kaito had. On the other hand, he really didn’t want to know, because that meant thinking about an alternate him having had sex. Ugh. “What is with other versions of me wanting to marry Hakuba?”

“This has happened before then?” Kaito said as Hakuba’s narrowed gaze flicked between them.

“Oh, no. Just… Look, did you ever get kidnapped by a crazy scientist who made a robot with your face?”

Both Hakuba and Kaito’s eyes narrowed warily. “Yes,” Kaito said. “But I got free and killed it.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m pretty sure I’d remember tricking a robot into blowing its own brains out,” Kaito said, cold and finite like that ended the whole story. Ayato had already kind of figured there was a difference somewhere around there; robots couldn’t father a child, let alone multiple illegitimate ones.

Hakuba’s eyebrows shot up. “When was this?”

“Mm, back before we met,” Kaito said dismissively. “It’s not important.”

The most defining moment of Ayato’s life, and in another world it was unimportant. That stung.

“In another world,” Ayato said, holding the bitterness in, “you never got away. In another world, there were two robots with Kuroba Kaito’s face, and only one of them knew he wasn’t human.”

“Ah.” The single syllable and carefully neutral expression said old-Kaito understood exactly where this was going. Good, he wouldn’t get senile by age thirty-something. “And what happened to you?”

“It turns out cryogenic stasis is possible under very precise circumstances,” Ayato said. “Also death sucks, stay alive if you can.”

“Kaito?” Hakuba said, two and two making four and a whole new equation.

Kaito sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair, ring a flash of gold on his finger. “So, best guess is that this is an alternate version of myself from a different universe. One that sounds like it diverged with the robot mishap.”

Mishap. Ayato felt a weird curl of resentment.

“An alternate universe,” Hakuba said flatly. “Truly.”

“Isn’t that, such and such Holmes quote applicable here?” Kaito said with a wave of his hand.

“There are far more logical explanations than other universes.”

“And yet here we are.” Old-Kaito shrugged. “I believe him. Is this really any stranger than Akako?”

“Yes. With Koizumi-san, there wasn’t a child-shaped version of you.”

“I’d love to know how that happened,” Kaito said in an aside to Ayato. “I thought only Kudo had to deal with that.”

“Reversing stasis has side effects,” Ayato said, not wanting to go into detail. “Lovely as this all is, I think I should go get my companions.”

“Oh, there’s more of you?”

“Yeah… Let’s just…” Ayato turned back to the hidden passage, acutely aware of Kaito and Hakuba at his back. It felt like Hakuba was trying to dissect him with his eyes alone.

“Fair warning,” Ayato called ahead of him, “something has gone really weird and really wrong.”

“We were kind of figuring that out!” the robot called back.

Hakuba and old-Kaito both twitched even though they had to have some idea who he’d been with.

“How are the doves?” his Kaito asked as Ayato returned to the workroom. There was a space cleared on the table now, streaks of dust left on the corner like no one had been using down here for a while.

“Never got that far,” Ayato admitted. “You should know that there’s—” He watched both Kaito and Hakuba’s eyes go huge as they saw behind him, Kaito’s hand instinctively reaching for a card gun. “…Other versions of us,” Ayato finished.

“A bit of warning would have been nice,” the robot said, eying his older double warily. No surprise since the other times he saw someone with the same face, it had been Ayato dead, and a second robot trying to kill him. A glance showed that other-Kaito looked equally wary. Ugh. Only Ayato was allowed to have the trauma of seeing his own face reflected back at him in a stranger.

“I thought you said you were twenty-three,” other-Kaito said, staring down the robot. His Hakuba looked at his double with something between interest and jealousy. Ah, the cane; whatever it had been caused by, clearly it would have happened by Ayato’s (ugh) Hakuba’s age.

“I am.”

“Then this is…?”

“The non-murderous robot.”

The wariness all but doubled, and both parties tensed. For goodness’s sake.

“Oi,” Ayato said. “As the only one who actually died from robot and scientist encounters, I think I claim the robot trauma card, yeah? Kaito’s a life-stealing metal wreck, but he’s not going to kill anyone any more than I assume you or I would.”

“Does he have arm rockets?”

“…No?” Wait, had the other murder bot had arm rockets?? Why was he only learning this now? “He’s practically human. Even bleeds and needs haircuts. Just with metal bones and a bad habit of breaking.”

“I can’t control the breaking,” Kaito said at the same time the younger Hakuba said, “That’s what we’re attempting to fix.”

“…Right.” Other-Kaito eyed his double. Neither looked happy with this situation. No shit. “So how exactly did two Kaitos and a Saguru end up in my basement room?”

“An unfortunate accident,” Young-Hakuba (Ayato needed a better shorthand. Robot, Mechanic, Kaito, Hakuba. Sure.) said. “An experimental core for Kaito exploded.”

“Injuries?” Hakuba—the old one—asked.

“None besides superficial scratches and some abused eardrums.”

“I see.”

The silence was painfully awkward. They didn’t seem to know how to handle facing other versions of themselves. Ayato glanced at robo-Kaito and raised an eyebrow. If any of them knew how to handle other selves, it was the two of them, even if they both never quite got comfortable with it.

“So,” Ayato said. “This older Kaito has several children and married Hakuba.”

“We’re engaged,” old-Hakuba said at the same time old-Kaito rolled his eyes and said, “I don’t have that many children.”

Robo-Kaito’s face twitched. Was it the ‘married to Hakuba’ bit or the ‘has children’? Both things the robot probably wanted in life eventually.

“Where does Aoko fit into this?” the robot asked.

Raised eyebrows on the other side of things now.

“Aoko… currently isn’t in picture much. We’re working on mending our friendship.”

Friendship. Not romance. “You didn’t marry Aoko?” Ayato asked, because weird taste in men aside, he can’t imagine any version of himself not loving Aoko. He was stuck as a child and still in love with her and even the robot would marry her in a heartbeat.

“Er. Well.” Kaito looked to the side, a tic that was very familiar. Like looking for an escape route. “We’re kind of divorced?”

“You divorced Aoko?” Oh god, it was so much worse in this universe. What was wrong with this Kaito?

“The other way round actually.”

“Aoko divorced you? What the hell did you do to piss her off bad enough for that?” Aoko was, in Ayato’s opinion, one of the most forgiving people he knew. She’d forgiven Kaito for being Kid, forgiven the robot for being a robot, forgiven Ayato for dying and then for being a child and loved him through all of it, all forms of him. She was working on becoming a nurse in part because of how the knowledge intersected with Kaito, Ayato, and the technology Hakuba was investing his life in. Ayato couldn’t imagine a world where she wouldn’t forgive them.

Older Kaito grimaced. “Look. I didn’t mean for things to go the way they did, but things happened so fast and then I was married and had a child and was trying to go to school, raise a baby, work, and be Kid at the same time. The moment to bring it up just… never got there.”

“Oh my god, you had a kid and you never told her about the thief thing.”

“To be fair, we wouldn’t have told her if circumstances hadn’t gone the way they did,” the robot said, all reasonable about it, like it was perfectly believable that it’d happen that way.

“I’d like to think I’d have told her before we’d get married, let alone HAD A CHILD.”

“Look—”

“Excuse me,” the robot’s Hakuba cut in. “Rather than argue over life choices, perhaps we can put our minds toward reversing this?”

“Can’t we just re-do what we just did?” Ayato asked.

“We could try that,” Hakuba said like he was actually talking to a child—it was one of those things Ayato hated, when he got all ‘I know more than you’ at him. “But that, if we can successfully replicate world shifting at all, is more likely to land us in yet another iteration of ourselves rather than return us to our proper world. Another universe might be less kind in its residents.”

“I can’t picture a reality I’d be actually violent with intent to kill,” Ayato said.

“Yes, but sadly, I can picture myself in such a world, and I would rather not meet a murderous version of me,” Hakuba said calmly, like that wasn’t a horrifying thought. Hakuba’s brain harnessed for evil. Noooope. Just as bad if there was an evil Kaito out there. The world would implode or something.

“…Fair enough. I’d pay to see you as a thief though.”

Hakuba, rudely, ignored him to turn to their older counterparts. “I don’t suppose either of you would have any ideas on world-hopping?”

“Koizumi Akako,” both of them said with varying amounts of discomfort on their faces. Weirdly, it was Hakuba who looked the most like he’d bitten into something sour.

“In all honesty, there may be someone else,” old-Hakuba said, “but we don’t have connection to them, nor any knowledge. If Koizumi-san can’t help you, she is also the most likely to know someone who could.”

“At what price though,” old-Kaito said, eyes far away.

Well. That was ominous. But fair enough. Ayato had only met Koizumi the once, and he definitely never wanted to meet her again.

Still, he didn’t want to be in this world too long. “Can we go? I finally have an advanced placement test coming up to let me out of kiddie hell.”

Robo-Kaito and his Hakuba were doing that thing where they communicated with their eyes and micro-expressions. Actually, so were the other pair. Eew. That was one romantic couple thing Ayato was glad he didn’t do. Just use words like everyone else.

“We can go,” Robo-Kaito said finally, “but if the price is too high or she tries anything on us, we’re risking another explosion.”

“That’s fine then,” older Kaito said with a half-shrug. “Maybe show me the schematics and I can see what I can get ahold of just in case.” He grimaced. “I really don’t like having to get in touch with Akako, but she keeps the line open for me, so I guess I can.”

“She does?” Ayato said.

“You’ll see,” Kaito said with another uncomfortable shrug.

Ayato really wasn’t liking this world.

*

It was strange to see a version of himself still so young, Saguru reflected, watching the three men in the back of the car through the rear mirror as Kaito drove them toward Koizumi’s home. The two versions of Kaito squabbled like siblings, arguing over something in the design that they theorized as the part to fail. His younger self watched, amused and loving. He’d recognize himself in love anywhere.

His other self had fallen for Kuroba Kaito’s consciousness in a robot body. The robot—but no, he was more human than not, android—was calmer than he imagined Kaito had been at this age. Twenty-three, or close to seven if Saguru was counting the time he’d existed correctly. At twenty-three, Kaito had to have been contemplating graduate school, if not already in it, raising Takumi, and soon to end up divorced from Aoko… Kaito must have been constantly on the move, always a bit too tired, a bit too ragged as he spent himself up. The android looked healthier.

Perhaps it was because he was not human, or perhaps it was because unlike the Kaito Saguru knew, this younger Kaito had a strong network of support.

Saguru’s younger self looked happy. Saguru had been happy at twenty-three. Mel had been in his life by then and, bad leg aside, he’d been rediscovering things he’d loved in the world that didn’t involve his previous dreams of active detective work.

It sounded like his younger self had all but taken one look at the android Kaito after his true nature was revealed, and made the split-second decision to dedicate his life to him. Saguru was painfully obvious when he found someone he cared for.

His younger self met his eyes in the mirror, a faint smile on his lips that faded as they watched each other. It must be unnerving to strangers to be looked at this way. To be looked at as if eyes could see down to the soul.  It was unnerving for Saguru even though he knew there wasn’t a deeper meaning to it beyond shared curiosity.

“Hey,” the youngest version of Kaito, Ayato said, also meeting Saguru’s eyes in the mirror. “If this Hakuba’s an engineer and robotics expert—”

“And chemist, and surgeon and—” Saguru saw the other Hakuba mutter under his breath.

“—What are you?” Ayato finished.

“A teacher.”

Blank looks all around.

Saguru smirked because it truly was funny to be the shocking one. “A chemistry teacher to be precise. I’ve also taught English and supervised a book club.”

“Who are you?” Ayato said. He was a bit like Kaito without a filter and a less positive outlook. Definitely a lot more childish than his double.

“A man that had to give up most of my detective work due to circumstance,” Saguru said wryly with a pointed lift of his cane.

“Oh… Uh. Is it rude to ask what happened? Just in case?”

“I had my knee shot out shortly before university. After, I had to heal for months, and had physical therapy for long after that; by the time I entered university, I’d given up on ever being as mobile as I was. I consulted sometimes, but ended up in teaching after enjoying tutoring. That said, it sounds as if you’ve moved on toward a field well apart from the policework we intended to grow into. You would have run into the trouble I did by now if you were going to.”

“I see,” the younger Saguru said. “I also consult at times, but learning everything needed to keep Kaito functional and in good repair took over quite a bit of my life…”

“It would do that.” Saguru couldn’t really picture himself in the same position. Perhaps learning a bit of medical information, but not diving head first into engineering something he had no previous knowledge of. “And now you’re dating him.”

“Yes, although it’s a bit more complicated than that…”

“It’s a polyamorous relationship with Aoko as the common point with all of us,” the android-Kaito said.

Kaito twitched, just barely failing to jerk the steering wheel as he looked back at them in the mirror. “You’re in a poly relationship with Aoko?”

“Yes?” The android raised an eyebrow in a way that was channeling Saguru through and through.

“Look, he’s an asexual android, Hakuba’s in love with him and fond of Aoko, Aoko loves all of us, and I still love Aoko even if this body,” Ayato said, and ah, Saguru hadn’t realized he was included in this arrangement. “I don’t want the guy with illegitimate kids running around judging us.”

“…How does that even work?” Kaito asked, the edge of fascinated horror in his voice.

“It’s complicated,” the android said drily. “Very complicated. Like blindfolded juggling.”

“That’s not that hard.”

“But everything is potentially on fire.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. We’re making it work as we go.”

“I believe that is our turn,” Saguru said, cutting into Kaito’s thoughts before they missed their destination.

“Oh. Yeah, thanks.”

Koizumi’s home was unnerving. It looked a bit like something from the Addams Family in all honesty, all Gothic architecture and dark colors. The garden out front clashed with that, a riot of colors and blossoms, though Saguru was certain at least some of those flowers were distinctly poisonous. It was Koizumi, after all.

“You know, I’m glad I never visited my Koizumi’s place,” Ayato said in a tight voice. “You sure she doesn’t have vampires hiding in her draperies or what?”

“No vampires so far as I know, but supposedly she had Lucifer on supernatural speed dial, so take that as you will,” Kaito said with forced cheer. “C’mon. Let’s see if she can get you all home.”

“I wish I could believe you were joking, but I know my own tells too well,” Ayato said, unnerved. His android companion looked less unnerved, but Saguru could chalk that up to him being mortal in a different way than fleshy, easily-broken humans. Or perhaps he had fewer negative associations? But no, the android would have been the one interacting with their Koizumi.

The car slid to a stop beside a walkway framed with weeping cherry trees, trimmed into perfect shape. Everything was a bit too neat and precise, but after knowing Koizumi more in the last few years, it wasn’t surprising that it felt a bit unnatural; it likely wasn’t natural at all.

Kaito led the way up the walk, not looking back to see them follow. He looked a bit like he was steeling himself for an unpleasant walk in a downpour or to clean a terrible mess.

The front door—tall, intimidatingly sharp in its carvings—creaked open, seemingly on its own. Ayato took a step behind his counterpart.

“Kuroba,” Koizumi said, materializing out of the shadows of her foyer. “Hakuba.” Her eyes slid to the rest of the group. “Hakuba, Kuroba, Kuroba. What an interesting group.”

“Akako-hime,” Kaito said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “As you can see we have a bit of a dilemma here. I don’t suppose you would know much about pinpointing exact alternate universes or creating paths to them?”

“That isn’t exactly my specialty,” Koizumi said, a bit of humor in the curve of her lips, “but I can give it a try. Congratulations on the engagement.”

“Do I want to know how you know about that?”

“I keep track of your life even when you’re failing to keep up with mine,” she said waving them inside.

The interior was just as gothic and intimidating as the outside. Saguru eyed the various crystals, portraits, and candelabras with a healthy dose of wariness. Knowing magic was real didn’t mean he knew how it worked, and that was more than enough reason to be careful.

“I wouldn’t touch anything,” he said softly as Ayato reached a hand toward a dangling crystal that caught light in a particularly eye-attracting manner.

Ayato snatched his hand back, something between guilt and irritation flashing across his face before it was covered up with Kuroba’s polite-blank mask. “It’s neat,” Ayato said. “I’ve never seen something like it.”

“Spell arrays,” Koizumi said airily. “Mostly harmless, but not all of them are. My daughters made them.”

Ayato tucked his hands surreptitiously into his pockets.

“Are they here today?” Kaito asked. Saguru had yet to properly meet the twins, though he knew a bit about them through proximity to Kaito. From what he did know, they were far more like Koizumi than Kaito, though they had a similar streak of mischief. If a bit more toward the sadistic side than Kaito had.

Saguru distinctly remembered a story about them driving away one of Koizumi’s suitors that they disliked.

“They are both busy with homework at the moment, but perhaps they will have a moment to spare toward the end of your visit. They’re due seeing you.”

“Do they even want to?” Kaito asked, not troubled by the thought that they wouldn’t want to since he was only ever distantly involved with them at best.

“They find you amusing,” Koizumi said, which wasn’t quite an answer, but coming from her was probably a yes.

The younger Saguru’s eyes flicked back and forth between Koizumi and Kaito. Saguru could see the conclusions being drawn on Kuroba and Ayato’s faces. Horror in differing proportions.

“With Akako?!” Ayato screeched, voice reaching octaves only a young Kuroba, voice not yet settled into its post-puberty range could produce.

Kaito winced and rubbed his ear, even as Koizumi smirked like she’d won something valuable—which Saguru supposed she had, technically. “It really isn’t what you think.”

“Then you aren’t the father?”

“I am but—”

“He’s the sperm donor,” Koizumi said, still with her cat-with-cream smile.

“See, not what you think! No sex involved!” Kaito said, hands palm-out in front of his chest.

“I am with Ayato here,” Kuroba said, side-eying his older self. “Why would you even want to?”

“It was a deal,” Koizumi said lightly, “and I believe we have both done quite well from that. And speaking of deals, you three are going to need to make one for me to even hope of getting you back to your proper dimension. It isn’t the sort of thing that can happen without some sort of sacrifice.”

“We got here in one piece,” Ayato complained.

“Yes, but we gave up energy and a prototype,” the younger Saguru said, thoughtful. “There has to be some sort of energy balance to this sort of thing.”

“It’s magic, not physics.”

“Science and magic aren’t nearly so different as you’d like to think,” Koizumi said. She led them into an elaborate sitting room and perched herself in a wing-backed chair. “Take a seat,” she said with a wave at the velvet sofas that made up a loose circle around an intricate rug. It was all very Victorian feeling. Koizumi seemed to be more interested in aesthetics of a room than continuity of a specific era in her decorating.

Saguru sat beside his Kaito, both of them feeling their age and old injuries on the less than comfortable couches; they looked nice, but they weren’t nearly so soft as they looked. The others grouped together on one couch as well, despite how close it made them sit. Saguru was interested to note that Ayato was physically comfortable enough with the android who had replaced his life to practically sit in his lap. He would have thought there would be more discomfort, but he supposed they must have had a few years to get used to each other.

“Well,” Kuroba asked, leaning comfortably against his Saguru, “I’ll ask. What exactly is this going to cost us, and how likely are we going to be to be able to afford what it will cost to get us home? If you can get us home. We’re not paying with our lives.”

“Learning how you got here can pay for my search for a solution. The actual solution…” Koizumi’s eyes narrowed. “Is unlikely to be cheap. I don’t suppose you’d trade away some of your luck?”

“Considering the fact that luck seems to be the only thing keeping us alive,” Kuroba said with a polite smile, “I won’t be paying that, and neither will Ayato.”

“I can speak for myself.”

“Do you disagree?”

“No,” Ayato said with a huff. “But it’s the principle of things.”

“What else could we trade?” the younger Saguru asked. “I assume they must be things of value to us, or something unique.” He seemed to have accepted the possibility of metaphysical trade immediately, though perhaps after ending up in another world entirely, it was easy enough to believe that that sort of thing was possible.

“There are many things you could trade,” Koizumi said. “One of you could trade the chance to return for the sake of the others, or years of your lives. You could trade away special skills or knowledge. I could take your sight or hearing or voice.”

Ayato shifted uncomfortably. “We’re getting a bit ‘Little Mermaid’ here. None of us is staying behind, or sacrificing years of life. What do we specifically have to give?”

Koizumi narrowed her eyes at him. “…Your futures.” She held up a hand as everyone leaned forward to protest. “Not like that. I meant sacrificing the potential for a future. Your Kaito is a thief and magician, Hakuba is a detective and an engineer. You, who were once Kaito, are also a magician, and could one day reclaim the name you once held.”

At Saguru’s side, he felt Kaito tense. Kaito had given up the chance to be a magician once. He knew that it would be painful to watch another version of himself have to grapple with that kind of choice. Saguru set a hand on Kaito’s knee and Kaito snatched it up in a bruising grip.

There was silence for a long moment before Ayato spoke. “I give up my name,” he said. “Specifically, the name ‘Kaito’. We all know by now that I’m not getting a cure for the little problem I have. So.” He shrugged, looking both uncomfortable and determined. Saguru couldn’t imagine giving up his name. Wasn’t entirely sure what the whole ramifications of that would be. Would Ayato be unable to refer to himself as Kaito? Would he be unable to think it, anyone else to think it? The most alarming thing about Koizumi’s magic was that no one would know the full extent, not even Koizumi, until after the deal was made.

“You’re sure?” the android asked.

“You’re not the worst replacement a guy could have,” Ayato said, rolling his eyes. “And I just said I can’t go back anyway. Why hold onto that name?”

Something passed between them, expressed in eyebrows and slight tilts of lips. It must be odd to look yourself in the face and know this was a different person. Well, no, Saguru knew it was weird. His younger self was right there, and very much not him.

“Then the exchange will be made,” Koizumi said before turning her eyes toward the others.

The younger Saguru’s hands tightened on his lap in a nervous tic Saguru could recognize in his own habits before he’d ended up with other outlets to fiddle with. His own hand tightened a bit on the handle of his cane. “I would be willing to give up,” he started only for Kuroba to put a hand over his mouth.

“No.”

“Kait—” Saguru tried to say around the hand.

“No. You were going to give up being a detective.” Kuroba scowled. “You’ve given up enough of yourself for a lifetime. Don’t give up your passion.”

“I already barely consult these days,” younger Saguru said, prying Kuroba’s hand away. “It isn’t as big of a sacrifice as it could be.”

“You enjoy it though,” Kuroba said. “You gave it up as a career because of me already. Don’t give up on what’s left.”

Saguru met eyes with his younger self and could see the thought that if Saguru could handle being a teacher instead of a detective, he could clearly learn to be content in another field. Being an engineer was certainly more intellectually driving on a day-to-day basis.

Still, his younger self took a moment to reflect, lips pursed. “Would I be able to give a skill?” he asked after a moment.

Koizumi hummed. “If it is worth enough, yes.”

“I have been playing violin since I was eight,” Saguru said, “and it is a hobby that I enjoy and am proficient in, but not one that I couldn’t live without. Is fifteen years of developing a skill enough?”

“Saguru,” Kuroba started to protest.

His Saguru gave him a lifted brow in response. Kuroba trailed off, upset. “It needs to hold value,” Saguru said, patient. “This holds value, but is something I will willingly part with.”

Koizumi tilted her head to the side, eyes slightly unfocused like she was feeling something out none of them could observe. “…Fifteen years should be enough, provided the last exchange is of equal worth. A name weighs a bit more than a hobby. A dream would be higher still. Hopefully combined, all three of your sacrifices will balance enough.”

“That leaves me then,” Kuroba said with a wry twist of his mouth. “I’m not quite sure what to offer here. The base of who I am is stolen from someone else, my body is already in constant decline and repair, and there’s always a chance my mind will fail.” It was chilling how calmly he said it, like these were mere facts of life instead of that he was always a step away from death, or at least death as a machine could manage. “I could offer a skill, but much of my skills are linked to what I am. My memory, my speed and control—they’re a bit above human range. If I traded the excess of those abilities, would I break, then, as its cost?”

Koizumi didn’t answer, waiting him out.

Kuroba sighed. “Something of value. Hm. The greatest things I value are my memories because they’re what makes me Kaito. If I gave some of them up, would that be enough?”

“Wait wait wait,” Ayato cut in. “If you give the wrong memories you could change your personality.”

“One specific memory then,” Kuroba said. There was cold determination in his eyes that Saguru had seen in Kaito before. Resolve to see a thing through. “The first trick our father taught us. The memory of him teaching us it.”

“That’s the moment we first loved magic,” Ayato said, somewhere between pained and horrified.

“Yes,” Kuroba said before giving his younger double a brief smile. “It’s one of our most cherished memories, but it isn’t the only one we have of our dad, and it’s not the only moment we loved magic.”

“But it’s the start.”

“It is.”

“What if,” Ayato said, voice trembling the slightest bit. “What if that’s enough to forget?”

“Then it’s a good thing you have the memory,” Kuroba said. “But I don’t think giving it up will fundamentally change me. Maybe it will change my relationship to magic some, and maybe something with Oyaji will shift. But one memory isn’t going to destroy a foundation of hundreds of other memories, no matter how much it’s treasured.”

Ayato frowned, but he didn’t protest again. Saguru glanced at his Kaito and saw the same hesitant, unhappy expression on his face. It truly must be a cherished memory.

“Would we be able to help pay their fee?” Saguru asked.

Unhappy noises came from Ayato and Kuroba, but the other Saguru looked back at him with clear understanding.

Koizumi closed her eyes, silent for a moment before shaking her head slowly. “I think there needs to be a clear distinction between you, and adding anything of this world into the mix would risk drawing you to theirs.

Damn. Well, better to have tried than not.

“I believe,” Koizumi said, looking to Kuroba, “that your memory will cover the cost. It holds a deeper weight than a single memory should. You tie a lot of your identity to your father, don’t you?”

Kuroba’s lips quirked up. “For good or bad, he’s defined most of our goals and values.”

“Hm. It seems like that should be enough to trade with. It will take me a bit to figure out the exact method of getting you back, though. It isn’t as if I’m going to create another explosion to blast you back.”

“What a relief, we won’t be blown up today,” Ayato said sarcastically. “It’s not like that doesn’t almost happen literally all the time.”

“It happens significantly less if you avoid Kudo,” Kaito said, probably thinking of his own experiences with explosions.

“I see him all the time. That’s not changing anytime soon,” Ayato sighed. “Could really do with less corpses. Like, why? Why are there so many murderers in Tokyo? In Beika in particular? Is he a magnet? Does he have some aura that incites people to murderous frenzies? We can’t go to the beach without a body washing up.”

“They’re friends,” the younger Saguru said blandly.

“Who is his friend? We’re rivals, get it right!”

Kaito snorted and bit his lip when Ayato glared at him. “I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that he’s hot.”

Ayato went bright red. “I’m not—He’s—Kudo is straight! And annoying as hell! He’s a death magnet that thinks he can actually act like a child when he sticks out as much as his cowlick does! He’s a know-it-all with no social skills that thinks he’s being subtle when everyone with eyes knows he’s suspicious as hell as a child! He has terrible taste—”

“They’re definitely friends,” Kuroba said.

“Fuck you.”

“Sorry, not into sex.” Kuroba shot back, perfectly deadpan. “Kudo might be though.”

“Augh!”

“Is this what having a sibling is like?” Kaito said to Saguru under his breath.

“How would I know? I’m also an only child,” Saguru replied.

“What now?” the younger Saguru cut in, talking over Kuroba and Ayato. “Is there a…spell… you need to do or perhaps you merely yank the metaphysical prices from us and we end up home?”

“Oh it is certainly more complicated than that,” Koizumi said with an amused smile on the edge of her lips. “What you’re asking for me to do is to punch a hole in our reality to another specific reality that all three of you can pass through without harm. It’s the second part that is actually difficult. Realities dip in and out of each other’s borders constantly, but it is far harder to hit the correct world in a kaleidoscope of endless possibilities.”

“But you can do it though,” Ayato said.

“I can. I will need a bit of each of your blood though. Or,” she said eying Kuroba, “whatever passes for blood.”

“Does it have to be blood?” Ayato asked, going a bit pale. “Maybe take some of my hair or something?”

“Blood is preferable,” Koizumi said. “It’s tradition for a reason, and blood holds life and ties to its body that will be necessary.”

“Oh. Okay. Great.” Ayato sunk in his seat.

“Apologies,” younger Saguru said. “There’s some blood and medical phobias between the two of them.”

“An understandable thing,” Koizumi said, rising to her feet like some kind of graceful, deadly predator. “Thankfully we’ll only be needing a few drops each. A small cut or a pin prick will do.”

“Oh thank goodness,” Ayato said.

Kuroba huffed a laugh. “A needle is actually less damaging you know.”

“Yeah, but it’s the associations. I’ve had less people come at me with a knife and intent than a needle. And shush, you get freaked out by scalpels.”

Kuroba shrugged, and Saguru both did and didn’t want to know the context. All the more so when his double gave a little flinch.

“If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” Koizumi said, “I have a bit of research to do and then I will get everything we should need set up.”

*

It was interesting, Kaito thought, to see this older Koizumi. The Koizumi Akako he was familiar with was brash, self-absorbed, and had a vicious streak, though she’d occasionally helped him over the years. This Koizumi probably had those negative traits too, but she’d clearly grown up to be a bit less carelessly cruel. He didn’t know from looking at her if she still played with people’s hearts or threatened people, but she was a mother now and maybe that had changed something in her. There was something softer in her than the Koizumi Kaito knew. Either motherhood had settled her in some way, or she was actually fond of his other self in a non-possessive way. As impossible as that felt.

Whatever Koizumi had to do to prepare was taking a while though. They’d been led to a different lounge space by an unsettling butler and had been given refreshments. Kaito didn’t bother trying any of them. His older double might be okay risking it, but Kaito had had one too many love potions slipped into his food over the years to trust anything Koizumi gave him.

He’d have been perfectly comfortable waiting until Koizumi returned. However, a while after they got to the room, they were interrupted by two girls.

Twins, not quite identical though from the way they styled themselves they were trying to appear so. They had Koizumi’s unsettling smile and Kaito’s eyes and cheekbones, though one had more of Koizumi’s bowed lips and the other got Kaito’s thinner ones and a slight dimple on one side of her face. They were objectively pretty, but it was in the way that a cursed china doll looked pretty; a little unnatural and artificial and unsettlingly off.

“Girls,” the older Kaito said, giving them a nod.

The twins looked around the room like they were some fascinating sideshow exhibit. Which kind of fit considering they were iterations of the same people.

“There’s so many of you,” one girl said.

“Someone messed up, huh?” said the other. Then, “That one isn’t another brother, is he?”

“Excuse me?” Ayato yelped. “Heck no!”

“Another alternate,” the older Kaito said. “Has your mother mentioned multiverse theories?”

“No,” the first twin said. “But we’ve seen it in fiction. How did they get here?”

“I hear it involved an explosion.”

“Does that mean there will be another explosion to send them back?” the second twin asked, looking a bit too excited by the thought.

“Akako-hime didn’t mention any explosions, just a bit of blood and a trade.”

“Boring,” the second twin said with a sigh.

“Traditional,” the first said, commiserating.

“Explosions would be more fun.”

“I think we’d rather live to see our own universe again,” Kaito said, drawing two sharp sets of eyes. “But yes, explosions can be fun.”

The twins cocked their heads to the side in eerie synchronization, looking Kaito over in what he thought was true curiosity and not their strange, mirroring act of Koizumi’s unsettling presence. “Something’s different about you,” the first twin said.

“But what?” the other echoed. She darted forward to poke Kaito in the cheek.

Kaito blinked at her. Rude, and surprisingly impulsive. Well, he shouldn’t expect much else from a child with Kaito’s blood and Koizumi’s upbringing.

“It’s not nice to stick your fingers in people’s faces,” the other Kaito said with a sigh.

The one who’d poked him shrugged. “Now I know what someone from another universe feels like.”

Her sister looked like she was considering stepping forward to give poking Kaito a go as well. Thankfully, the older Kaito distracted her.

“Akako-hime said you’re moving on to practical magic?”

The twins turned back to him, though not without another considering look at Kaito’s group like touching all of them would give them some kind of world-explaining knowledge or something. Kaito was half tempted to hold Ayato out like a sacrifice and sneak away with his Saguru while they toyed with their prey. Ayato would probably try to kill him if he did that though.

“We’re past emotional manipulation,” one said, “and have moved on to impacting impulses and thoughts.”

“I’m learning scrying because I’m better at it,” the second said.

There was the first hint of discord between the two as the first sister frowned at her twin. “We’re both learning scrying.”

“And I’m learning it faster. And you’re learning talismans faster.” She shrugged, a practical mirror image of Kaito’s own habitual motion, which was somehow even more unsettling than all the other little ways the girls were trying to be creepy. “There’s no harm in admitting our strengths and weaknesses and covering each other.”

“We don’t have to tell people about them.”

“It’s Kaito-jii.”

Her sister gestures at the group.

A lifted eyebrow and an unimpressed look in response. “Leaving the universe,” she said waving at Kaito, Ayato, and his Saguru. “And soon to be married to Kaito-jii.” A finger pointed rudely at Hakuba who looked resigned rather than offended.

“It’s still the principle of things.” She gave a sniff before turning back to the older Kaito. “Don’t repeat any of that.”

“I won’t breathe a word of it,” he promised.

“Good.” The girls glanced at each other and were back in synch like they hadn’t had a moment of disagreement at all. How unsettling. “Next time you come, bring one of your birds?”

“Why?” older Kaito asked, rightfully uneasy. Kaito had heard his own Koizumi mention sacrifices once or twice.

“Oh, we won’t hurt it,” the other twin said. “We’re looking into familiars and wanted to see if doves qualified. This sort of thing is passed down.”

Against his will, Kaito felt a curl of interest. “What is Koizumi-san’s familiar?”

“Cobras,” the twins said in unison.

Ah. Snakes. How…fitting?

“I’ll bring a dove,” older Kaito said.

They were interrupted by Koizumi at the door. “Girls, I thought I said to wait until later to talk to Kaito.”

The twins turned to her, big, innocent stares on their faces in an instant. Kaito used that face a lot as a child to get candy from unwitting adults. “But when else would we get a chance to see interdimensional travelers?” one said.

“It’s a rare phenomenon,” the other said.

Koizumi rolled her eyes. “You’re both menaces,” she said fondly. “You can observe the spell sending them home so long as you do it from a distance.”

The girls grinned. “Thank you!”

“Shoo,” Koizumi said, waving them out of the room. She huffed exasperatedly as they skipped off. “They get that from you,” she said to older Kaito.

“I don’t know, I think I remember someone literally stalking me at one point, and definitely recall you trying to manipulate situations where we ended up alone.” Older Kaito had a tiny smile on his face, amusement and fondness mingling with remembered stresses.

“Details,” Koizumi said with a dismissive wave.

“Do they really need to see some of my doves or are they trying to get me to lend them a living creature for something sketchy?” he asked.

“It’s sincere. I personally doubt they’ll end up with doves as familiars, but they will probably end up with birds.”

“I’ll bring one next time I visit.”

“You visit so rarely these days,” Koizumi said with a surprisingly sincere pout. “You should have more time in retirement, not less.”

“It’s amazing how much sleep I can catch up on after almost two decades of sleep deprivation.”

“I’ll send you my schedule,” Koizumi said like it was a done deal that Kaito would visit the next time their schedules lined up from Kaito’s eye roll, she was right in that assumption. “Now. The spell. I have it set up, I’ll just need some blood.”

Wow, that sure was a sentence Kaito never wanted to hear again. He shared a grimace with Ayato.

Koizumi pulled out a few small, wickedly-sharp silver knives. “Just a small cut. It doesn’t have to be bigger than a papercut, just enough to bleed a few drops.”

He should be relieved that it wasn’t a scalpel or needle, but Kaito didn’t really want to cut himself on a knife either. At least, he thought as he examined the edge of the one he was handed, it should be fairly painless; something as sharp as this could cut almost before he could feel the pressure.

Just a small cut. That was nothing compared to having his arm vivisected to fix it. It wouldn’t even take as long as Ayato or Saguru’s cuts to heal.

Before he could overthink it anymore, Kaito stuck the tip of the knife into synthetic skin. The feedback was instant pain-pressure awareness. When he pulled the blade back, dark red synthetic blood rose to the surface. Kaito watched it bead, something uncomfortable twisting in his gut.

Koizumi appeared next to him in a flash, a tiny glass vial in her hand. “Just a few drops. Enough to coat the bottom.”

Kaito felt the cut sting and he squeezed around it, forcing the blood to spill over and drip. Four drops to coat the bottom. One more to be sure. He pulled his hand away and the vial was stoppered. Koizumi moved toward Ayato next.

Ayato had made an incision on the heel of his palm. He let blood drip into his vial with a grimace of distaste. Saguru didn’t even hesitate as he nicked the side of his pinkie finger.

“Look at you, avoiding anywhere you’re going to immediately use,” Kaito said.

“One of us has to be sensible, and I would think you both would have been more conscious about preserving your hands.”

“I was saving my fingers,” Ayato said.

“And I have more scars than nerves,” Kaito added. “At least in my hands.”

Saguru winced, poorly hidden guilt on his face even though it wasn’t his fault that Kaito needed repairs so often. Kaito nudged him with his shoulder; he hadn’t meant to make him feel bad. It was a fact that he had less sensation on parts of his hands at this point.

Koizumi held up the vials to the light once they were all stoppered. She examined them like she was looking for impurities or something before giving a satisfied hum. “Wonderful. Now follow me.”

He would think, Kaito mused as Koizumi took them on a meandering route through her mansion, that with how brisk she was being, Koizumi dealt with interdimensional travelers on the regular. Maybe this had happened before for her. Maybe she’d met another version of them, or another of herself, or maybe after summoning Lucifer, the whole alternate reality thing didn’t even raise an eyebrow. Either way, it was surprisingly calming. One of them was at least in control. Yes, it was Koizumi Akako, but Koizumi Akako was knee deep in strange magical bullshit that Kaito did his best to avoid. She really was the only one they could have turned to in this situation.

Kaito couldn’t help thinking that this Koizumi was a lot more cooperative than his own Koizumi would have been. If he’d approached his Koizumi, she’d have tried to place half a dozen spells on him for entering her house let alone asking for favors. Somehow this world’s Kaito had screwed up so badly that he’d alienated Aoko, his closest friend, and become friendly with Koizumi who was about as nice as a viper.

Go figure.

Kaito was so glad for his own reality with Aoko and Saguru at his side and Ayato and Conan running around. Even if he was a robot and not human, he’d lucked out in having so much support and love. From the sound of it, this Kaito had missed out on a lot of that for a long time.

Koizumi led them to a small room with a concrete floor that had been painted with blackboard paint. In the center was a complicated chalk circle full of symbols Kaito only tangentially recognized from alchemic texts while looking for information about stones that granted immortality. Kaito was quite sure this did nothing related to immortality though.

“It’s like a cheap rip off from Fullmetal Alchemist,” he said, knowing it would make her annoyed.

Koizumi frowned. “It’s a far better diagram than anything you’ll find in a manga,” she snapped. “You should feel grateful that I know how to draw this sort of thing. Without my skills you’d probably have to try and blow yourselves up again.”

“We weren’t trying to blow ourselves up,” Ayato muttered.

“Now get in the center,” Koizumi said with an imperious hand wave. “For all we know, the longer you’re here, the greater the chance of destabilizing our universes.”

“Is that likely?” both Sagurus asked at the same time. They looked at each other uncomfortably.

“It’s not exactly a common study,” Koizumi said, “but at least things didn’t implode when you came face to face with other versions of yourself, so that’s one possible catastrophe averted.”

“Yay?” Kaito said.

“Circle,” Koizumi demanded.

They stepped into the circle. Older Kaito and Hakuba watched from the edge of the room. Their bodies were relaxed, but Kaito could see their tells in the edges of their eyes and the way Kaito’s smile was just the slightest bit too stiff to be true. Worry. As touching as it was to be worried about, it didn’t exactly fill him with confidence that this would work.

“Now what?” Ayato asked, crossing his arms and staying carefully away from the lines surrounding them.

“Now,” Koizumi said, bending to place a vial on blood into a little loop in the drawn design, “you say any last words to your alternates before I activate this and send you back.”

“And something will just, what, scoop memories and knowledge from our brains?” Ayato said skeptically.

“It will be like you never had what is missing,” Koizumi said.

“That’s not as reassuring as you meant it to be,” Kaito muttered.

“It will happen the moment the deal is complete,” Kaito’s double said unexpectedly. “It won’t hurt, but you will feel a little like something is missing. That fades. Going forward, you’ll notice changes where the absence of your skill or memory effect little things, but it won’t be jarring for long.”

“Ayato will not be able to use Kaito as his name, nor think of it as his own,” older Hakuba said. “Saguru will have to relearn violin from scratch. Kaito will never access the memory he is giving up again. It doesn’t erase the past. Ayato will remember being Kaito. Saguru will remember learning to play but all the details will likely be gone. Kaito will remember he gave up a memory. At least,” he added, fingers tight around his cane, “that is essentially how things worked for Kaito and myself.”

Good to know that all of them had the poor judgement to make deals with witches. It was a universal constant or something.

“Right,” Kaito said because someone had to. “It was nice meeting you both, but I think there’s a universe missing us.”

“You as well,” Hakuba said with a deep nod. “Best of luck on reaching your goal.”

“Oh. Yeah, did you ever find…?”

“Yes,” his older self said. Both Kaito and Ayato looked at him expectantly. They got an eye roll in return. “You don’t even know if it’s the same stone.”

“It can’t hurt to check.”

Another eye roll before older Kaito pulled out a note pad and started scribbling on it. Dates, numbers, names. “I have no idea what year it is for you, or where this thing is right now, but here’s what I know and which gem it was in my universe. Maybe you’ll get lucky.” He folded it in quick motions before tossing it into the circle.

Kaito caught it and tucked it away into his pocket. “Thank you.”

“Whatever, just don’t die, okay? I came way too close too many times.”

“Anything else?” Koizumi asked, fingernails tapping impatiently on her arm.

“One thing,” older Hakuba said, glancing at his Kaito before looking at them in the circle. “I hope you can have a happy life. It likely doesn’t seem like it now, but you have a future ahead of you, and if you put in the effort to seek it out, you can find joy in the smallest of things.”

“We intend to try for that,” Kaito’s Saguru said with the hint of a smile. He met Kaito’s eyes and Kaito couldn’t wait to be home and drag him and Aoko into a cuddle pile. He was so lucky to have them both.

“I have nothing to say,” Ayato piped up, “except that I want to go home. This universe is weird.”

“Oi, having a brain clone and being turned into a kid is way weirder than growing older.”

“You’re a divorcee with who knows how many children running around,” Ayato snarked. “It’s weird.”

“Anything else?” Koizumi asked again, pointed. “No? Lovely.” Her hands reached out into the air and there was a spark, something red and glowing, and then Kaito didn’t have time for more than a moment of alarm as the array lit up in crimson before his vision went red, then black.

*

When Ayato opened his eyes, they were still in a creepy mansion room. The only difference was that the lights were off, a thick carpet covered the floor, and everything in the room had storage covers over them. Ayato sat up and groaned, feeling a little like something hit him between the eyes. Ow? Ow. Most disconcertingly, it wasn’t purely a physical sensation.

Beside him, Hakuba was starting to stir and his robo-double was completely still.

Hakuba was clearly still alive, so Ayato crawled over to Kaito. The faint stir of breath came from his lips as his lungs kept working, and when Ayato reached for a pulse, he found it, though it was just the slightest tic off. Hmm. Hopefully that was temporary and not a consequence of dimension travel. Ayato didn’t know if Hakuba would be up for heart surgery.

“Oi.” Ayato poked Kaito’s cheek. “Wakey-wakey Sleeping Beauty.”

Kaito’s nose wrinkled slightly. Okay, he was probably going to be fine too.

Ayato got to his feet, swaying the slightest bit as it felt like the blood rushed from his head. Noted, magic had side effects. They were probably still in Koizumi’s home, just in a part she didn’t use. …Or this place currently belonged to someone else and they’d have to sneak out. Ayato turned and kicked Hakuba lightly in the hip. “Hey. Get up.”

Hakuba groaned. A hand shot up to cover his eyes as his teeth bared in a grimace. “My head is killing me,” Hakuba mumbled.

“Same, Hakuba, same.” Ayato glanced around again. He didn’t like how still everything was. How…deep… the shadows were. “Not to rush you or anything, but I have the feeling we shouldn’t stick around here.”

“Of course.” Hakuba rolled to his knees, hissing in pain. “Well. Now I can say I know how it feels to have a decade’s worth of skill-memory ripped from my head while hopping dimensions. It’s a terrible experience; let’s never do it again.”

“Maybe use a bit more care when working with prototypes?”

“Bugger off.” His blindly-groping hands found Kaito’s ankle and quickly followed it up to his chest and neck. “…His heart is off.”

“Damn, I hoped that was just me.”

“We’re alive. If we’re alive, we can find a way to fix it,” Hakuba said with the heaviness of someone who had had to figure out how to fix a great deal of glitches in the last few years. Hakuba opened his eyes into slits and shook Kaito carefully. “Kaito. We need to leave.”

Kaito’s face twitched, brows drawing together. It looked like he could be having a bad dream. More likely, whatever had happened was affecting his synthetic nerves the same as their nervous systems were in haywire.

Ayato could swear the darkness in the corners of the room was expanding. “Oh for frick’s sake.” He shook Kaito hard by the shoulders, ignoring Hakuba’s reprimand. “Up!” he commanded.

Kaito’s eyes opened and his head lolled to one side before he got control of his body. “Did. Did we get struck by lightning or is that just in my head?”

“I didn’t see any lightning,” Ayato said. “But you need to get up. We’re in the same place as before in our universe—hopefully our universe,” he corrected, because they didn’t really have a way of knowing for sure yet, did they? “We need to leave before something tries to curse us or something and make sure we still have a house standing after an explosion that literally sent us to another universe.”

It was clear that something was still glitching in Kaito because it took a moment for him to process the words when usually he was faster than everyone. “Right.” He tried to stand and failed.

Ayato tried to hold him up, but Kaito was made of fricking metal—not too much heavier than human, but he was heavier than Hakuba and Ayato did not have the body to hold up that kind of weight. “Hakuba. A little help?”

Between the two of them, they managed to get Kaito on his feet and moving. Well, more like a drunkenly shuffle than anything else, but Ayato would take it. Nothing ate them on the way out of the mansion. In fact, the whole place had an unnerving abandoned feeling that reminded Ayato of the setting of a horror movie.

Thankfully, they got out in one piece and no one showed up to murder them from the shadows. From there, Hakuba at least had his phone to call for a ride.

Ayato let himself doze as the car took them back toward their homes in Ekoda. In the back of his mind his brain kept skipping over the bit that was missing. I am [Ayato]. I am [Ayato]. I am not Kaito. I am- I am- I am-

He fell asleep to the sound of old J-rock over the radio and Hakuba’s hushed conversation with Kaito, Kaito’s words less slurred already.

*

“Do you think they’re okay?” Saguru asked as they stood before the empty circle. The blinding light of it was still seared into his retinas, leaving him blinking spots from his vision.

“They’ll be fine,” Koizumi said. She collapsed on a nearby box with a groan. “That was taxing. I’m never doing a favor for either of you again.”

“Oh, so the next time we have interdimensional travelers show up we just leave it to them to figure their own way back?” Kaito asked. He didn’t seem to be having the same vision problem Saguru was. Perhaps because he’d had the sense to close his eyes moments before the spell triggered.

“There’d better be no next time,” Koizumi grumbled. “I know your threads of fate are fascinating, Kuroba, but this was strange even for you.”

“Maybe it was my alternate reality self’s luck and not mine, this time?” Kaito shrugged. “Seems like he—they—had a lot stranger time than I did.”

“Truly?” Saguru asked, doubtful.

“One is a robot, one died, came back to life, de-aged, and then they both traveled to this dimension. I’m really thinking they were the weird ones here.”

“Meanwhile you have made repeated deals with a witch, changed how probability and healing affects you, survived more than a decade against people trying to kill you, and found a stone of immortality.” Saguru raised an eyebrow. “Honestly, both of you have strange, improbable lives.”

“I still say a robot and defying-death-via-chibification is weirder,” Kaito said, “but fair enough. All versions of me are fated to have strange lives. And apparently we drag you into it whether you want to be there or not.”

“Oh, we wanted to be there.”

“Can you flirt somewhere else?” Koizumi said tiredly. “Perhaps not in my home? I have a migraine starting and you need to leave.”

Kaito gave her a theatrical bow. “Of course, Akako-hime. We’re eternally grateful for the assistance in getting them home.”

Koizumi rolled her eyes. “Stop. Just go.” One hand came up over her eyes. The other waved imperiously toward the door.

Kaito caught Saguru’s hand and tugged. “We’re going then. I’ll make sure to visit sometime in the future with a dove, yeah?”

Koizumi gave them another tired wave and then they were heading back through the dizzying sprawl of hallways that made up Koizumi’s home.

Saguru half expected to find the twins waiting to ambush them again, but they reached the front door without even spying Koizumi’s unsettling servant.

“So,” Kaito said as they headed back toward the car. “Now what?”

“So now we head back to your family home and tend to the doves properly,” Saguru said, “because we rushed things earlier. And then we can relax like we had intended.”

“We’re going to need to pick up groceries for later, you know.”

Saguru sighed. The last thing he wanted was to deal with crowds and the irritating process of getting groceries. “Can that be put off until tomorrow?”

“You tell me. I thought you were the one that wanted ingredients to make that cake for your mother.”

Saguru pursed his lips. “…a quick stop at the store, doves, then home.”

“Doves, store, home? You’re getting perishables, right?”

“Fine, fine.” Maybe feeding the doves would give him a bit more energy back. It was a peaceful enough activity.

“Hey, Saguru?” Kaito said as they got into the car.

“Hm?”

“What do you think they’re doing now?”

Saguru didn’t have to ask who he meant. If Saguru’s alternate self was anything like him—and he was, that was clear—then he’d be exhausted as well. “Going home,” Saguru said after a moment. “We’re all going home and craving a nap.”

Kaito laughed. “Yeah, that sounds fair. For the record, I’m completely happy to take a nap with you when we get home.”

“And actually sleep?” Saguru joked, though at their age if they ended up in a bed together outside of regular sleeping hours—and honestly most times in those regular hours—it was just to catch up on sleep. They both had a lifetime of letting their heads and goals get the better of their sleep schedule and Kaito especially took advantage of having the opportunity to finally rest.

“Hm, maybe,” Kaito said with a grin. “Maybe not.” He caught Saguru’s hand. “You know I think in every world we must meet and affect each other. Maybe sometimes we’re lovers, and maybe sometimes we’re friends or enemies or something in between. I can’t imagine a world where you didn’t affect my life in some way.”

Saguru fought a blush. Kaito could still make him flustered like he was falling for the first time all over again. “The other versions of me are very lucky to have you then,” Saguru managed after a moment. He had the pleasure of seeing Kaito flush slightly as well. “Ready to go?”

Kaito nodded. “Yeah, let’s hurry so we can get home.”

*

Kaito felt off. That was definitely from the world hopping—technology and magic, it seemed, didn’t coexist perfectly. But the longer they were in this world—hopefully their world, nothing had been off so far—the closer to normal he felt. Ayato drowsed nearby and Saguru had his concentration-face on. Probably already going through things to fix Kaito again. Kaito sighed a little. He always worked too hard and Kaito always had too many glitches.

Kaito leaned his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder. Saguru’s driver pulled onto Kaito’s road. There was his home, and Aoko’s, and the front looked just how they’d left it, complete with one of Agasa’s prototype toys stuck in a bush out front where Ayato had crashed it.

Something in him settled. Home.

When the car rolled to a stop, the front door opened to a concerned Aoko. Kaito felt his heart skip a beat, like it kept doing since they were back, then, remarkably, stabilize. It was like seeing her clicked everything into place, the slight unreality in him fixed by her mere presence. Kaito felt his lips curving to a smile.

“Saguru,” he said, catching Saguru’s hand in his own, the crisscross of careful scars on his fingers contrasting against Saguru’s whole ones. “We’re home.”

Saguru looked up and saw Aoko as well and he smiled. “Aoko.”

“She’s probably worried,” Kaito said under his breath. He clicked off his seatbelt. Undid Ayato’s as Ayato stirred sleepily.

“We did have an explosion,” Saguru reasoned, undoing his own seatbelt.

“Let’s reassure her we’re okay?”

“Are you?”

“Okay?” Kaito tilted his head. He should feel different with a memory missing, but Kaito felt like Kaito. He loved Saguru and Aoko, cared for Ayato like he was the brother neither of them ever had. He loved his birds, his mother, Agasa and Haibara’s contrasting lab presences and even Kudo’s nipping at his heels. He loved making a crowd smile with a trick or making his loved ones smile with the flick of a wrist to reveal a rose. Kaito nodded with a hum. “I’m okay.”

Aoko tugged the car door open before they could reach for the handle and threw herself on them. “Where have you been?! I’ve been worried sick!”

Kaito wrapped arms around her and felt Saguru and Ayato right there with him. Everything condensed into a feeling of correctness he couldn’t explain if he wanted to, hadn’t realized was missing in the other world.

“Sorry we worried you,” he said, “but we’re back now.”

[lisatelramor]

NLTSA Extra: Kaito’s the Romantic

AN: (...and also the perv) This is about as sensual as I’m going in this AU, no smut for this series. Just plenty of suggestive flirtation. 

There was nothing better, Kaito reflected, than being able to lounge around in bed on a weekend morning. Correction. There was nothing better than lazy weekend mornings in bed with a lover. Kaito stretched beneath Saguru’s futon blankets, careful not to wake up the warm body beside him. Saguru slept deeply when he got the chance. He’d sleep through Kaito coming and going too these days, his subconscious at ease with Kaito’s presence in a way that made Kaito want to smile stupidly at Saguru’s sleep-slack face. Kaito on the other hand had trouble sleeping in; decades of living off an average of five hours of sleep left him prone to sleep in short bursts and wake up with the sun even if he’d fallen asleep not long before it came up.

It was easier to get more rest with someone else though. Easier to indulge in the siren call of warm blankets and soft pillows when there was warm bare skin to curl up against.

Kaito ran a hand down Saguru’s bare torso, enjoying the soft skin and sparse hair under his fingertips. Saguru turned a bit toward him, nuzzling closer and Kaito bit his lip to hold in the warm, gooey mess of emotions such a small movement brought up in him. He was becoming a marshmallow. A warm, gooey marshmallow with flittering, overblown romanticism clogging up his brain. It was like the honeymoon phase with Aoko all over again only without the playful arguments or Aoko’s violent morning sickness.

It was just Saguru. Just Saguru with his hair going gray at the temples and frown lines on his forehead and smile lines on his cheeks. Just Saguru, who slept with his mouth open and sometimes drooled, and sometimes kicked if he was having a bad dream. ...Just Saguru that was using Kaito’s chest as a teddy bear with his nose pressed into Kaito’s collarbone. A grown man shouldn’t be cute, but somehow Saguru’d managed to fit into that category a lot lately. None of this had been what Kaito planned, but hell, plans were a thing of the past now that he was retired from Kid. He could have the luxury of falling in love and pursuing it now. He could have these stolen, sunlit weekend mornings and fill up his mind with them.

Saguru made a tiny sound against Kaito’s chest, between a whine and a question. Kaito ran fingers through his hair as sleepy hazel eyes squinted blearily in his general direction.

“Shhh.” Kaito soothed. “It’s barely six-thirty. Go back to sleep.”

“Mm. Bu` y’re up,” Saguru slurred, eyes already drifting shut again.

“Not going anywhere,” Kaito promised.

“Y’re staring,” Saguru mumbled.

“Just watching you sleep.”

“Sta’ker.” Saguru smiled faintly, drifting off again.

Kaito kept petting his hair, an answering smile curling his lips. Cute. It would be kind of nice to just spend the day here, curled up and cozy. Of course the thought of spending a day in bed with Saguru turned to spending a day in bed with Saguru. Kaito bit his lip at the coil of arousal that thought brought up. Plenty of time for the sort of slow, intimate exploration of each other’s bodies that Saguru seemed to be fond of. Also plenty of time to play around like Kaito enjoyed. With more cuddling in between. And talking about whatever popped into their heads and—yeah, his brain was stuck in honeymoon phase.

Sadly neither of them could spend a whole day in bed, and even if they could, they were both closer to forty than twenty with every day that passed, with the need to rest a bit longer than they would have a decade ago. Pity. It was a bit tempting to try to talk Saguru into it regardless. Kaito would save the idea for another day though.

Saguru woke up in stages, tiny movements followed by soft sounds as he tried to get comfortable again. He’d chosen Kaito’s chest as a pillow though, and Kaito could say with full honesty that his chest was not the best pillow. From that bleary, half-awake phase, Saguru went from squinting at sunlight and the curve of Kaito’s shoulder to mostly awake and blinking. On bad days he’d snap awake like a switch being thrown, but today wasn’t one of the bad days. He blinked at Kaito’s chest like he was half surprised to find it under his head before twisting to look at Kaito.

“Morning,” Saguru said, much clearer than earlier.

Kaito craned his neck down to give him a quick kiss. “Good morning.”

Saguru wrinkled his nose slightly—he had a thing about morning breath while Kaito could care less about that kind of thing—but tipped his head up to follow the kiss with a second one. “You were watching me?” he asked.

“You’re cute when you sleep. Like a golden retriever, just less drool.”

Saguru snorted, faintly. “No nightmares?”

“Nope.” Kaito scritched fingers through Saguru’s hair more firmly now that he was awake. Saguru leaned back into the pressure with a pleased hum. “I considered getting up to make breakfast,” Kaito lied, “but I couldn’t make you give up your pillow.”

Saguru poked him in the ribs. “Some pillow.”

“Hey,” Kaito protested, twitching back.

“You’re not ticklish.”

Kaito poked back. “No, I’m not, but how do you like having your ribs poked?”

“Unlike you, I have padding.” Saguru smirked up at him and some part of Kaito’s brain went gooey again. Saguru could never find out he had the power to do that with a smile. He’d abuse it and Kaito would be even more ridiculous than he already felt.

“Is that what we’re calling it,” Kaito said on automatic, tickling Saguru’s side. Unlike Kaito, he was ticklish.

Saguru twitched away with a gasp, and it was easy enough to move with him, pivoting so that it was Kaito draped across Saguru instead of the other way around.  He straddled Saguru’s thighs, leaning over him with a grin, hands at the ready. Saguru eyed him, wary. “Don’t even think about it, Kuroba.” Kaito’s grin stretched wider. “Kaito—” He choked off in helpless laughter as Kaito tickled him. “You—ass—Kai—dammit!”

They rolled off the futon onto the tatami floor, helplessly tangled in blankets as Saguru tried to keep from being tickled and Kaito tried to sneak his fingers wherever he knew would have Saguru squirming. Kaito was still far more flexible than Saguru, and that made squirming free from his attempts to pin him down that much easier. Saguru was gasping for breath and half curled up under Kaito when he tapped the floor in defeat. “I give up!” he gasped. “You win!”

“Oh?” Kaito said, perched on Saguru’s thighs. “What do I win?” Saguru glanced up at him, hair a mess, face red from laughing and bare chest all golden in the morning sunlight. He was a mess. He was beautiful. Kaito had to reign himself in to keep from just going for it and kissing him silly.

“What would you like?” Saguru asked. His hands ran up the back of Kaito’s thighs. Kaito’s breath caught in his chest as those hands squeezed and released. Oho? Maybe Kaito wasn’t the only one thinking dirty thoughts this morning.

Kaito licked his lips. “I can think of a few things.”

“You don’t say,” Saguru drawled, still a little breathless. His eyes were half-lidded and amused. His hands lifted a few centimeters higher and squeezed again, definitely with intent. Saguru looked at Kaito above him like he was something beautiful and enticing and to be consumed. Kaito liked that look. It promised all sorts of fun things and never failed to instantly put his mind in the gutter.

Kaito had to lean down and kiss him, feeling Saguru’s laugh against his lips. He slid higher along Saguru’s body to get a better angle, felt Saguru’s hands settle at his hips and—they flipped and Kaito found himself staring up at a grinning Saguru.

“I win.”

“What?” Saguru leaned back and no, Kaito wanted this to keep going, not stop! “Wait—!”

“I think we’re both awake now,” Saguru said, stretching knowing full well it showed off his shoulders nicely when he did so. “What do you want for breakfast?”

Kaito pouted. “Tease.”

“Kaito, Takumi’s sleeping on the other side of the wall. Let’s not do anything that would traumatize him.”

“He sleeps like a rock on weekends.” Kaito reeled Saguru back in for another kiss. He arched up into Saguru, letting skin brush skin across their torsos. Breath caught in Saguru’s chest. “I know I’m capable of being quiet.”

Saguru narrowed his eyes. “Change of plans. Breakfast can be after a shower.” He pushed himself up, hauling himself to his feet with the help of a chair.

For a second Kaito was sure he’d miscalculated.

Then Saguru glanced over his shoulder. “Care to join me?”

Kaito couldn’t get to his feet fast enough. “Yes.”

Saguru smirked. “Good. Now I think I’m going to have to sit in there because fun as this is, my knee isn’t the happiest with me playing around on it.”

“Sit, stand, I’ll be on my knees either way.”

Kaito caught Saguru when he stumbled, red faced and laughing again. Kaito took a mental picture of it, grinning as his heart beat with the same kind of rush jumping off a building could give. Yeah, only just a bit in love with the man. The bathroom door clicked shut behind them.

[lisatelramor]

NLTSA Extra: Christmas at Aoko’s

Happy Holiday season guys! This is just after the epilogue of NLTSA

It was weird to be sitting in Aoko’s living room with Kaito at his side and Takumi fidgeting with excitement next to a cheap paper Christmas tree that looked like it had been made with a couple of pieces of green cardstock. Considering neither Aoko nor Takumi celebrated the holiday for religious reasons, it was more decoration than he’d expected. The invitation hadn’t been expected either, but it seemed that Takumi had wanted to share their holiday routine since Saguru had invited him and Kaito to pre-Christmas baking as part of Saguru’s routine. When Takumi asked, Saguru hadn’t been able to say no even knowing the high likelihood that it could end in disaster. Yet here they were, sitting in the same room without anyone killing anyone yet.

They’d eaten the odd Japanese tradition of fried chicken and Christmas cake before Takumi tugged them into the living room to exchange gifts.

They’d given Takumi his gifts first, a new lacrosse stick from Aoko, a multi-tool from Kaito, and a novel Saguru had come across that he’d thought Takumi might like. They’d been well-received with smiles, though the whole time Kaito and Aoko had kept glancing at each other like they were waiting for the whole thing to fall apart.

Surprisingly, it seemed they usually gave each other gifts at Christmas as well, even with everything between them, though Kaito had said they were predictable and not always given with the most friendly intent over the years. He’d listed off the exchanges when they’d been out shopping together. Aoko got something floral from Kaito, Kaito almost always got an addition to his clock ‘collection’.

The gift Aoko held out to Kaito was bigger than expected, rectangular instead of the square of an average wall clock box. Kaito took it with a wry smile.

“Let me guess,” Kaito said, slitting open the wrapping paper, “another cl—ock.” It wasn’t a clock, but something roughly shaped like a scrapbook. Kaito looked over at Aoko, shock and gratitude mingling openly in his expression. “I thought you threw this out.”

Aoko shrugged. She couldn’t quite look his direction as she waved a hand. “Someone rescued it from the trash,” she said, waving a hand like it would make the gift mean less. “I just found it when I was cleaning the closet and figured you would get more from it than I would.”

“What is it?” Saguru asked. He leaned over Kaito’s shoulder to see better. Kaito opened up leather binding to reveal photos—high school photos—some of him, some of Aoko, most together. There was even Saguru in the background of some as Kaito flipped through slowly. “When were these even taken?”

“When we graduated—so after you left—a few classmates got together and pooled all the photos they took from high school and made albums for everyone. They gave Aoko and me a shared album since we were all but married by that point.” He paused on a page, the Aoko in the picture blushing and clearly trying to pretend she wasn’t pleased while Kaito grinned at her, something small hidden in his hand. Takumi settled on Kaito’s other side to look too. “They even got me proposing to her.”

“Because you had to be a dork and propose in front of everyone in class,” Aoko grumbled. “It would have been more romantic somewhere else.”

“You were happy enough about it at the time,” Kaito said, sticking his tongue out at her. Aoko rolled her eyes. The next page was Aoko kissing Kaito in front of the whole class, so yes, she must have been happy. Kaito smiled at the photo. “Thank you, Aoko, really.”

Aoko sighed. “Well... If we’re starting over, I figured I might as well give you something you actually wanted this year.”

Kaito laughed. “Makes me feel a bit silly with my gift...”

“Flowers?” she asked, smiling crookedly.

“Flowers,” Kaito agreed. “Although this year...” He walked to where he’d set his gifts, pulling out the orchid he’d carefully bundled to transport it through the cold. “I thought something that lasted might be nice. Instead of cut flowers. And if it’s cared for, it’ll bloom again.” Its blossoms were a delicate, pale pink, two flower stems supported by sticks.

Aoko snorted, taking the pot with a tenderness to her smile that was rarely directed at Kaito these days. “It’s beautiful. And don’t think I missed the metaphor there; care for it and it’ll bloom again.”

“It wasn’t meant to be a metaphor,” Kaito protested, “but sure, that works too.”

At his seat on the floor, Takumi shifted, clearly getting tired of waiting. “Okay,” he said a bit too loud. “I’m really glad you’re not at each other’s throats and we can actually have a decent gift exchange this year, but can I give my gifts now?” His open presents were at his knees but he’d kept a small pile of hand-wrapped gifts at his side, waiting to pass them out.

Aoko rolled her eyes. “Have at it.”

“Here!” Takumi shoved a box toward Kaito, then a bag to Aoko and a rectangular wrapped package at Saguru. “Y’know with how much I’ve been grounded I actually had money to buy gifts this year,” Takumi said with wry humor.

“Do we open them in a particular order?” Kaito joked.

“Just open them!”

Kaito laughed and slit open the paper. Inside was a plain box, but when he opened it up it was full of small trinkets, all Kid memorabilia.

“So,” Takumi said, fiddling with the paper tree nervously, “I figured since you’ve been trying to keep it secret so long and you stopped pretending to be a Kid fan when you married Kaa-san—well, sort of stopped with being a Kid fan—” Saguru vaguely remembered that being something Kaito mentioned as a conflict before their divorce. “—you probably didn’t keep and Kid merchandise and after your farewell heist things kind of exploded for a bit with Kid stuff, so...” Takumi waved a hand at the box. “Shiemi picked the best ones she saw since I was still grounded. I just thought you might like a, er, positive reminder of it now that you retired.”

Kaito lifted a keychain and smiled. “Thank you,” he said. Aoko looked resigned, but surprisingly not upset.  Saguru had a feeling that Kaito was going to add the gifts to the collection of actual Kid items in his secret room. Kaito was slowly transitioning it into something like a museum with records of all his heists and the tricks he’d performed at them.

“Me next I guess,” Aoko said.

She pulled tiny bottles and packets out of the bag one by one until she had what amounted to a home spa kit by her feet.

“I couldn’t afford to get you an actual ticket to a spa,” Takumi said by way of explanation. “So, home spa it is. One day of your choice where you can spend it relaxing and I’ll take care of anything you need or want, okay?”

Aoko snorted, holding up what looked like a face mask. “I’ll hold you to that. I haven’t exactly spent much time relaxing the last few years.”

“All the more reason,” Takumi said. “Now you, Hakuba-sensei,” he said turning to Saguru.

Saguru opened his gift with good humor. A collection of Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes DVDs emerged from the wrapping.

“You mentioned that was your favorite adaptation of Holmes,” Takumi said, more nervous about this than he had been with the other two gifts. “I found someone selling it online and thought you might like it...”

“I do,” Saguru said, touched that Takumi had remembered something said in passing at a literature club meeting. “I haven’t watched them in years.” He’d never had the whole collection either, only a few of the films. These had been remastered and restored with all of the films Rathbone had played Holmes in. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Takumi said, beaming. “Happy Christmas.”

“Happy Christmas, Takumi.”

“Christmas puzzle time!” Kaito announced, pulling a box seemingly out of thin air—Saguru wasn’t sure how he’d manage to hide it, but he must have grabbed it the same time he got Aoko’s gift. “Saguru, you have your tradition, but Takumi and I put a puzzle together every year.” Usually not with Aoko, Saguru guessed, as Kaito turned to her. “Can we take over your table for a while?”

Aoko shrugged. “Have at it. Though you’d better not leave me out.”

Takumi’s face lit up. He snatched the box. “Kitchen table! It has the best lighting!”

Kaito snickered as Takumi ran out of the room. “I got one without a picture on the box this year. It’s a puzzle surprise.”

“Let me guess, it’s something with complex and similar patterns, isn’t it?”

“Abstract,” Kaito confirmed. “It’s going to be an eyestrain.”

“Sounds like something we’ll all enjoy then.”

Aoko laughed at them. “Let’s see, a police inspector, an ex-detective, a man who has put half-destroyed relics back together piece by piece, and a high school student. Who has the advantage here?”

“Takumi of course,” Kaito said. “He hasn’t had half the eye strain as the rest of us.”

Aoko swatted at him cheerfully as they moved to the kitchen.

Takumi popped his head around the corner. “Oh yeah, were there any other gifts left to exchange?”

Saguru glanced at Aoko. He had something small for her, but he and Kaito had decided to forgo gifts in exchange for a trip the next time they both had time. “Just this.” He gave Aoko a small bag with a decorative scented candle.

“Thank you, Hakuba-san.” She gave him back a package of store-bought candies. Black tea flavored.

Saguru smiled. “I didn’t know that they made something like that. Thank you.”

“I’m always amazed what some stores carry.” She grinned at Takumi. “Now we can do the puzzle.”

“Perfect. I call edge pieces,” Takumi said, dumping the box on the table.

Kaito took a moment to join them and so Saguru lingered too, standing in the doorway as Aoko and Takumi bent over puzzle pieces.

“Sorry,” Kaito said, barely a whisper. “It’s just... this is the sort of thing I’ve wished would happen for years and it doesn’t quite feel real yet.”

Saguru caught him in a half hug. “Hopefully there will be many more years of this.”

“Yeah.” Kaito pecked Saguru on the lips and went to join the others at the table.

Aoko raised an eyebrow at Saguru. Saguru blushed. He still got caught off guard by a simple act of affection. Well, more affection in front of people. Thankfully, Aoko just looked amused.

“You get to look for pieces with blue on them, Hakuba-san,” Aoko said.

Saguru took a seat by Kaito and started looking for pieces to put together.

[lisatelramor]

NLTSA Extra: Kid’s Retirement Event

AN: Takes place during the epilogue

“For Kid to retire, he has to retire,” Kaito had said to Aoko. And to Saguru. And to...pretty much everyone in the know to convince them this was a good idea. Sure, he’d given police statements by now as disguised as possible. And the news had picked up on that fact despite attempts to keep it under wraps. He could have let Kid fade into obscurity and be one more unsolved mystery as people wondered if he’d lived or died or fallen off the face of the planet.

After eighteen years it felt more fitting to end it with one last show. One last safe show hopefully, Kaito thought to himself as he finished the last few preparations.

Aoko was not happy about this. Nor were Takumi or Saguru, even though Saguru and Aoko both understood why he needed to do this. Hell, Kudo understood why he needed to do this because Kudo had ended his double life with a spectacle too. It was the only fitting way to end Kid, and Kaito rather thought his father would have approved. Start with a show, end with a show, leave them wondering for years if it was real or not. Save the mystery but make the show’s end clear on a high note.

The 200th heist had not been a high note.

The injuries from his crash had long healed and he’d rehabilitated almost back to where he was before. Not quite all the way, he’d never have quite the same amount of strength in his arm or a leg free of twinges, but aches and pains were par for the course really; he’d abused his body enough over the years that he had no illusions about the hell old age would be one day. His hands had their dexterity, his body was as flexible at thirty-five as it had been at twenty-five because he’d never let it deteriorate (and hadn’t that been a hell of a thing to get back when he could move fully again. Aging hips did not like doing splits anymore.)

This would be it. One last flash-bang for the road to leave them dazzled and seal Kid into urban mythos forever. Kaito’s fingers fiddled with a long line of fuses. He’d always known he’d be glad to retire, but he’d thought he’d feel more reluctance to part from the adrenaline rush and show-high that Kid’s spotlight gave him. But what was waiting for him—another shot at Aoko’s friendship, days not filled with frantic research and information networks, time spent relaxing with his son, future dates with Saguru to spring upon the detective to add spontaneity to his life... God, he wished he’d had a chance to retire sooner.

The fuses clipped into place. He’d light them with a remote button to get the timing just right. Two hundred fireworks for two hundred heists. Tokyo would get a little mid-winter show.

He donned Kid’s hat and monocle before sliding on the gloves. It was an old suit, well mended and not as white as it had once been because some stains never came out no matter how hard he tried, but no one was going to notice that. There was a tremor of nerves running through him that he hadn’t felt in a while but if it was because last time he wore Kid’s suit he’d almost died or because he was dreadfully out of practice at pulling on Kid’s mask, he wasn’t sure. (The former, who was he kidding, or course it was the former.) Mask on, a grinning jester’s face that invited mischief. Check the mic on him, a crackle of soft static in his earpiece, the hidden speakers around his stage silent for a bit longer. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Kid strode to his starting point; enter, stage left.

There had been a note, there’d had to be a note with the copycats that popped up in the last six months, just a time and a place. No riddle, no games. The police had been through their ranks enough that it felt safe to do. That didn’t stop the instinctual part of his brain from a tiny moment of panic as he appeared in the spotlight. That was Kaito though.

Kid felt the weight of eyes on him and grinned wider. His breath fogged the winter air as dozens upon dozens of faces lifted to see him perched on the clock tower. He’d chosen here because it meant something. Because he’d met Aoko here, and saved this tower with a heist, and now he’d end Kid here.

“Ladies and Gentlemen and Officers of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department!” Kid said, voice echoing from his hidden speakers around the open space. He paused to let them yell and shriek his name because his fans knew the real deal when they saw it. “It seems,” he continued, the crowd quieting to listen obediently, “that there have been some rumors of my death over the last few months. Clearly false, as you can see. Despite others’ best efforts, Kid has lived on. Unfortunately,” Kid said with heavy dramatics, “it is time for Kid’s final curtain call.” There was a veritable wave of whispers, a fog of unease rippling through his eager crowd. “All good shows come to an end,” he said gently. Out in the crowd, the police were moving for him. A helicopter was nearby and there was a moment of déjà vu, standing here with a gem in his hand and Kudo staring down the barrel of a gun in his direction. Kudo didn’t have a gun aimed at him tonight, though. “I leave you, beloved audience, dear critics, with one final show, a last finale. No theft tonight, only goodbyes.”

This was where he was most vulnerable, three steps out and up into what appeared to be open air. No shots came. Kaito internally breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thank you for seeing me through the years,” Kid—Kaito—said to the people before him. “I hope that if you think of me, you’ll believe that there is magic in the world.”

A press of the button, police swarming the clock tower, Kid tipping forward into an explosion of doves and mirrored confetti. Above, fireworks exploded into bright, colorful lights, and Kid’s uniform fluttered down to the ground in a heap, empty but for a single calling card with an apology for not returning Pandora.

The final firework exploded in the shape of Kid’s caricature. From his hiding place, Kaito listened to the police climbing through the clock tower and the chaos in the crowd below. Little by little, he pulled Kid’s mask away and let it drop somewhere in his mind. It would be easy to find again if he wanted to, but Kaito didn’t plan on pulling it back out again.

He laughed silently to himself. So. It was over. For real this time. He could live without Kid. It was about damn time.

Later, much later, after the police cleared out and the scent of gunpowder from the fireworks cleared away, Kaito crawled out of his hiding spot and into the clock engine room. He wasn’t terribly surprised that Saguru was there waiting for him, sitting below the mass of gears and workings like he had been there for some time and would comfortably have sat there longer. It was cold as heck even in the engine room.

“You didn’t have to wait,” Kaito said, jumping down to his side.

Saguru caught one of Kaito’s hands, warmed it between his own. “I wanted to be here for you after. How do you feel?”

“Hmm.” Kaito prodded the emotions from the last few hours. “Lighter. I feel like I really could fly if I wanted to.”

“Let’s not test that,” Saguru said, dry humor appreciated. Kaito pulled him to his feet and Saguru came, slowly. They were both getting old, so old, all aches and pains and all the bullshit that came with every year past thirty and living life a bit too harshly.

“You don’t think I could do it?” Kaito teased. He let Saguru balance on him until he had his cane settled.

“Kaito, if anyone could manage to learn to fly, I would believe you could,” Saguru said.

“I’ll pencil in a flight attempt.”

“So long as you come out of it intact.”

“Of course. Naturally I’ll take precautions.”

Saguru shook his head, but he was smiling so that was a win for Kaito.

“It’s really over,” Kaito said, looking at where their hands were clasped together, the scars on his hands somehow all the more noticeable next to Saguru’s.

“Yes.”

Kaito let that sink through him again. It still felt good. He’d need to tell himself that every now and again until eventually he’d believe it inside and out. He tugged Saguru toward the stairs. “I am going to need a lot of new hobbies.”

“The ones from the last few months aren’t enough?”

“You can never have too many hobbies,” Kaito said, only half-joking.

“Maybe we should do a hobby together,” Saguru said.

Kaito grinned to himself. Yeah, he was definitely in love with this man. “Knitting?”

“Not exactly what I was thinking, but...”

“Hmm, playing Go? Birdwatching? Or maybe gardening—but not really the best considering we live in apartments.”

“There’s plenty of time to try things until we find something we both like.”

Which meant Saguru definitely would be sticking around long term. Which meant he saw them together in the future. Which still filled Kaito with a quiet kind of joy he didn’t have words for whenever Saguru did or said something that emphasized it.

Kaito linked his arm with Saguru’s. “All the time in the world.”

[lisatelramor]

Not Left To Stand Alone: Epilogue

AN: Done in the style of the extras more or less ^_^; Thank you to everyone who’s read this and commented/liked/kudos’d it along the way. It’s made working on this story that much more worth it <3

Takumi’s Birthday

The table was filled with people; Takumi had been sure to invite his friends, Aoko and Kurenai from the police force, Chikage, and Saguru on his birthday outing with Kaito. Which could have been a horribly awkward scenario despite how Aoko and Kaito were trying to get along. But Takumi chose a sushi restaurant for his birthday dinner, and Kaito looked like he was having a very quiet meltdown in the corner. Saguru, sitting across from him, discreetly leaned closer.

“Do you need to leave?” Saguru whispered. The rest of the table was having a wonderful time, sharing sushi platters that were coming from Kaito’s tab and generally falling into the celebratory mood. Anywhere else and Kaito would be in the middle of it.

Takumi had made a point of ordering shirasu, tiny whole young anchovies staring from the pieces of sushi more than enough to keep Kaito quiet and picking at his decidedly vegetarian selection in the corner.

“I can’t,” Kaito said, prodding a piece of omelet with his chopsticks. “I have to stay. If I can make it through a day at an aquarium, I can make it through a meal at a sushi place.”

A pair of chopsticks grabbed one of the shirasu pieces and Kaito shuddered. He’d kept his head down as soon as he’d noticed the chef in the corner carefully slicing meat from whole fish.

“Would it help to have your back to the room—”

“I appreciate the concern, but it’s not helping.” Kaito stuffed a piece of inarizushi into his mouth to end the conversation.

Saguru sighed. At the other end of the table, Aoko caught his eye and shrugged. There was no helping Kaito’s phobia. Shiemi also glanced Kaito’s way a few times as the meal went on before leaning over to Takumi to whisper something.

Takumi glanced around and said, “After we should get dessert.”

Kaito’s eyes glazed over a bit like he was seeing something terrible and long in his future.

Takumi looked at Kaito. “At the ice cream place down the street.”

Kaito slumped. “Oh thank goodness.”

“I’m not that mad at you,” Takumi said. He took the last piece of shirasu, removing fish staring at Kaito at any rate.

Saguru reached across the table to pat Kaito’s shoulder. He’d be forgiven eventually. At this point Takumi was mostly seeing how far he could push the boundaries of guilt.

“That better be some good ice cream to make up for this,” Kaito muttered to himself.

Saguru finished off another sushi roll and stayed out of the drama.

 So that’s ALL the Secrets, Right?

Saguru lounged on Kaito’s living room sofa, lukewarm tea in hand as Kaito finished explaining how he’d become Kid at his side. Takumi, who had long since abandoned his own tea, had spent most of the explanation tucked up in the couch across from them with his arms crossed like if it wasn’t a good enough story he’d take personal offense. By the end of it though, he was watching Kaito as intently as Saguru was. It was fascinating to finally hear the whole story instead of just what Kaito had implied and Saguru pieced together.

“Once I knew what I was looking for, that helped some, but it’s pretty clear that knowing you’re looking for a gem that might or might not be mythological doesn’t really narrow things down a lot in the long run.” Kaito shrugged, more relaxed now than he’d been at the start of the explanation. His socked feet were almost in Saguru’s lap as Kaito commandeered the other half of the sofa. “At the time, it seemed like it wouldn’t be too hard. Make a spectacle, draw out the people who killed Oyaji and keep them from getting what they wanted. I didn’t realize how big a group they were then or how hard a gem could be to find.”

“And so Kid stuck around,” Takumi said. He’d hugged a throw pillow to his chest at some point—around when Kaito mentioned being shot at the first time—and he didn’t look like he’d be letting go of it any time soon. “You know it doesn’t really make any of this less crazy, right?”

“I know. But I come by crazy honestly,” Kaito said with a wry smile. He was trying to invite Takumi to smile with him, but they weren’t there yet. “I mean, Oyaji saw Kaa-san when she was a thief and just up and became a thief himself, so they started the crazy.”

“I still can’t believe Obaa-san is a thief.” Takumi grimaced. “Is still kind of a thief. How the heck did I even get born, a family of thieves marrying a family of police officers.”

“Opposites attracts?” Kaito said lightly.

“Or something.” He flicked a glance at Saguru, probably thinking something along the lines that Kaito was predictable in his taste if he went for a detective as well as a police officer. Saguru could admit to the irony of it. “So.” Takumi reached for his tea, took a sip and immediately put it back with a disgusted expression. “Um. That’s all the secrets, right? No more bombshells you’re waiting to drop?”

Kaito opened his mouth, hesitated. “Um.”

Takumi slumped. “What. What did you do?”

Kaito glanced at Saguru. Saguru raised an eyebrow. Even though he was here listening, he was mostly staying out of it. This was Kaito mending bridges, not Saguru having a field day with possibly getting to ask his own questions and have them answered.

“I know you’re dating Hakuba-sensei, and that’s...a little weird still, but that’s not really a secret,” Takumi cut in, misinterpreting the look. “To be honest you guys were already giving off dating vibes so it’s actually less awkward and I’ve mostly gotten over that.”

“No, it’s not about Hakuba.” Kaito ran a hand through his hair, looking up at the ceiling like it had answers written on it. Or maybe wishing it would fall and erase how tense this conversation had been so far. “How do I say this?”

“Please tell me you didn’t kill someone.”

Kaito scowled. “Why do you go straight to that?”

“Because what darker route is there to go?”

“I’ve never killed anyone, for goodness sake. I’ve seen more people die than I’d like, but no, no killing. Do I really seem that capable of murder—don’t answer that. I’d like to keep thinking that I don’t seem that cut-throat.”

“I don’t know what to think of you,” Takumi said. “You hide a lot so...”

“You have sisters,” Kaito said, blurting it out before it could go further down the path of him hypothetically murdering someone. “Two half-sisters. Don’t freak out, it was after Aoko and I were divorced. They’re six years old.”

“What?” Whatever Takumi’d had in mind for further secrets, possible siblings hadn’t been on the list. He stared, something between horror and incredulity on his face. “With who? How?”

Saguru cleared his throat. It was technically still the Kudo family’s secret but with clearing the air... “Three, maybe.”

“Three?” Takumi parroted blankly.

“Three?” Kaito said. “Wha—no. They’d have said.”

“I didn’t confirm it, but...Chikage-san’s eyes.” Saguru met Kaito’s eyes, noting all the little facial details that lined up. Kaito wasn’t exactly like Kudo no matter how close they looked.

“Yukiko-san’s got maybe a quarter—”

“You’d know the timing better than I would.”

Kaito twitched. “That’s... That’s...damn. Probable. What the hell?”

“So I could have three half-siblings,” Takumi cut in, horror rapidly edging toward disgust. “Tou-san, what the hell?”

“Okay, before you get too angry, the twins were IVF babies; I’m just the sperm donor. A...friend wanted a child and asked if I’d be the other half of the genetics.” Saguru snorted. That was one way of putting it. Kaito dug his heel into Saguru’s thigh in retaliation. “And clearly I had no idea of...of a maybe third either, what the heck? How did you notice that if I didn’t?”

“You weren’t looking for it,” Saguru said, patting Kaito’s ankle.

“You were looking to see if I had possible illegitimate children?”

“No, I was looking for answers to a question and that was a possible explanation.”

“Wouldn’t they tell me?”

“Would they have been able to?”

Kaito opened his mouth. Closed it. “Hm. Maybe not at first. But there would have been chances. Were chances.”

“Can we get back to the whole three half-sisters bit?” Takumi hissed. “Seriously, what the hell?” He threw the pillow at Kaito’s head. “Self-control?”

“Oi.” Kaito tossed the pillow back. “I just said that two of those siblings were because a friend asked. The third was... an accident. I don’t go sleeping around left and right, you know that.”

“Apparently I don’t know much, so why not that too! Just because you don’t date doesn’t mean you don’t sleep around!”

“Well I don’t! I’ve been with maybe five people since I got divorced, Takumi, and two of them were men! I didn’t exactly have time or energy to throw myself at people!”

Takumi gestured at Saguru. Saguru raised both hands defensively. “Please leave me out of this portion of the discussion.”

“That was different!” Good lord, Kaito was blushing. Saguru stared. “That was overtures of friendship to bridge a rocky past. Not. Throwing myself at anyone.”

“Wow. So convincing.” Takumi ran his hand through his hair just like Kaito did, his hair a wild mess. “Okay. So do I get to meet them or are they just...out there?”

“The twins aren’t interested in a family relationship,” Kaito said. “That was part of the whole...thing. She didn’t want me involved closely, and I respected that and I’ve met them, and they know who I am, but for now at least they don’t want anything more than that and I’m not going to pressure anyone about that because they’re not obligated to care about a genetic donor.”

Takumi made a face somewhere between a grimace and a scowl. “Okay.”

“The third...”

“You’ve met,” Saguru said, taking pity on them. “Kudo Midori.”

A bunch of expressions flashed across Takumi’s face. Shock, confusion, anger, disbelief. “Tou-san, she’s married.”

“You say that like I went behind her husband’s back!”

“...you didn’t?”

“No!” Kaito threw up his hands. “I respect Kudo! And Ran-san. It was all very open except they didn’t know my real name and face.”

Takumi stared at him for one long moment before smothering a frustrated sound into his hands. “Well I guess that explains everything in why they had no problem taking in Kaitou Kid.”

“We still don’t know for sure that Midori’s mine instead of Kudo’s,” Kaito pointed out.

“But there’s enough chance that I’m just going to...accept that as fact,” Takumi grumbled. “Better than being in denial. Tou-san, Shiemi is going to have words with you later because she’s going to be so disillusioned.”

“Do you have to tell her?”

“Would you rather I talk this through with Kaa-san?” Takumi asked, pointedly.

Kaito paled. “Go ahead. Tell Shiemi.”

“Kaa-san will find out eventually. She always does.”

“Yeah, but I like living.”

“At least you waited until you were divorced,” Takumi muttered. “She doesn’t actually have a reason to be pissed off since you weren’t with her. It’s just shitty that you didn’t take responsibility for them.”

“How?? How could I when one doesn’t want me involved and I didn’t know about the other?”

“Make up for it now?”

Kaito flopped into Saguru’s side, all the tension starting to unfurl as Takumi didn’t out and out explode at Kaito or storm out. “Maybe Kudo wouldn’t mind with Midori. I’ll leave the twins to make their own choices though.”

“You don’t want to be involved?” Takumi asked. That was the sticking point, it seemed. That Kaito wasn’t involved with them, perhaps especially because of how much effort Kaito put in staying involved with Takumi’s life.

“What I want doesn’t matter because that’s not my call.”

“So you do want to.”

Kaito shrugged. “I knew what I was agreeing to.” He sighed. “Kudo’s family is different though. I think I would like to be involved. Maybe as a sort of uncle figure. If they’d let me.”

“...Do you think they’d mind if I got to know Midori-chan more?” Takumi asked, so quietly Saguru almost didn’t hear him.

“I think they wouldn’t say no to a babysitter-slash-brother-figure in their children’s lives,” Kaito said.

“I think I might want that.” Takumi uncurled from his spot on the couch, looking tired. “The heck, I’m an older brother. Younger me would be so jealous.”

“You wanted siblings?” Saguru asked.

“Once upon a time, yeah. That was a long time ago though.” Takumi sighed. “This is so weird. I mean, this is a lot more normal of a shock than finding out your dad’s Japan’s most notorious thief. But still.”

“On the upside, I don’t think there are any more secrets that I can think of that even hold a candle to those.”

“So there are more secrets,” Takumi grumbled. He looked like he was trying to merge with the couch, limp against its cushions.

“If by secrets you mean the kind where you overheard things you weren’t supposed to or didn’t tell people that it was you who borrowed that shirt they were missing and ate the last chocolate in the cupboard, then yes,” Kaito said, “I still have secrets. The ordinary, non-life-changing kind of secrets.”

“Oh. Okay then. I don’t want to know all those kinds of secrets. Not unless they impact me.”

Saguru sipped at his now-cold tea. That could have gone a lot worse.

“So do you have the Kudo’s phone number or should I just show up one day since that’s what they’ve come to expect from our family?” Takumi asked after a few moments.

“I’ll give you their phone number.”

“Cool.” Another pause. “You’d better not have any more random children in the future.”

“I don’t plan on it.”

Saguru patted Kaito’s shoulder. “Now that that is settled, I was thinking we might order in for dinner. Suggestions?”

“Pizza,” Takumi said immediately. “I need something horrible for me to counteract how the world has shifted under my feet again.”

“Pizza’s good,” Kaito said.

Since neither of them seemed inclined to move, Saguru pulled out his phone. “Pizza it is.” This had definitely gone better than anticipated. No screaming, tears, or accusations of betrayal. Takumi was halfway toward accepting it already and hadn’t left the room at any point. Good. They’d figure things out from there. There was no shortage on time so long as Takumi was still giving Kaito a chance.

 Saguru’s Trade

The first time Saguru ran across a random mugging, he didn’t think twice about it; sometimes these things happened, and in this case he was at the right place at the right time to do something about it. He hadn’t even thought twice about disabling the attacker with his cane before calling the police.

Being at the combini as it was being held up less than a week later was...well, not improbable, but it was a bit surprising to run into trouble so soon after the mugging. Saguru’d been in Japan months and these were the most criminal activities he’d run into outside of Kuroba’s shadow organization.

Catching a purse snatcher on the train on his way to work two days later had Saguru feeling suspicious, and by the fourth time he’d called the police that month for an attempted break in across the street, Saguru was sure there was a pattern.

It was like crime illogically was attracted to wherever Saguru was. Or perhaps it was the other way around; Saguru was drawn to wherever the crime was about to occur—it wasn’t as if he ordinarily got meals from the convenience store or took a train an hour later than his usual time.

It was only when Saguru found his face plastered in the news a few days before November for talking down an armed robbery attempt when he and Kuroba happened to stop by the bank that Saguru really started to feel concerned.

“I think I’m cursed,” he said to Kaito, patching up a few scrapes from where one of the robbers had smacked him into a teller station in a moment of desperation. “Is this what Kudo feels all the time running into murders? Because this is unpleasant.”

“Well it definitely resembles Kudo’s brand of luck,” Kaito said, holding bandages at the ready. “When did it start?”

“Hmm, not long after the first wave of arrests following the events at Hiroto’s workplace. It started with finding a slew of lost objects over the course of a week and a half, actually. Or maybe before that?” Saguru hadn’t thought much about finding a purse or wallet on the train to turn into the station staff in hopes of finding its owner before it became a daily occurrence. “Then that got rarer and more criminals started popping up.” It was going steady with at least one crime a week at this rate. Saguru was going to end up on first name basis with the local officers if it continued like this.

“Huh.” Kaito put a bandage over a scrape on Saguru’s arm, tsking over the bruise near his elbow joint. “That’s going to be bad.”

“It will heal,” Saguru said, resigned. He’d had an uptick in bruises and other minor injuries as the crime rate ticked higher as well. An unpleasant correlation, but not exactly surprising. “I’ve never run into cases this often. I mean as a detective, cases appear a lot more often than they would for the average person, but even then I had to actively seek most of them out. This is different.”

“At least you don’t have corpses falling from the sky like Kudo,” Kaito said. They both winced at a recent case Kudo had involving a man who’d fallen from the top of a skyscraper. It hadn’t been a pleasant crime scene. If any crime scene could be considered pleasant.

“I hope there isn’t a ‘yet’ in that statement.” He could do without corpses and bloodshed.

Kaito hummed. “Hey, Saguru, what exactly was your deal with Akako-hime again?”

Saguru froze. “Oh.” The timing would fit, wouldn’t it? He’d traded for Kaito’s safety, traded in metaphysical and impossible—improbable?—levels beyond his comprehension. So far Kaito was unscathed and...and Saguru was having more and more run ins with random criminals while Kaito had none with the organization that he’d screwed over.

“Saguru?” Kaito looked worried now. “What did you trade her? Because it might technically be fair on some cosmic level but that doesn’t mean it won’t screw you over in the process.”

“According to Koizumi-san, I traded...essentially my quiet, unobtrusive life I believe. Her exact words were that I wouldn’t be able to go unnoticed again.”

“Oh.” Kaito looked...sad? Regretful? “You gave away your peace. Why would you...?” Kaito knew exactly how much the spotlight wasn’t comfortable to Saguru these days. And yet Saguru would take having his face in the papers again, take all the random encounters, if it meant Kaito was safe.

“It’s worth it,” Saguru said.

“...I gave up ever becoming a stage magician to her,” Kaito revealed after a moment.

“What did you trade it for?”

“Healing. The healing when I most needed it because I didn’t think I’d live through it otherwise.”

Kaito gave up his dream. He didn’t look regretful though, merely thoughtful.

“I thought being on stage brought too many flashbacks,” Saguru said.

“It does.” Kaito shrugged. “I think part of Akako-hime’s magic works with what’s already there to make things slide into place and costs take effect. I always had a bit of fear and unpleasant memories attached to being onstage. It just...ensured I can’t compartmentalize it or easily overcome it like with everything else. I can’t pursue it because my own brain won’t let me, therefor fulfilling the cost or some bullshit.”

“The path of least resistance.”

“Pretty much.”

“That is good to know.” Still, it was going to be annoying in the long run. How did Kudo stand it?

“Hey, do you think that’s what happened with Kudo?” Kaito mused. “Some deal with a death god or something? Or maybe one of his ancestors made a deal and cursed his whole family line.”

“Or maybe it’s uniquely Kudo.”

“Or that.” Kaito packed the first aid kit away as Saguru put one last bandage on a scrape.

“Now that that mystery is solved,” Saguru said, “let me say that this is going to be inconvenient at best. Why do you think there was a delay?”

“Best bet?” Kaito stood on tip toe to slot the kit on top of the bathroom cupboard. “Most of the cost was going into your effort to help catch the organization. You are less involved with that, the universe starts throwing other problems at you to solve.”

“Very inconvenient,” Saguru muttered again. “I was almost late to work the other day. I probably will be late as this goes on. They’re not going to be very sympathetic in the long run.”

“You’re planning to teach next year right?”

“I was going to. Now I have to wonder if it’s the best idea. Yumi-sensei is planning to return from maternity leave this spring after all. I was planning to apply for the science teacher position opening up, but if this continues they might not even give me a second glance, no matter how many recommendations people put forth.”

“Maybe you could be a substitute teacher? You have the credentials to teach more than English. And it would let you have an irregular schedule.”

“Maybe.” Saguru sighed.

Kuroba nudged him until he could get at Saguru’s back, his skilled hands easing tension from Saguru’s neck and shoulders easily. “”You have time to think about it. And hey, it will even out. There is a point where it will stop getting worse and just be a constant level. It just looks like it hasn’t found it yet.”

“At least I’m not Kudo.” If it were bodies dropping into his life at random, he’d go off in a bad way, surely. A thought occurred. What would happen if his and Kudo’s odd fortunes crossed paths? Would one cancel out the other or would they feed off each other until something truly catastrophic happened? “Kaito, remind me not to spend a good deal of time around Kudo in the future. Or not anywhere in public.”

“Huh.” Kaito paused his massage. His fingers drummed absently on Saguru’s neck. “Yeah, that would be interesting. In that case would it go from theft related things to murder, or would you just end up with a killer thief? Assuming your luck is theft related, it’s too soon to say for sure.”

“So long as it doesn’t end with a death count I believe we can call ourselves lucky.”

 Second Chance

Saguru stood in front of pre-packaged cereals, debating what was a rather dismal and overpriced selection. While he had a craving for bran flakes, nothing in stock matched anything like what he was used to in London, and he was beginning to wonder if satisfying an urge to eat half-soggy carbohydrates swimming in milk was worth the hefty price tag that went with them.

“Is granola that interesting?” a familiar voice said behind him.

Saguru blinked, tearing his eyes away from an odd rendition of Tony the Tiger. “Aoko-san.”

Aoko smiled at him and looked at the cereal selection as well. “There’s so much sugar in these,” she said, picking up a box that had “Sugar Pon” written right across the top. “Kaito used to get that one with the monkey on it—Koko?” She nodded at a box toward the bottom. “Get those when he had an exam because he said the sugar gave him a boost. I always would point out that he’d just end up crashing halfway through, but that didn’t stop him from eating it.” Aoko set the box back with a little shrug. “He’s still a sugar addict so clearly he hasn’t learned. Were you looking for something in particular?”

“Bran flakes,” Saguru said. “Raisin bran, perhaps. Something not sugar coated.” The smiling tiger looked down on him from the box of frosted cornflakes. “I was hoping for something different for breakfasts this week.”

“Hmm, most of what they have here is for children or to put on ice cream,” Aoko said. “There’s a larger store a train stop away that might have them.”

“Thank you,” Saguru said, though he doubted he’d go the extra distance for a whim. Perhaps he would have jam and toast for a change up instead. Or maybe, since Kaito had been making him breakfasts every few days, Saguru should find ingredients for a proper British breakfast and return the favor. It was all a bit more effort than he generally had energy for first thing in the morning though. Saguru eyed the box of chocolate cereal Aoko had pointed out. Or he could get a cereal Kaito liked and endure excess sugar because Kaito would enjoy it.

Beside him, Aoko let out a soft laugh and reached past him. “This is the one Kaito occasionally got when he wasn’t trying to get a sugar high,” she said, guessing Saguru’s train of thought.

“Oh, lovely. That’s marginally less sweet.” It looked like a rip-off of honey Cheerios, in a thick flake form, but that was infinitely preferable to chocolate sugar coma.

“Doing both your and Kaito’s shopping, then?” Aoko asked.

“Not exactly.” They’d been sharing a lot lately, their apartments interchangeable where they ended up, and consequently, a lot of their kitchens’ contents were blurring the lines. Saguru had Kaito’s favorite biscuits in his cupboard and Kaito had managed to find Saguru’s favorite British tea somewhere and had a tin of it tucked in with his own tea selection. “We’ve been sharing breakfast a lot recently.”

Aoko had a small, amused smile on her face. She looked better than the last time they had run into each other shopping here. Calmer. Less like she was skirting the edge of a breakdown and more like life was finally starting to reach a balance. Her hair was pulled back today, showing off earrings that had to be new; she brushed them twice in the last minute like she would a loose strand of hair. It was a nice look for her. Altogether, she looked the most relaxed Saguru had seen her since he returned to Japan.

“It always surprised me that Kaito was capable of cooking when he put his mind to it,” Aoko said, “considering how often he’d bum meals from me in high school. He’s not bad at it though. You look happier.”

Saguru smiled back, a bit self-conscious because so many people had said that lately. He hadn’t realized he looked so unhappy before. “I am happier. The last few months have been nice. You look better as well.”

Aoko snorted. “I’ve finally got a week’s worth of good sleep. Work might be hell with the investigations going on, but it’s amazing how much less stressful it’s been now that Kid retired. Everything else seems so much simpler in comparison.” She grinned suddenly. “Of course it also helps that I’ve been making more time for myself. And to go on a date or two.”

“Did you ask Kurenai-san out or did he ask you?”

“Which do you think?”

“I think that once you decide on something, you do your best to make it happen.”

Aoko laughed. “You’re right. Kintaro’s not pushy enough to ask. But he was more than happy to comply when I said I was interested in dating him. It’s been nice.” Her smile was soft, fond and warm as she thought about her partner. “He’s nice.”

“I’m glad. You deserve to be happy.”

“I don’t know about deserve, but I’m not going to chase this chance away,” she said.

Saguru felt the same way. He was lucky once with Mel and he was lucky again now with Kaito. It was the sort of thing you didn’t take for granted when you found it again.

“Hey,” Aoko said, “would you like to get dinner sometime and catch up?”

They’d missed each other the other times they tried to connect so far, but Saguru was glad for another chance to keep trying. “I’d like that.” If nothing else, they had Takumi and more positive past memories of Kaito to share.

“Great!” Aoko grinned. “I’ll message you later and we can find some time when we’re both free. Right now I’d better finish up shopping.”

“Of course.”

“Oh,” Aoko said, before she took more than a step away, “Kaito also likes kuri dorayaki and persimmon mochi if you were looking for something seasonal. And weirdly corn KitKat, though that’s not really something you could get here.” Her nose scrunched. “He has strange taste sometimes.”

Saguru laughed. That last one wasn’t something he would have expected. “Thank you, Aoko-san.”

Aoko waved the thanks away. “Might as well pass on some of the random things I know about him. More use to you than me. See you later, Hakuba-san.”

Saguru watched her go, light inside. Another chance to be her friend, and perhaps a sign that Aoko’s small steps back toward friendship with Kaito were actually going someplace. He made a mental note of her suggestions before moving on with his shopping. Kaito surprised him often enough; it was nice for a chance to possibly surprise him with something he would like.

 Christmastime

There was a knock on the door. Saguru paused in his teenage bedroom, one more box of his things from London open among many. “Come in!” he said, brushing dust off his hands—this box held Mel’s collection of playbooks for performances he’d been in up through college. It had probably just been dumped into the box, dust and all, and hadn’t been touched otherwise since they’d been put on the living room shelf a decade ago.

Kaito poked his head around the door. “Hey, just checking in. You’re missing out on all the holiday baking. We’re doing gingerbread men right now.”

“Sorry, I just wanted to go through a few things while we were here but...” Saguru waved to the mess of his room. All of the boxes had been moved in there about a month ago when he decided he might be able to go through his old things without feeling like he was either reliving or throwing away memories.

“I get it. I probably still have a box somewhere from when I moved out of Aoko’s house stashed at my mom’s place.” Kaito had a dusting of flour in his hair and a smudge of batter on his cheek. Saguru reached out to brush it off absently.

“Yes, well, I don’t want to put it off indefinitely. It’s just amazing how much stuff you can amass in a decade. I don’t even want to think about how much it cost to ship all of this here instead of leaving it in London to go through later.”

“Do you still have a London home?”

“Technically yes, though I suppose the flat Mel and I shared is probably desperately in need of upkeep by now. I’ve been making payments for it this whole time and someone checks in once a month but....” One more thing that he would need to take care of eventually, though it still wasn’t pressing. He could afford to pay for a flat he didn’t use a bit longer. The boxes in his room were maybe half of what he and Mel had owned so he’d have to go back and clean the rest out eventually.

“We’ll have to go come spring,” Kaito said, hooking him into a hug. “I’ll be moral support while you take care of things.”

“Thank you. I’d like that.” It would be a bit bittersweet, but he would like to show Kaito all the things that had been important to him during his years with Mel. It might not be what was in his life now, but it had been part of most of his adult life. “Now, did Mum kick you out of the kitchen or were you just being nice coming to get me?”

Kaito grinned. “I may have started making some unconventional gingerbread men. Takumi was too, but apparently he can get away with it and I can’t.”

“Naturally,” Saguru said like gingerbread men were a serious thing indeed.

Kaito nudged him with an elbow. “C’mon. Come bake with us. Put that perfectionism to use and made some top-tier, uniform baked goods.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Saguru dusted his hands off again, glancing back at the boxes. He’d found more pictures and a collection of tickets and programs from Mel’s plays. It would be a shame to leave all these in boxes. Maybe he’d take a bit of time and make a scrapbook of them or something. Kaito’s fingers slotted between his in a loose grip. Kaito tilted his head, an invitation to talk if he needed it. Saguru shook his head, smiling. “I’m fine. Just thinking that I should do something to preserve the memories I had rather than leaving everything to molder in boxes.”

“That’s an idea.” Kaito smiled. “I was kind of thinking about doing something similar with Tou-san’s stuff. Maybe write a book about how he did his tricks. To keep in the family of course,” he added.

“Of course.” Kaito, like many magicians, took the methods of his craft very seriously and their secrecy most of all.

“Maybe I’ll do one for Kid too,” Kaito continued. “A scrapbook of all the heists and their coverage with methodology of how we pulled it off... For posterity’s sake.”

Saguru squeezed Kaito’s hand gently and Kaito squeezed back. He’d been a bit lost without Kid in his life, but he seemed to be finding himself lately. He’d been doing small performances at parks on weekends, rediscovering his love for being a magician. Kaito didn’t talk about it much, but with each new wave of arrests trickling in through their police contacts, he relaxed a bit more. One day he might actually feel safe again.

Aoko was on her way to a promotion lately between leading internal investigations and the positions opening up when corruption was found. Meanwhile Chikage seemed to be done traveling for the moment now that her goal of exposing the global level of the organization had been completed. There was a woman living with her who Saguru swore he remembered from a movie. Whoever she was, she made Kudo incredibly uncomfortable. Saguru hadn’t been able to get the story from him yet, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

And Mel’s case was officially closed. With the documents Hiroto had found, they’d been able to track down the assassin and arrest him and quite a few others. There were still months of work left for the police, but for Saguru at least, everything he had hoped for had been reached. It was the closest he’d been to at peace in over a year.

Kaito tugged on their joined hands, pulling him toward the door. “Come on. Mum said we’re going to be decorating the Christmas cake next.”

“Oh dear.” That always meant the alcohol was going to come out and that baking was going to get significantly sloppier from there. He’d already decided that Mum’s Christmas cake was the only deviation from not allowing himself anything alcoholic that he would make, and even then it was more of an...acquired taste for people who hadn’t grown up with it.

“What all goes into a British Christmas cake anyway?”

“It’s nothing like the ones you have in Japan, that’s for sure. It’s a fruitcake for one, and a heavily alcoholic one at that.”

“You give that to children?”

“Not usually? Depends on the parents. I think we had sticky toffee pudding more when I was young, but Mum likes fruitcake and the alcohol bit was excused once I was a teenager.”

“Huh. Sounds different.”

“If you don’t like it, we won’t be offended.”

Kuroba shrugged. “Well, it’s rare I’ve met a drink I didn’t like, why not a cake?”

In the kitchen, Mum was making marzipan, the cake tin already opened up on one counter and most of the rest of the available flat surfaces covered with bowls of colored icing and armies of gingerbread men and tree-shaped biscuits. Takumi was squeezing blue icing on a small army of gingerbread men that were shaped suspiciously like Kaitou Kid. Mum had to behind that. They were too uniformly shaped to not be from a special pastry-cutter.

Surprisingly, Otou-san was there too, patiently decorating trees. It felt a bit surreal as he’d never been a part of Saguru and Mum’s baking rituals growing up, but maybe it was a recent thing since Mum moved in with him; the years she spent the holiday in Japan, Saguru hadn’t been there to bake with her.

“Good, you found him,” Mum said. “Saguru, wash up and give me a hand mixing up the frosting for the cake while I finish up the marzipan.”

Saguru obediently got to work.

“Question,” Takumi said as he watched Mum pause in her work to dribble a bit more brandy over the cake. “Do I get to have any of this cake?”

“That’s up to your father,” Mum said, plopping the marzipan onto the counter to roll.

“A small slice,” Kaito said. “And maybe one to take to your mother.”

“Cool.” Takumi held up one of the Kid biscuits. “So, what do you think? Did I get a good likeness?”

Kid’s caricature grin took up most of the head with a jaunty white-icing hat. Its hands had tiny dollops of icing in gem-bright colors like Kid had stolen the contents of someone’s jewelry box and made off into the night.

“Very funny,” Kaito said. He held up one of the ones he’d done earlier. It also had a caricature face, but it was much more precise and detailed. “I think mine has more dignity.”

“What dignity? Kid runs around in a suit like he was rejected from a wedding magazine.”

“You’re thinking of Tuxedo Mask.”

“Tuxedo Mask, Kaitou Kid, same difference.”

Kaito stuck out his tongue. Takumi stuck his out in return and deliberately drew a ridiculous face on the next one. Saguru’s father was clearly pretending he wasn’t hearing anything, as he had whenever Kid came up. Saguru loved his family.

“Both are all well and good,” Saguru said, joining in the spirit of it, “but they’re both a bit lacking in holiday cheer.” He took a bag of icing and decorated a Kid of his own. This wasn’t something he did often, but...it seemed he still had the touch. His Kid got a tiny sprig of holly in his hat, a red and green tie, and candy-cane striping for the hat band. As an afterthought, he added a white Father Christmas beard to the mix. “There, now this is a holiday Kid.”

“Now that just looks silly,” Kaito said.

“That’s the point.”

Takumi snickered. “Ok, if you made the suit red....”

“Nooooo,” Kaito groaned, “that would look even weirder. It’s not even Kid then.”

Takumi looked his father in the eye and squeezed a glob of red icing onto the next Kid-shaped biscuit.

“Saguru?” Mum said. He hurried over to help her lift the marzipan into place. She smoothed it with a practiced hand and gave him the bowl of icing. “Just between you and me,” she said, “I went a bit lighter on the brandy this year. Since we will be having a minor eat some.”

“I’m sure it’s appreciated.”

“And if anyone wants more alcohol it’s not like we don’t have more,” Mum said pragmatically. “It’s worth the good peach brandy.”

Saguru snorted; Mum did love an excuse to bring out good alcohol. While Saguru spread icing on the cake, Mum took the time to roll marzipan scraps into tiny shapes—cardinals that she would paint red, and a snowman that Saguru would add icing to, to make it more convincingly snowy. Mum hummed as she worked, Christmas carols that they both knew the tune for but always mixed up the words.

Saguru hummed along with her out of habit; the number of times they’d done this together had him falling into the pattern easily enough. Part of him half expected Mel to come out of nowhere with a tin of his grandmother’s toffee and singing the words to the songs Saguru and Mum never remembered. It was a bittersweet feeling, a mix of nostalgia and regret despite the warmth of the room and the people filling it, but when Kaito’s voice joined theirs, actually singing in smooth, practiced English, the feeling melted away.

Kaito grinned cheekily when Saguru looked his way. There was a smear of blue icing on his cheek and Takumi looked like he was recreating the Grinch story with Kid-shaped ginger biscuits hoarding all the gift shaped ones beside him. “I only know a few songs,” Kaito said when he finished to Mum’s applause. “So don’t expect me to sing that many.”

“I’m surprised you memorized any English Christmas songs at all.”

“Well they do play everywhere, even in Japan this time of year.”

Fair point.

“I should have put on music,” Mum said. “Then we could sing along.”

She always said that and they never remembered, too caught up in baking and making to think to put something on.

Takumi held up his phone. “I have you covered.”

Music filled the room and they went back to finishing their tasks. It wasn’t the same as years before; there was no Mel and Otou-san was there and there were more people. But it was just as warm and Saguru knew that this too would become a tradition. It was nice.

When Kaito pulled him away from smoothing the icing one last time to dance around the room just because they could, Saguru went with a laugh.

[lisatelramor]

NLTSA Extra: Get a Knee Replacement, Saguru

Saguru leaned into a kiss, letting Kaito lead him down onto the couch in Kaito’s living room. The kiss tasted a bit like the wine Kaito had been drinking earlier during their dinner out with Mum and Otou-san, and it was the perfect ending to a pleasant evening out. He laughed as Kaito broke the kiss to flop on top of him, all warm, muscled weight keeping him comfortably pinned. “The wine going to your head?”

“Mm, or something,” Kaito said, rubbing his face against Saguru’s shoulder like a cat. Saguru rubbed fingers along his scalp and Kaito hummed appreciatively.

“Going to fall asleep on me?” Saguru teased.

Kaito turned and bit Saguru’s thumb lightly, grinning around it as Saguru’s breath caught in his throat. “Not so sleepy, no,” Kaito said, letting go. “But I do have a question.”

“Oh?”

Kaito propped himself on Saguru’s chest and tapped Saguru’s bad knee gently. Saguru bent the leg automatically, blinking when Kaito’s tap became a brush of thumb against his tibia. “Your knee...”

“Yes?” Saguru asked, an unpleasant feeling he knew where this was going.

“You never got a knee replacement even though doctors recommended it.”

The mood building between them dissipated as Saguru let his head thump back against the cushions. “Really? Did my parents put you up to this?”

“No,” Kaito said, still rubbing right below Saguru’s knee where he knew it eased the ache in the joint. “I just have been looking into things lately. Like the fact that you could get almost perfect mobility back if you got the surgery. Now, how bad your hips are from all the years of compensating I don’t know, but...”

“You just happen to wait until an evening Otou-san brings the matter up to pull this out,” Saguru said flatly.

“Is there a better time?”

“I could think of plenty. Like not when we’re in the middle of an intimate moment.”

“But it’s an intimate question,” Kaito said, leaning down to kiss the tip of Saguru’s nose.

Saguru sputtered, staring cross-eyed up at him.

Kaito followed it with other light kisses and Saguru tried not to melt under the assault.

“Kaito...”

“You never said why,” Kaito murmured against his throat between kisses, “you didn’t get the surgery done.”

“It was never a good time,” Saguru said.

“There’s never a good time,” Kaito said. He scraped teeth below Saguru’s earlobe.

Saguru squeezed his eyes shut. Unfortunately, that just made everything feel more acutely. “Are you trying to seduce me into getting knee surgery?”

“Would that work?” Kaito asked, teasing. Saguru scowled at him. Kaito, entirely ignoring his ire, kissed him on the forehead. “I just want a full answer,” he said. “And ‘not a good time’—“ He kissed Saguru on the mouth and Saguru let him, albeit a bit irritated at how easy it was to get caught up in Kaito’s touches. “—isn’t a full answer,” Kaito finished, lips brushing against Saguru’s with the words.

Damn it all. Saguru couldn’t not answer when Kaito was like this, all affectionate and concerned and just the edge of something more sensual. “It’s... it’s stupid.”

“It can’t be that stupid; this is you we’re talking about. Now if it were me...”

Saguru swatted his shoulder lightly and Kaito laughed. “I’m afraid to get the surgery done,” Saguru admitted. “Part of me is convinced that it will get infected again and I’ll lose my leg. It might not be the most reliable leg, but I’d rather have it than not, pain and all.”

Kaito gave him another light kiss. “Not stupid. That’s a perfectly reasonable thing to be afraid of, considering.”

“But you think it’s worth the risk to have a usable knee again.”

“If it were my body, yes, definitely,” Kaito said. “But I can see why you wouldn’t if that’s where you’re coming from.”

Saguru sighed. This had been brought up time after time by people in his life and he did understand why. He just had a mental block on following through and while he knew it was mostly fear, there was that itch in the back of his mind spouting statistics and comparing them to the chance of an infection the first time. “I’ll think about it,” he said, meaning it. Maybe it was time to weigh it all in his mind again and decide whether he would try his chances or not. He’d lived through a lot more terrifying things in the last two years than the possibility of a surgery going wrong.

“I won’t ask anything more than that,” Kaito said. He smiled and Saguru smiled back, not as happier as earlier but still genuine. “I know I kind of ruined the mood, but...” Kaito’s nose brushed against Saguru’s and he pressed a bit more firmly between Saguru’s legs.

Saguru felt breathless all over again. “I am entirely willing to rewind the mood of the last few minutes,” he said, holding on to Kaito’s hips like a lifeline.

He felt Kaito’s Kid-like grin against his lips. “Perfect.”

Aaaand then it takes Kaito like 2 more years before Saguru finally decides, yes, yes it would be worth it to get a knee replacement. Because Saguru’s stubborn and nervous about this and Kaito’s persistent and just keeps bringing the topic up in ‘let’s discuss why or why not’ without being too pressure-y and basically works Saguru around to acceptance of the idea.

[lisatelramor]

NLTSA Extra: Babysitting with Takumi

Takumi had been half-joking when he said he would babysit for the Kudos to get to know his maybe-sister. But he’d been half-serious at the time too, and now here he was. Alone. With two children. On a Saturday. Their parents wouldn’t be home until Sunday afternoon and of course this had to be a weekend that his dad and Hakuba were off on a kind of sort of romantic getaway too (did it count as a romantic getaway when they initially went away for a case?). Either way, Takumi didn’t actually spend much time with children. Ever. What had made him think this was a good idea again?

Two wide-eyed little girls stared back at him, either one of them looking like they could be a blood relative.

Right. Family. Maybe family. Family was important even if it was family that might not be family, or maybe just family in the adopted sideways kind of way.

“So... What do you want to do?” Takumi asked, wondering what the heck babysitters were supposed to do besides make sure children were alive and well and not setting things on fire while their parents were elsewhere.

“Usually we play games and eat dinner and maybe watch a movie or something before bed,” Hanae said. “When Ayumi-neesan is over we sometimes do girl stuff. Mitsuhiko-niisan only ever wants to watch documentaries or play trivia games, and Genta-niisan sometimes shows us how to bake.”

That was three babysitters right there; the Kudos probably had a whole bunch of other people they could have entrusted their daughters to but they’d decided to let Takumi watch them. Oh crap, he was responsible for two little kids.

“Are you okay?” Hanae asked.

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“No, I’m good. Really. You didn’t say what you wanted to do?”

Hanae and Midori exchanged a look like they could read each other’s minds. Was it a sibling thing? They’d done something similar when they dragged him to play with them when he last spent time with them, so maybe it was a sibling thing.

“What do you wanna do, Takumi-niisan?” Midori asked.

What would Tou-san do at a time like this? Break out story books and magic tricks and a spur of the moment adventure game? Or what would Shiemi do? ...Pull out a pack of cards and teach them poker? Heck, cards weren’t a bad idea... “Want to play Go Fish?” He pulled a pack of cards from a pocket with as much flair as he could manage. It wasn’t his dad’s level of showmanship, but it should impress a couple of kids.

Midori looked excited. Hanae didn’t seem impressed, but then she was a bit older than her sister.

“Are you a magician like Kid-san?” Midori asked.

“Uh.”

“Of course he is, Midori,” Hanae said. “That’s how it works. Like Tou-san teaching us detective stuff and Kaa-san teaching self-defense.”

“Um!” Did they know his dad was Kid?

“Relax,” Hanae said, “we keep secrets. Right Midori?”

Midori nodded. “No one can know we know Kid-san. But that’s okay because he’s cool.”

“Tou-san’s better,” Hanae said. “But Kid’s not too bad.” She glanced sideways at Takumi. “Adults don’t notice you listening if you pretend not to know they’re talking.”

Takumi was uncomfortably reminded of the times he and Shiemi snuck downstairs to listen to adults talk in the kitchen after bedtime growing up. He swallowed. “Yeah, adults do that sometimes. Um. Maybe don’t mention you know I’m related to Kid?”

Hanae rolled her eyes. “We’re not stupid.” She grabbed his arm. “C’mon, we can play cards in the kitchen.”

“Do you know any card tricks?” Midori asked as Hanae dragged him down the hall.

“Some?”

“Can you teach me?”

“Maybe?”

“Teach her later, I want to play cards,” Hanae said.

And so that was how Takumi found himself in the Kudos’ kitchen playing Go Fish for the next half hour. Midori won the first two rounds and Hanae won the third, and Takumi wasn’t really trying to win and the girls clearly noticed because after the third round, Midori demanded he show her a card trick and it devolved from there.

It was hard to teach a child how to palm a card when the card was bigger than her hand. Stacking a deck was a little more successful and Midori was engaged in trying to get a simple trick to work, but Hanae was clearly bored with it all.

“I don’t get what’s so fun about it when it’s such a simple trick,” Hanae said as Midori tried to get it right for the eighth time. “Once you know how it’s done you can mess it up, and it’s not that awe inspiring anyway.”

Takumi had never met a child so utterly disillusioned with sleight of hand. It was annoying because he’d practiced hard to get the skills he had and his dad had taught him every trick he knew. And that was his family legacy she was looking down on. Takumi pulled a second deck from another pocket, bridging the cards between his hands in a showy flutter that would have made his dad proud. “Okay, there are flaws in that argument. One, the trick she’s learning really is basic. Of course it’s simple, it’s one of the first tricks you learn when you’re getting hang on working with the cards.” He kept up aggressive eye contact as he moved the cards in flashy patterns, muscle memory taking over. “Two, messing up a trick just because you don’t like it would be a pretty mean thing to do for both the performer and the audience. Three—” He exchanged the cards for a paper flower with a flick of the wrist and a bit of misdirection. “Magic tricks are meant for people who want to believe in magic. If you go in wanting to pick them apart, you’re not going to enjoy them. Just relax and appreciate the time and skill it takes to do them instead of worrying how it was done.” He held out the flower.

Hanae took it, reluctantly impressed with the display. She’d better be at least a little impressed. He didn’t practice some of those hand movements for hours for nothing.

“Okay, I think I got it,” Midori said. Takumi watched her go through the trick with clumsy hands and a determined frown, doing his part when prompted. This time the desired cards matched up at the end and Midori’s face lit up into a huge grin. “I did it!”

“Good job. Keep practicing and you’ll be impressing an audience in no time,” Takumi said.

The joy on her face was like how he remembered it every time he figured out a new trick. He couldn’t even remember what exactly he’d learned first, but the thrill of getting something right was always there, even years later. Hanae still had a bit of a frown on her face, but she smiled for her sister.

“Sometime you have to do that in front of Kaa-san and Tou-san and see what they think.” Hanae grinned.

Midori stuck out her tongue. “No way, Tou-san’d see right through it.”

“Kaa-san then.”

“Only if you help me practice.”

“Maybe,” Hanae said. “If you’re not a tagalong when I have friends over next.”

“Your friends are fun and it’s boring on my own.”

“Do we have a deal or not?”

“Only if you really help me practice.”

“I will,” Hanae said with a nod, like it sealed a pact.

Takumi took the cards back when Midori offered them and slid them back into his pockets. “So, dinner now or...?”

“Dinner!” Midori said. “I want omurice!”

“Uh.” He knew how to cook it theoretically. He looked at Hanae. She shrugged.

“I’m fine with whatever.”

“Okay. Omurice.” That was just fried rice stuffed in an omelet right? Not too hard. He found some leftover rice in the fridge and vegetables and eggs as the girls pulled out pans and a cutting board.

“Knives are up there,” Hanae said, pointing at a pull-down knife rack that was outside easy reach for a child.

Takumi fell into the rhythm of cooking easily enough. He gave the eggs to Midori to crack into a bowl and chopped up onion and garlic and carrots into tiny pieces. Omurice wasn’t something he’d made before, but his mom made it for him growing up and Shiemi had him help her a few times. Takumi wasn’t a great cook, but he could feed himself. He had to with Kaa-san working late so often. He couldn’t go over to Tou-san’s house every day just for dinner, so he’d figured out enough to get by. Shiemi’d made some pretty interesting mistakes with him. They only set the kitchen on fire once and that was because they tried frying something without knowing what the hell they were doing.

Vegetables and rice sizzled in a pan, frying slowly with ketchup and soy sauce to give it flavor. Milk and salt with the egg...

“I want cheese on mine,” Hanae said as Takumi contemplated the rest of the cooking process.

“I don’t want cheese on mine,” Midori said, wrinkling her nose. “Cheese doesn’t go with rice.”

“It goes with the omelet.”

“But tastes weird with the rice!”

“Got it, one with cheese, one without,” Takumi said. He’d have his without too; cheese and ketchup were weird together, and omurice was always better with ketchup.

It went pretty well until he tried to fold the first omelet around the rice. It ripped and he ended up with a mess on a plate. “...Guess that can be mine.”

“I’d eat it,” Midori said. “Put a bunch of ketchup and it’s like something from a monster movie.”

Comparing his cooking to something out of a scary movie was far from flattering. Thankfully the next one came out better if a little lumpy, and Hanae’s came out looking even better.

Takumi smiled at the last one. It wasn’t even a little dark like the second one. “There you go, omurice.”

“You have to put ketchup first!” Midori said when he started to move to the table with the plates. “Those are the rules. Draw something cute!” She thrust a ketchup bottle at his face.

Takumi took it and drew a wobbly smiley face on his egg disaster.

“That’s terrible,” Hanae said at his side. She snatched the bottle. “Here.” She drew a passable cat face on Midori’s omelet, two triangle ears, dots for eyes and nose, and little whisker lines. “Like that.”

“Me next!” Midori grabbed the bottle and stretched on tiptoe to draw an even more lopsided smile on Hanae’s omelet with a heart around it.

“Better?” Takumi asked.

“Good enough,” Hanae said. She stole her plate from Takumi’s hands. “Midori, get forks.”

“Not as good as Kaa-san’s omurice,” was the verdict once they dug in, “but still good.”

Takumi supposed that this was about the best reaction he could get because most of the time mothers did cook your favorites best. The dishes all got piled in the sink to wash later before he was dragged off by the girls again.

This time it was to watch a movie. There was a five second stare down in front of the DVD collection before the girls did jan-ken-pon, hands flinging out scissor and rock shapes. Midori grinned as she won. “I get to choose the movie,” she said.

“How do you keep winning?” Hanae complained.

“Cuz I’m good at it,” Midori said, rifling through an impressive number of animated movies. She held up The Cat Returns triumphantly.

“We watched that last week!”

“I won, I pick.”

Hanae looked at Takumi, hoping for support. He held his hands up defensively.

“Anything’s fine!” he said. “Do you not like it?”

“I like it but she keeps picking it. If you have to pick a Ghibli movie, Kiki’s obviously better.”

“I think you mean Spirited Away,” Takumi teased.

Hanae scowled, insulted. “Kiki’s plot makes way more sense than—”

“Cats,” Midori said, shoving the DVD she’d chosen at their faces. “Cats beat everything.”

“Cats are pretty cool,” Takumi agreed, taking the disc to put in the player. “But dragons are cooler.”

“Cats.” Midori repeated.

“Kaa-san won’t let us get a pet,” Hanae sighed.

“We have space. And I’d take care of it,” Midori grumbled. “And cats don’t need to be walked like dogs.” It was clearly a sore subject.

“I’m not allowed to have a pet either,” Takumi said. He sat on the couch and the girls followed, Midori flinging herself half on her sister and her feet in Takumi’s lap. It was kind of cute except for how she kicked him in the knee in the process. He rubbed his knee as he got to the disc menu. “But Tou-san has birds and they’re nice. Birds are loud, but Tou-san’s are pretty smart and friendly.”

“I wish I had any pet,” Midori sighed.

“Maybe sometime you could meet Tou-san’s doves. It’s not the same as having a pet, but I don’t think anyone would mind you visiting from time to time.” And maybe it would be a chance to introduce his grandmother to his maybe-sister. The smiles the offer got him were enough to make him glad he’d decided to be here though.

Bath and bedtime were met with very little resistance to his surprise—perhaps because the movie had kept them up later than the initial bedtime was supposed to be—and by the time Takumi found himself in the guest bedroom, he was both tired and relieved that he’d managed to get things right so far.

He checked his phone as he set an alarm for the next morning. Shiemi had left a text. Surviving babysitting?

So far so good, he texted back.

Getting to know your maybe-sister? Her answer was immediate—she must be playing a cell phone game or something.

Getting to know them both a bit. Midori-chan likes omurice the same way I do. Such a tiny thing, but it made him smile a little. Part of him wanted to pick out similarities and try to know for sure if she really was his sister... But the logical side of him knew that just because someone was related didn’t mean they were necessarily similar. And she’d been raised by the Kudos. Logically they weren’t going to be much alike. But it was nice seeing her try to learn a card trick and seeing her like what he cooked. Takumi didn’t know the first thing about being a sibling and barely knew anything about children, but the warm feelings were probably normal. He wanted to be something in her life. And in Hanae’s because she was kind of headstrong and skeptical, but she reminded him a bit of other women in his life. She likes cats, he added after a moment. He didn’t know much more about her than that yet, but it was a start. Hanae likes Kiki’s Delivery Service but Midori likes The Cat Returns better.

Obviously Whisper of the Heart wins over all of them.

Sacrilege. What happened to your crush on Lin in Spirited Away?

I rewatched Whisper and got caught up in the romance and struggle of young artists. Obviously. Takumi could picture Shiemi sticking her tongue out at him.

He smiled. You know that means a rewatch of Spirited Away is called for.

Your place or mine?

Tou-san’s, next Friday. We’ll rope everyone into a Ghibli movie marathon.

I’ll be there. And I’ll win everyone over on my choice ~_^

Takumi snickered and sent back a few increasingly ridiculous emojis before locking his phone for the night.

***

Takumi woke up with his heart pounding in his chest and the vague feeling like he was dying. Flickers of fear and horrified anticipation lingered, snippets of half-remembered lights and blurs of white dissipating into the gray-dark of his surroundings. It took him a moment to recognize where he was, the blankets twisted around his legs not his familiar worn bed-cover, but stiff sheets and a floral patterned coverlet. Takumi relaxed against his pillows, anxiety dropping as he recognized that it had been a dream. Just a dream that couldn’t hurt him no matter what his heart half beating out of his chest wanted him to think. He pressed his palms into his eyes before groping blindly for his phone.

Six forty in the morning. He’d set the alarm for seven thirty, but it wouldn’t make much sense to go to sleep again. If he could go to sleep again. The dream that woke him was less distinct than most of his nightmares, but he didn’t have to remember the details to have an idea of what it had featured. There were only two events that his brain currently fixated on and threw back at him in all the wonderfully warped ways an anxious brain could twist them. He hadn’t had a nightmare in a few weeks though. It figured that he’d have one now, staying at the Kudo house.

Brains were stupid. Even after dangers were over and done with, even when nothing bad ended up happening to him physically, it was like the sheer range and mass of emotions from those moments got condensed into a bowling ball and every now and then it’d roll off a shelf and shake things up again. Like bits chipped off and leached into the present sometimes. He hated it, but he was getting better, little by little.

In his hand his phone vibrated with a message. It was from Tou-san, a selfie with Hakuba in the background. They had tea mugs in their hands and seemed to be on a hotel balcony, watching the sun rise.

Case went well, the text following it said. Weather’s great here. If we get a chance we should come back for a family vacation someday. I’d even go to the beach. ^_^

Takumi snorted. Tou-san on a beach. Well, okay, maybe if he stayed in the sand but he’d have to try pretty hard to get Tou-san in the water. He looked at the picture again. Tou-san looked happy at least. Hakuba didn’t seem to know that he’d had his picture taken since he was looking off at the sunrise. It wasn’t intentionally romantic or anything but the framing ended up that way and it still felt... a little weird to think of his dad dating his teacher. But more in that his dad was dating at all than that it was Hakuba in the end. They both looked happier though and he genuinely liked Hakuba so it was all good. Hakuba would feel like family soon enough. He was halfway there already.

Shiemi still wants a beach trip next summer, Takumi sent back. Since we never made it this year.

She’s welcome to come with us. She’s family. There was another photo, just of the sunrise, all yellows and pinks and orange glinting off a distant ocean.

I’ll tell her you said that. She’ll hold you to it. Have fun on the rest of your vacation.

Good luck babysitting ~ ¶

Takumi smiled at his phone before hauling himself out of bed.

After running through his morning routine, he padded off down the hall to the kitchen. There was something inherently unsettling about having free reign over someone else’s house, especially early in the morning. The Kudo manor was big too, three times the size of his home with Kaa-san at least if not larger. He couldn’t picture growing up in this sort of place. He was used to crowded spaces and lived-in clutter. There were signs of life everywhere, but not the same stacks of newspapers and mail and paperwork on the kitchen counter like with Kaa-san or books and sketches and random notes like with Tou-san. The kitchen was clean and neat and everything had its place. Was it always like this or had it been cleaned since he was coming?

By the time he heard the girls coming down the stairs at a bit after seven, he’d already started the rice and had the miso soup almost finished. He’d considered pancakes, but he’d gone with what he knew he wouldn’t mess up.

“Good morning,” Takumi said as Midori bounced into the room, trailed by a sleepy Hanae.

“Morning!” Midori said, clambering into her spot at the kitchen table.

Hanae followed with a yawn. “I thought teenagers slept in,” she said, resting her head on her arms.

“I ended up waking up early.” Takumi dished out rice and soup. “Hope this is okay for breakfast.”

“Kaa-san makes traditional breakfasts on weekends,” Hanae said. She looked like she was going to fall asleep in her rice.

“Did you sleep badly?” Takumi asked, passing her a cup of juice to go with everything.

“Midori woke me up,” Hanae grumbled, shooting her sister an annoyed look.

“I was gonna start the rice for breakfast but you beat me to it,” Midori said.

“You can help with lunch instead,” Takumi offered, and Midori hummed in agreement before digging into her meal with a cheerful, “Itadakimasu!”

Hanae had another huge yawn before she started picking at her meal too, so Takumi just ate and watched them as they exchanged conversation back and forth between each other, arguing about something or other, but he’d missed what exactly the subject of the argument was.

***

There’d been a suggestion, Takumi thought, something that seemed perfectly reasonable for children. Yeah, sure, playing cops and robbers was normal for kids. Sure Takumi would play. Sure, he could be the banker in this scenario, why not?

Takumi was regretting agreeing to this.

He had somehow ended up tied to a tree in the back yard with Hanae standing next to him, one hand making a finger gun in his direction as Midori played the cop in this scenario. A cop that didn’t seem too invested in helping free the hostage.

“Just give up! You’re surrounded and won’t be getting away with it!” Midori said.

“Getting away with it? Getting away with it?” Hanae laughed a very good imitation of an evil cackle. “I don’t need to rob the bank to get what I came for!”

Wasn’t the point of cops and robbers to rob the bank and chase each other around? This was not, Takumi thought anxiously, how he remembered playing make believe. Hanae jabbed him in the shoulder with her finger-gun.

“It’s the bank’s fault I’m here! If they’d just given me that loan, none of this would have ever happened! Hiro would still be alive and no one else would have to suffer!”

“Killing a bank teller won’t make up for it!” Midori said.

“No, but blowing up the bank would make us even! It ruined my life so I’m going to ruin everyone attached to it.”

“But is it what Hiro would’ve wanted?”

“You don’t even know Hiro!”

Takumi felt like he was trapped in a soap opera.

“We can still fix this. You don’t have to turn evil to get revenge.”

“No one will take the lawsuit!”

Takumi tuned out the argument, twisting his hands around in his bonds. Considering he was tied up with a jump rope and it was done by a ten year old, it was surprisingly secure.

“You just need to—!”

“Too late!” Hanae shrieked. She raised a hand. “BOOM!” She laughed evilly. “And now we’re all dead.”

Midori huffed. “Hanae! The cop is supposed to win!”

“Where’s the fun if it’s always predictable? And I always end up the villain.”

“That’s because you’re bad at jan-ken.”

“But I still won this time,” Hanae said, smug.

“Ugh, I call take back! Bombs are cheating!”

“Are not. I can explode the game if I want to.”

“Can not.”

“Can too.”

“No.”

“Yes. Because I’m older and I said so.”

There was a moment when Midori went still and it hit all of Takumi’s instincts to duck and cover. Then she threw herself at Hanae and Hanae shrieked and ran. And Takumi was still tied to a tree. Crap. He tugged at his wrists.

“Guys?” Toward the house there was more shrieking. Two voices shrieking. He couldn’t even tell if it was play fighting or real fighting and how the heck had he even ended up in this situation? “For the love of...” Takumi started picking at the knots as best he could considering he couldn’t see them. “Someone’s going to be in a time out after this. Or something. Probably.” He’d agreed to this...sort of...but... Yeah he kind of sucked at babysitting.

The door to the house slammed. And now they were inside and unsupervised. Wonderful.

“...Is everything alright?” a voice said from the other side of the fence. A moment later an elderly man peeked over the edge. He blinked at Takumi. Takumi’s face burned.

“I’m the...babysitter,” he muttered.

“I’m their neighbor,” the man said. “And also one of their babysitters. I just got home though.” He raised an eyebrow. “Do you need help?”

The knots finally gave under Takumi’s frantic tugging. He wrenched his arms free. “No! Nope, I’m fine! Great even, I’m just going to go...make sure they haven’t killed each other!” Takumi all but ran for the house. The neighbor was probably going to tell the Kudos exactly what happened. Takumi was never going to live this down.

“Okay!” Takumi said, bursting into the living room where a pillow war between couch cushion fortifications seemed to be going on. “I think that’s enough cops and robbers! New rule; no tying me up, okay? Okay.”

A pillow flew his way. Takumi slung it back before he could even think the action through. Two wide grins turned in his direction. “Oh shiiiii—” Takumi got out before he was attacked by two children armed with pillows.

***

When the Kudos returned that afternoon, the living room had been turned into a pillow fort and Takumi and the girls were reading in a pile in the center. The jump rope from earlier was supporting the roof of the fort, tied between two chair so the sheet could drape. Once he’d finally stopped being attacked by pillows, it had been a compromise to stay in one place and not do anything that involved attacking each other.

Takumi was tired but a lot happier than he’d have thought to be curled up with kids reading. It was comfortable like they’d done it together dozens of times. Hanae was the sort who hyper-focused when she read. She didn’t even look up when her parents peeked into the room. Midori gave a distracted hello, slipping another page in her book before doing a double-take. Then she carefully shoved a corner of blanket in to the book to mark her place and scrambled over to give them a hug.

Takumi crawled out after her, smiling nervously. “Hey.”

“Looks like you were having fun,” Kudo Ran said, her arms around Midori.

“A bit, yeah.”

“More than a bit,” Midori said.

Kudo Shinichi laughed. He crouched next to the pillow fort. “Hey, Hanae, we’re home.”

“Mm.” Hanae flipped another page.

“We brought back some of those lemon butter cookies you like.”

“Mm.”

“We’re going to give Midori your share.”

“Mm—wait.” Hanae looked up. “Tou-san!”

“We’re not actually giving Midori your share of the cookies.”

“You’d better not!” She abandoned her book to give her dad a hug.

Takumi snickered. Both girls surrounded their father asking about sweets, and Shinichi struggled to his feet with children hanging off each arm as he laughed.

“They weren’t any trouble were they?” Ran asked.

“Not too much,” Takumi said. He wasn’t going to mention getting tied up unless they did first. “It was fun.” Mostly. Stress aside, he’d babysit again.

“He made us omurice!” Midori said, bounding over to give her mother another hug. “He also said we could visit sometime and see his family’s pets. They have doves. Can we?”

“Tou-san keeps them,” Takumi explained.

“Maybe sometime in the future,” Ran said.

“You never did say how many doves he had,” Hanae said.

“Oh, about eighteen or twenty?” He thought one of the doves had managed to hatch a few eggs, which would bring the number up. That sometimes happened though they normally tried not to have them reproduce because there were a lot of them to begin with. “They’re really tame. You can go in and hold your arms out and they’ll land on you.” If you had food, the bolder ones would land on you before you offered a perch. Takumi could remember having birds land on his head when he was little. They still did if he let them.

“So cool! We gotta visit sometime,” Midori said, giving her parents pleading eyes.

“We’ll have to see when will be a good time,” Shinichi said. “Provided it won’t bother anyone.”

“The doves always can use more socializing. Tou-san visits them daily, but they’re kept at Obaa-san’s house so they spend a lot of time in the dovecote. I could take them sometime if that would be okay.” Takumi hoped it wasn’t overstepping to offer. From Ran and Shinichi’s smiles, it must not be.

“Thank you. I’m sure they appreciate the offer.” Shinichi ruffled his daughters’ hair. Hanae batted his hand away while Midori kept smiling. “Now...those cookies...” Both girls bolted for the kitchen and Shinichi trailed after them laughing.

Ran and Takumi followed slower. “They didn’t actually cause you too much trouble did they?” Ran asked now that the girls were out of earshot. “They can get into trouble.”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Takumi said. “Although they’re, uh, intense when it comes to make believe. I’ve never heard a kid complain about loans not going through at a bank while playing cops and robbers before.”

Ran winced. “They have a lot of real life examples on why people might commit crimes,” she said diplomatically.

And right, Shinichi was a detective. They must have grown up getting glimpses of the worst sides of humanity. Thankfully that didn’t seem to make them less carefree. Takumi’d been shielded from a lot of that despite his mom being on the police force just because she’d shooed him out of the room whenever talking about work in specifics came up. The Kudos must take a more direct approach of addressing Shinichi’s work. Or maybe there was more bleed over with Shinichi working homicides than with his mother working heists. “That makes sense,” Takumi said. “I’m glad I got to spend time with them though. It was fun.”

Ran’s smile went a little lopsided. Midori being his maybe-sister had never been brought up, but Takumi had a feeling that it was on her mind too. “You’re welcome to come over anytime, Takumi-kun,” Ran said. “Babysitting or not.”

“Thanks.” He’d take her up on that. Maybe bring Shiemi with him sometime... That would be nice.

“We brought you back a cookie too,” Ran said as they got to the kitchen. “Since you were nice enough to watch them.”

“Thanks,” Takumi repeated. Yeah, he wouldn’t mind coming back and doing this again.

***

“So,” Shiemi said on the phone later. “Babysitting went ok?”

“Yeah. It was fun. Even if I did get tied to a tree.”

“You what?”

“We played a dramatic game of cops and robbers and I got tied to the tree,” Takumi said rolling his eyes. “I got out of it.”

Shiemi cackled. “I would pay for pictures of that.”

“I didn’t tell the Kudos about that part. But knowing my luck the neighbor will probably tell them at some point...”

“The neighbor saw?”

“Yeah.”

Shiemi kept laughing.

Takumi sighed. “Some friend, laughing at my pain.”

“That’s the best mental image!”

“Laugh it up, sometime I’m taking you with me to meet them and maybe you’ll get tied to a tree.”

Shiemi’s laughter petered out into giggles. He could practically see her wiping away tears. “You sound so sure I’d get tied to a tree. Takumi, what makes you think I wouldn’t be organizing those girls into a single-minded mission of catch-the-thief against you?”

“You wouldn’t.” The silence was a grin of bared teeth. Dammit. “You would. Now that means you can never meet them.”

“And deny me the pleasure?”

“I don’t need to be hunted down. Getting attacked by pillows is enough.”

“Wow, that does sound eventful. You have to spill all!”

Takumi rolled his eyes again, but this time with a smile. “Sure, Shiemi.” He’d definitely introduce them all at some point. He’d probably regret it later, but he kind of liked how the number of people he cared about in his life kept growing and he wanted them to like each other too.

AN: Fun story, my brother and I actually tied up my cousin to a tree once when she babysat us. Between that and accidentally leaving the stove on and setting off the smoke alarm, I'm not at all surprised that she only babysat us that one time. ^_^; Truth be told, I can't even remember why we tied her up. My parents got home, joked about something along those lines and she was all "well actually..." This was before my brother and I went through a phase of fighting all the time. Woo. 

Also, do you know how terrifying it is to find yourself backed in a corner and attacked with pillows by a horde of children? I do. I remember this happening very distinctly. That was about the family party I decided the adults were better company after all. My only time babysitting as a teen involved frantically washing two kids to remove possible poison ivy oils and teaching them to do headstands in their basement so Takumi's not doing too bad.

[lisatelramor]

Not Left To Stand Alone ch 31

Hiroto’s workplace was a nondescript office building with the mysterious words of Nikai Company emblazoned above the entryway in English letters, but no other indications of what the company was for or why it required a whole building to itself. From past conversations, Saguru recalled that the company worked a great deal overseas, presumably globally from the shifting hours Hiroto seemed to hold depending on what conferences were needed when. Hiroto was an intermediary of sorts, presenting ideas back and forth across language barriers if Saguru remembered correctly, but not in charge of leading ideas. That would mean access to a large number of projects with at least casual knowledge of what those projects entailed. For the life of him, Saguru couldn’t remember if Hiroto had ever mentioned what, exactly, his company’s business was. There were dozens of anecdotes about lagging Skype calls, mistranslations, and paperwork failures that came to mind, but nothing on products or anything particularly useful in having a clue about what he was walking into. Even the business card Hiroto gave him only briefly mentioned financial services. Which might or might not tie in to the business contracting Hiroto just mentioned on the phone. Saguru would have liked the chance to look the company up a bit more but he’d never thought to do so before tonight.

Surprisingly, the door was unlocked. Even more surprisingly, the front desk was currently unstaffed. Saguru eyed the bright glow of a computer screen on the other side of it. Not away long enough for the computer to go to sleep, but no sign of anyone otherwise. The security cameras blinked tiny red pinpoints of light from the corners of the ceiling. He ignored them and walked with purpose to the elevator. If he’d learned anything from Kuroba, acting like you belonged and knew what you were doing often times worked just as well as if you were actually supposed to be there.

The elevator was small and full of overly bright brass fittings that were a tasteless design choice. Saguru stopped the elevator a floor below his stop and took the stairs the rest of the way. The lights in the hallways were dim, only the emergency exit signs glowing, and a few emergency lights here and there to lead the way. The whole place had the hair rising on the back of Saguru’s neck, tripping his gut instinct that something wasn’t quite right. He couldn’t put a finger on what, aside from the missing secretary at the front desk. Nothing was out of place for an office, fake plants and real ones interspersed outside of offices to try and brighten up the atmosphere and rows of doors with name plaques on them. The only sound in the stairwell was the sound of Saguru’s footsteps interspersed with his breath, made a bit short by the exertion.

There were a few lights on in this floor, and Saguru used them as a guide, cautious. Empty office, bookshelf behind a desk with a desktop computer, screen still lit. He recognized it from a photo, the one Hiroto sent of a small child staring at him from the corner of the room. And there were childish drawings done in red and black and blue pen taped up on one wall. His boss’s office then.

The break room had one light on above the sink and a coffee pot half full with a red light showing it was still hot. The bathroom lights were off.

“Hiroto-san?” Saguru said, voice soft as he pushed open the bathroom door; it wasn’t one that locked from the inside, but was full of stalls with urinals along the one wall. No feet under the stalls, but if he held still...the sound of breathing a bit too rapid and panicky to be quiet. “It’s Saguru.”

There was a long pause before the end stall door creaked open further and Hiroto all but fell out of it. He was at Saguru’s side in an instant, grabbing his arm like it was a life preserver and he was drowning.

“You’re here,” he said. “You’re actually here thank goodness I wasn’t sure if you would actually come or if you’d make it up but you’re here and not a-a-a killer or something.”

“I know we didn’t last talk on the best of circumstances, but I wouldn’t have left you waiting if I didn’t intend to come,” Saguru said. Hiroto let out a breath and leaned against him for a moment. Saguru steadied him. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Hiroto said. He took another breath, already steadier. “Sorry. Just. A little freaked out.”

“Understandable.” When Hiroto pulled back, Saguru let his concern melt away into seriousness. “Could you show me what you found?”

“Yes. Yes just...come with me.” Hiroto darted out into the hallway, looking around sharply before leading the way back to his boss’s office. The computer screen had turned over to a screen saver, colored lines flashing across a black background.

“It’s... I put the file folders onto a flash drive, but I don’t know if that will work or if they’ll be corrupted with the number of passwords to get to them... I don’t know much about computers beyond what I need to know for work.” He clicked through files, keying in codes to bring up more and more sub-folders. Hiroto bit his lip as Saguru glanced at the folder names—dates, all of them, numbers going back years. Each year was separated into month, then by week and day, the files themselves just numbers that had no immediate meaning to Saguru’s eyes.

“How did you even find these?” It wasn’t something that you just stumbled on from the look of it.

Hiroto flushed. “I told you I was cleaning up documents right? Well I noticed that there was too much data in a file for it to be normal and so I checked to see if there were hidden files... There’s a lot of them. This is just one of them, but there’s files mixed in with regular things too. With invoices and project files.” He clicked around a bit more, showing translucent file icons amidst bold ones. “I wasn’t expecting so many. I thought...” He blushed harder. “I thought maybe they were just something inappropriate for work or something but...”

“But they weren’t.” No one would have this many hidden documents or such organized ones if it were merely pornography or something similar.

“No. Then I thought maybe my boss was skimming company funds but...” Hiroto pulled up a file. It was in English, surprisingly, bold letters listing out a date and location with a clinical report following that detailed some unfortunate person’s death.

Saguru clicked on a few more, bringing up similar reports or transferred resources, stolen research data, and results from tests that the reports assumed were already known. It was chilling. “Who has access to these files?”

“They’re only on this computer,” Hiroto said softly. “I checked a few others in my office for hidden files, but it was only my boss that had these. I don’t know about the higher ups though. The only one with passwords for this computer are my boss and me, and I only know them because I sometimes cover his work when he’s on trips.”

“And password protecting files is common practice here?”

“Only on my boss’s computer. It didn’t seem weird; he has sensitive information on the company and employees so of course he wouldn’t want just anyone looking at it...”

Saguru was only half paying attention, eyes caught on a file. May tenth of last year. Not significant, perhaps, as there were documents dated a few days before and a few after the date, but... it was the day before Mel was shot. Saguru clicked on it. Progenetics...stolen research on project Mercury... Saguru’s own name stood out at him, the words incapacitate or kill leaving him with a rushing sound in his ears that was probably his heartrate spiking.

“Is that...is that your name?” Hiroto whispered. “Is this a kill order?!”

“Or something,” Saguru said, feeling words leave him as if from a great distance. He’d looked for clues, the London police force had looked for clues for months and here this was in Japan of all places and— And he didn’t have time for the emotions any of this had boiling up in him, sharp and hot and ragged. He breathed in, out. “If these files are only on this computer, it would be ideal if we could take the hard drive with us.”

“What, the whole thing?” Hiroto asked, wide eyed.

“I don’t think you quite understand the magnitude of what you just found,” Saguru said, already pulling the computer tower toward him. He had a spare flash drive that he used to hold documents for work, on his keychain. He fished it out and handed it to Hiroto. “Put as many files as you can on this, please. Delete what is already on it; there’s nothing irreplaceable and this is more important.”

“Saguru?” Hiroto said, hesitating and scared again.

“Please.” This felt like too much of a windfall after everything, too good to be true that Saguru would stumble across the order that had signed Mel’s death, albeit as collateral.  It had every instinct screaming at him that something was wrong.

“I’m going to be fired for this,” Hiroto said, mostly to himself, as he set to copying files.

Saguru started opening drawers looking for something that could be used as a screwdriver to open the back of the tower. This was not technically legal, but he couldn’t find it in him to care considering the circumstances. There was a very real chance that by the time he forwarded the information and the police got a permit, then the information could be erased. There, a small pair of scissors, the blades just wide enough to catch on the screw head.

“They’re transferring,” Hiroto said. “As much as will fit. Um, I included the file you were looking at.”

“Thank you.” Saguru handed Hiroto his phone and went at the screws. “Please text that incriminating documents were found and that I am in the process of trying to secure the hard drive to contacts ‘Aoko’ and ‘Kudo.’”

A light in the hallway flicked on. They both froze, two screws in Saguru’s hand and Hiroto’s fingers white knuckled around Saguru’s cell phone as a man stood in the doorway.

“I had such high hopes for you, Nakahara-kun,” the man said. He was dressed in a neatly pressed business suit, hair combed back from his face, and a semi-automatic pistol in hand.

“Hanaka-kacho...” Hiroto trembled.

Saguru gripped the scissors in the palm of his hand as Hiroto’s boss walked further into the room.

“I give you my trust and you look through my personal files.” His eyes flicked to Saguru. “And you try to steal them. The company has a pretty strict policy about that sort of thing.” Hanaka spoke like he was having a friendly chat, but there was no hesitation in his steady aim at Hiroto’s chest.

“Strict as in an early grave I take it,” Saguru said, dry and caustic.

The man turned toward him and his business neutral expression flickered to one of distaste. “The British detective. For someone supposedly retired, you seem to have your hand in a bit of everything at the moment.”

“Retirement never seems to stick,” Saguru said. “The world seems to enjoy throwing me into situations where certain skillsets I have are required.” It was strange, the lack of panic he felt at the moment. Considering how recently Takumi had almost been shot and Kuroba had been shot, staring down a man with a gun should have his heart hammering and his hands shaking. Instead, he’d never felt steadier. The scissors were reassuringly heavy in his hand.

“You’d have a much more peaceful and long life if you just learned to mind your own business.” Hanaka looked back at Hiroto. Hiroto was shaking so badly it looked like he was going to fall over in a faint. “I could say the same for you. Your work was good. It will be difficult to replace you.”

The man’s eyes shuttered, closing off in a way Saguru recognized intimately of a person steeling themselves for an unpleasant task. Saguru shifted, pulling attention away from Hiroto before the trigger could be pulled, desperate to keep him talking just that bit longer, to lower his guard, something. “No one even realizes yet that this company is related to the others from the info drop, do they?” Saguru said, because it was true. Who would suspect it as it wasn’t a cosmetics company, wasn’t connected to pharmaceuticals or chemical research or longevity research at all. At what little he’d gleaned from glancing at files, it was a company that worked as a go between, an international link up, the middle man for many other countries venturing into overseas trade, and as such had a hand in a little bit of everything, but not so much so that it would stand out. It would be the perfect sort of place to use seeding agents globally though. A hub in a branching web, the communication core connecting all the other branches with each other yet safe if any one of them fall. Because they didn’t have stake in the race for immortality. Perhaps managing behind the scenes and picking off any perceived threats. No one would look to a supposedly unrelated company if someone died investigating a different one.

Like Mel. Like Saguru was shot years ago. Kill or injure and generally make it too expensive one way or another to look any deeper into the matter.

Hanaka gave Saguru another once over, eyes lingering on the scissors and the cane just out of reach where Saguru's leaned it against the desk, dismissing them as a threat—too much distance when a bullet could kill him before he had a chance to complete a lunge.

Saguru took another steady breath. “No one realizes how much your company is involved in at all. Is it just this organization you have ties with?” He tilted his head, moving just a bit to the side...get attention on him, Hiroto out of peripheral vision, get the gun on him. “You must have a lot of people coming and going from Japan. How many of those people are office workers, Hanaka-san? And how many of those are killers?”

“You’d like if I answered that, wouldn’t you?” Hanaka said. “Laid out all the messy details like some kind of cartoon villain.” He scoffed. “The only reason you’re not already dead is because I don’t want blood on my carpet.”

Yes, actually, that would be very convenient, Saguru thought a bit sarcastically. “I imagine it would be equally incriminating to shoot us in a stairwell or somewhere else that blood will get everywhere.”

“But then it would be someone else’s problem,” Hanaka said, eyes half-lidded and dangerous. “And I’m not even back in the country yet; I’m not due back until tomorrow.”

“I’m sure the security cameras would be surprised about that revelation.”

Hanaka frowned and jerked the gun in Saguru’s direction. “Stand up. Both of you walk toward the door.”

Saguru made a show of complying very slowly, playing up how stiff his knee was and the need for a cane he was too far from to grab. It kept Hanaka’s eyes on him right up until Hiroto’s shaking legs gave out and he crashed to the ground.

“Sor-I’m, I’m getting up I’ll just—” Hiroto babbled, hands grabbing at the desk to pull himself up. Saguru caught a glimpse of his hand swinging past the flash drives and as one vanished into Hiroto’s mess of flailing, he realized what Hiroto was doing.

“Pull yourself together, Nakahara-kun,” Hanaka said, exasperated and missing the act completely. “Try to face your death with more dignity; I know you’re not that pathetic. If you can handle closing a deal with a Russian oil company, you can handle having a gun in your face.”

“Being shot is a bit more final than failing to negotiate a business deal.” Saguru helped Hiroto to his feet, blocking him from view long enough for him to slip the flash drives into his pocket. He still had Saguru’s phone too, hand clutched so tight around it that it was a miracle the screen hadn’t fractured. In the second their eyes met, Hiroto’s gaze held a mix of terror and determination.

“You would know, wouldn’t you, detective?” Hanaka drawled. He nodded to the door. “Go.”

There was no moment that Saguru could take advantage of and try to turn the situation around—Hanaka made sure to keep his distance and his weapon at the ready. That said, Saguru wasn’t sure he could have subdued him even if there had been an opening. Saguru still had Judo skills, but those required a more solid stance than he had most days. And despite being taller than Hanaka and outweighing him, the cut of Hanaka’s suit hinted at a fit body; he probably would have been able to overpower Saguru anyway. It would be worth it anyway to get the gun from him, but with the distance, Hanaka would shoot and probably hit one of them before Saguru could hit him. Hiroto filed out first. Saguru was the one that had the gun pointed at him now, right between his shoulder blades.

“Planning to take us to the roof?”

“Why would I do that when there’s such a fitting scenario that could take place already?” Hanaka herded them toward the bathroom. “I’d heard a few rumors that you were seen in Shinjuku Ni-chōme, Nakahara-kun. I admit I’d wondered about you a few times, you confirmed you were interested in men when I gave you a bit more...singled out attention.” Hiroto went that much paler. Saguru wondered what those interactions must have been. “And here we have a detective known to be gay. It creates such a perfect story, don’t you think? A lover’s spat gone wrong after hours.”

Scarily, considering his and Hiroto’s history, that was a believable scenario.

“And of course Nakahara-kun is so distraught at how things went that he takes his life.” Hanaka smiled like a wolf, all teeth and promise of death. “Murder suicide. A far more poetic death than either of you deserves.”

Hiroto’s breath hitched toward hyperventilation.

As Hiroto pushed open the bathroom door, Saguru realized that this was the only chance he’d get; there was no escaping once they were all in the bathroom. As the door started to shut, he stumbled, playing on his bad leg to make it realistic.

“Just get in the—” Hanaka said, but he didn’t have a chance to finish as Saguru turned the stumble into a blind dive in his direction.

Please don’t be shot, he thought, please let Hiroto be smart enough to get away from the door. The gun went off as Saguru collided with Hanaka’s knees, and either he’d missed or Saguru had too much adrenaline in his system to feel pain at the moment. As the gun moved down and Hanaka’s face contorted with a snarl Saguru’s ringing ears failed to hear, Saguru stabbed blindly with the scissors he’d palmed earlier.

They sunk into the meat of Hanaka’s thigh, jerking free when he staggered back, yelling. The hand with the gun hit Saguru in the forehead, cutting above his eyebrow. Saguru stabbed again, got a glancing blow to Hanaka’s hand, and the gun clattered to the ground, miraculously not going off a second time. Saguru managed to kick it toward the potted plant down the hall before he was tackled. The scissors skidded off somewhere as a blood-slick hand grappled at his throat, trying to choke him.

A twist, fail to throw him off. An elbow to the gut and Saguru could breathe again for a moment. There was blood in his eye, couldn’t see, bared teeth set in a snarl centimeters from his face. Saguru caught his assailant’s wrists before fingers could dig into his throat again, struggled to shift balance and overpower his opponent like he’d learned, knee aching aching and a grown man’s weight trying to pin him down.

Hanaka jerked with a sudden force, smacking down and almost head-butting Saguru in the process. Another dull force sounded above him and Hanaka went limp. Saguru pushed him off to find Hiroto standing over them with a plastic toilet seat gripped in white knuckled hands.

Hanaka groaned, only half unconscious from the blows to his head. Before he could recover, Saguru ripped Hanaka’s tie free and used it to tie his hands behind his back. Only then did he sit back, panting. There was blood streaked all over the tile floor between Saguru’s head wound and Hanaka’s stab wounds.

“Fuck,” Saguru said with feeling.

“You’re not dead,” Hiroto said, dropping the toilet seat and sliding to the ground as his knees gave out. He started giggling, head in his hands. “We’re not dead.”

“Surprisingly,” Saguru agreed. Head wounds bled too much. His sleeve wasn’t making much headway in stemming the flow. “A toilet seat?”

“It’s the sturdiest thing in the bathroom I could pry free,” Hiroto said. He grabbed Saguru in a sudden, tight hug and kissed him. “We’re not dead!”

“Um.” Saguru blinked as he was released as quickly as he’d been grabbed. Hopefully that was just relief acting and not Hiroto actually still being interested. He pressed his handkerchief to his head. “Do you have my phone still?”

“Yeah,” Hiroto said, giggling petering out. “I called...uh. Somebody. I didn’t hang up either.” He held up the phone where a counter showed a call connected to Aoko that had been going for the last seven minutes. Had it only been less than ten minutes? It felt much longer.

Saguru took the phone from Hiroto. “Aoko.”

“What the fuck is going on over there, Hakuba?” Aoko asked. “There was a gunshot and screaming and just now there was laughter.”

“It seems that there is organization involvement at the address I texted you after all. There is a suspect with stab wounds who had possession of a gun and I have a head wound. I am not sure if there is anyone else to worry about or not. The suspect is currently incapacitated however.”

Hiroto sat up, looking around like he expected someone to manifest from the potted plant with a gun.

“Wonderful,” Aoko grumbled. “Stay where you are, I was already on my way over. I got a search warrant pushed through fast. That’s the only reason I’m not there already.”

“You got a search warrant in the middle of the night?”

“You underestimate just how much the police wants to get this internal investigation over with. If there’s even a hint of it being connected, papers are going through no matter where and when.”

“Ah.” The pain was catching up with him, knees and shoulders and hips aching from landing on them and his neck where Hanaka had bruised and scratched, and the throbbing point of pain on his brow where the blood was finally slowing.

“Secure the weapon and the suspect, but don’t contaminate the scene any more than needed,” Aoko said.

“Of course. There’s a witness with me, the one who sent the tip.”

“Got it. I’m going to call in an ambulance as well.”

“Thank you, Aoko.”

“Don’t die in the meantime,” she said. They didn’t hang up, but Saguru set the phone down, all the focus and abnormal calm that had filled him draining away. It just left exhaustion and pain in its wake.

“Are you hurt?” Saguru asked Hiroto.

“No.” Hiroto tried to smile but stopped when it wouldn’t quite form. “No, you did a good job keeping him away from me.”

“Good. Good thinking with the flash drives.”

“That’s the most terrified I’ve been in my life.” Hiroto stared blankly at his boss. “Well. I guess if I can face down a man with a gun, going to job interviews when I lose my job won’t be scary at all.”

“You might not lose your job.”

“They’re going to tear the company apart looking into what is and isn’t legal business deals,” Hiroto said. He sounded pretty calm about it, but as he said, it wasn’t as scary as having a gun pointed at you. “There might not be a company left after this. I’d probably be better off leaving tomorrow if I can and figuring out things from there.”

Well. There wasn’t really anything Saguru could say about that.  Hanaka groaned again staring blearily around at them before squeezing his eyes shut. He might have a concussion. Saguru couldn’t bring himself to care much when he’d almost been killed a few minutes earlier. He did have to wonder what the man’s motives were. He had family, an ideal work life for all appearances. What had drawn him to the world’s underbelly?

After a few moments, Saguru managed to drag himself up and shove an upended trash bin over the gun so it wasn’t as easily accessible. He wasn’t sure what to say to Hiroto to make any of this better. They were alive, at least. They were alive, and they’d gotten files enough that would hopefully sink the organization the rest of the way. Files that would solve cold cases and give closure.

[lisatelramor]

NLTSA Extra: A Suspicious Recovery Rate

Ai was troubled, Shinichi could tell. She had been troubled since the moment Shinichi called her in to help Kid, but finding her in the lab basement looking over issue samples taken from Kid with the same lip-biting concentration she used to get when she worked on tricky parts of the apotoxin antidote was worrying. Especially since she was losing sleep.

He’d coaxed her out of the lab with the promise of good coffee and a slice of Ran’s latest cake experiment, but it hadn’t cleared the uneasiness from her face.

“Okay,” he said as they chased caramel crumbs around their plates. “Something is bothering you and it has to do with Kid. What? Is he sick? Is there something wrong with his blood and tissue samples?”

Haibara drank a long swallow of coffee, face pinched, clearly reluctant to talk about it. “His tissue and blood samples are fine. Great, even. Aside from his injuries, Kid is the healthiest person I’ve ever met.” Shinichi waited, sipping his own coffee to savor it as she put together the right words. Her face twisted. “His healing rate is unnaturally fast.”

“Perhaps he’s just a quick healer,” Shinichi suggested. He mentally compared Kid from right after the accident to Kid now, skin scabbing and sharp eyed. Hard to tell if that was normal or not. He didn’t have a good standard for that sort of thing.

“You are a quick healer. Hattori is a quick healer. This is outside the realm of human norms.” Ai’s short fingernails tapped against her ceramic mug. “He shouldn’t have woken up the day after his crash. He certainly shouldn’t have had so little side effects from his concussion, and he shouldn’t be able to move much at all. It raises the question of just what sort of devil he made a deal with,” Ai said with deep suspicion. She was thinking about the sorts of people who created serums that did abnormal things. What sort of things Kid could be involved with. If Shinichi was less sure of Kid’s integrity, he’d feel worried too.

“I make a habit,” Kid’s voice came from the hallway, mild and unconcerned, “of not making deals with devils, but I’ve made a bargain with a witch a time or two.”

Shinichi and Ai turned to him as one, found him leaning against the wall heavily, going for nonchalance even though it was clearly the only thing keeping him upright.

“What the hell are you doing out of bed?” Shinichi asked.

Kid was pale, too pale from pain, but he smiled. “Bathroom. I was getting tired of the humiliation of using a bedpan. Can you blame me?”

“You insane idiot,” Ai huffed, slamming her mug down. “You’re going to reopen your wounds.”

Kid winced, smile sliding off his face. Shinichi could see the strain in the pinched corners of his eyes and the white knuckled grip on the wall using only as much pressure as he dared with his only free arm. Shinichi was amazed he’d made it out of bed let alone to the bathroom. That said, this was nowhere near Kid’s room or the bathroom at the other end of the house.

“You’re terrible at sitting still,” Shinichi said. He moved to help support Kid before the last of his strength ran out and he crumpled to the floor.

“A flaw,” Kid agreed, tense in his arms. Why Kid couldn’t be at ease with him after all the years of history and Shinichi even opening up his home in refuge, he wasn’t sure. They’d both had their moments, using each other from time to time, so it was understandable, but Shinichi hadn’t done anything drastic trying to catch Kid in years. Not since, well, not since Midori was born at any rate. “It seemed like a better idea fifteen minutes ago.”

Ai helped Shinichi move Kid to a kitchen chair, tsking under her breath. There were no spots of blood along his bandages, and his leg brace and sling seemed to be doing their job. This close though and Shinichi could see that Ai was right. Though it had only been a week and a half since the accident, the injuries looked like they were twice that old. The road burn along Kid’s face had scabbed and peeled away, new pink skin already fading toward its normal shade, likely not to leave a scar at all. Shinichi was willing to bet that the injuries under the bandages were much the same.

“Care to explain the healing?” Ai said, tilting Kid’s head up so she could check his collarbone. There had been bruises along his chest and sides and back from the glider harness, bruises from the impact that had swelled the day after, and were now just greenish blurs along his skin.

Kid submitted to the examination without complaint, letting her move this and that to check that he hadn’t hurt himself worse in the process. Only his continued pallor showed how much it hurt. “I can’t say I know the details. I’ve been like this for years now.”

“Your whole life?”

“Always been a fast healer. Broken leg healed in about a month when I was in high school. Bit less than that. It’s been faster the last...five or six years?”

It was weird to watch Kid be straightforward. To see him not bothering to put defenses up at all. Kid without a mask. Shinichi had seen it before, but that had been Kid annoyed, Kid as a young adult looking like Shinichi’s soccer ball was the last straw of a thousand others, Kid deciding to take a chance and trust Shinichi for a night. This was Kid hurt and world weary and revealing personal information like it didn’t cost him a thing to do so.

Ai checked Kid’s eyes next, likely wondering if the concussion was having late effects or one of the pain meds had led Kid to crazy decisions. Shinichi could have told her that that was Kid all on his own there. “And who did you pay,” she asked, voice cold, “for that little effect?”

Experimental drugs, body modifications, illegal experiments flicked through Shinichi’s head and were dismissed just as quickly. Kid wouldn’t trust unknown drugs. Barely trusted them to see to his injuries let alone trust someone to modify his body, something he relied upon knowing intimately to carry out his near impossible feats. Kid smiled just as cold. “Didn’t I say? I’ve been known to make deals with witches. It only affects me though, and there’s no one else running around with super healing that I know of.”

“Witches,” Ai said, dry and cutting. She wasn’t gentle checking Kid’s leg and Kid’s eyes glazed over for a moment when she checked the gunshot wound. “Of course. Naturally the smoke and mirrors magician thief cites magic.”

Kid recovered quickly. “It wouldn’t surprise me if you were a bit of a witch yourself, Haibara-san. What is turning back the hands of time is not a bit magical?”

Ai’s hands froze on Kid’s thigh.

“Or should I use one of your other names?” Kid’s mock nonchalance, masks on and in full force, built up so quick and subtle that it was hard to say when he went from genuine emotion to distancing himself again.

Shinichi swallowed. Suspicions that Kid knew about Conan once upon a time confirmed. He hadn’t realized Kid knew about Ai too.

Ai, however, was a bit more blindsided. “Where the hell did you—”

“Do you really think that I wouldn’t find information on you after two decades steeped in looking through the seedy underbelly of society?” Kid sent Shinichi a surreptitious glance. “And then there’s Conan... Let’s just say that things like his reaction to ‘Ran-neesan’ were a hell of a lot clearer after that revelation.”

“I used to wonder if you knew,” Shinichi said.

“What is that Holmsian crap you detectives are so fond of spouting? If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains is the truth? I have a very short list of what is impossible, and changing ages doesn’t even push the limits of it.”

And neither did abnormally accelerated healing if the steel in Kid’s eyes meant anything. “A gem that grants immortality?” Shinichi said.

“I’m willing to believe it. So are quite a few other people, but immortality would be overrated.”

“You’re insane,” Ai said, voice flat. She checked one more bandage and stepped away, arms crossed over her chest. “I don’t know what you’re hopped up on to make you heal, but it better not lead anyone to us.”

“Never,” Kid said. “It’s the sort of deal that can’t be broken.”

“Anything can be broken.” Ai turned away and marched the dishes she’d used earlier to the sink. “As your current doctor, you should get the hell back in your room and sleep.” Then she left them both there. She was probably going to check Kid’s tissue samples again determined to find what she was missing, perhaps to prove her suspicions that Kid still couldn’t be trusted true.

Shinichi had long since given up those suspicions. There were things he wouldn’t trust Kid with, but his life wasn’t one of them. “If you were trying to get on her bad side that was the way to do it.”

Kid snorted, looking after her. “She’s never trusted me so why would she now?” The stubborn part of him that wouldn’t show weakness at a challenge was ebbing away and leaving the exhausted, near-maskless Kid in its wake. “I wasn’t sure I’d heal quickly,” he admitted. “Sometimes I don’t.”

Shinichi filed that away. It might be significant knowledge at some point. “You really shouldn’t have been out of bed though.”

Kid shot him an annoyed look. “Well aware, thanks.”

It was funny. In the week and a half Kid had been in his home, he’d seen more sides to Kid than over a decade of chasing him. He’d wanted to see more of Kid like this once. Now he knew Kid half out of his mind with drugs and pain, Kid half awake, Kid annoyed, Kid trying to be gentle. Kid reading to his children. Kid laughing honestly, Kid helpless, Kid angry and upset, Kid defeated. “Why did you really leave your room?” he asked.

“I didn’t lie about the bathroom.”

“There wasn’t any reason to come this far down the hallway either.”

Kid tipped his head back with a sigh. He had circles under his eyes even with how much he’d been sleeping on and off, like it still wasn’t enough for what his body needed. He looked older, like Shinichi looked older, but there were all the little ways they looked different from each other on full display now. A bit of a rounder face, more smile and laugh lines than frowns and furrowed brows. A face with no masks right now that could have belonged to a cousin if Shinichi had any cousins.

“You ever feel trapped, Kudo?” Kid asked. “How well do you sleep at night with how much of the dredges of humanity you run into?” Piercing indigo eyes stared him down with exhaustion that Shinichi knew because he felt something very similar to what he saw reflected there on his worst days. “Keeping busy keeps me sane and I can’t even do that right now. And meanwhile you and Hakuba and who knows else you’ve both roped into my mess are getting ready to fight shadows. So I took a walk down the hall to prove to myself I could.” Kid shut his eyes again, wilting back against the chair. “I proved I could. Don’t feel much more useful, but feel a bit less helpless.”

“I don’t think you could ever be completely helpless,” Shinichi said despite having seen Kid in just that state not too long ago.

Kid didn’t look amused. “Never mind.” He sighed, deflating into the chair more. “I suppose I should go back to my room.”

Shinichi offered Kid an arm to lean on. Kid took it with as much dignity as he was able. “If it helps,” Shinichi said as they made their slow, hobbling progress back toward Kid’s sick bed, “we’re making progress with what you gave us. Nakamori Ginzo and Aoko have both added files to yours and we have dozens of names ready to go. I’ve made calls to people I know in America and I know Hakuba-san called people he knows in London. They’re not unbeatable.”

“...It means more coming from you,” Kid said after a moment. “Hakuba said the same thing but...he hasn’t taken out an international crime ring before.”

Shinichi glanced at Kid’s strained face from the corner of his eye. “Would it help you sleep better if I asked Hakuba-san to stay the night again when he is over next?”

Kid’s face let nothing away, but that was also an answer in its own way. “Hakuba should focus on being careful instead of worrying about me.”

“You’d both sleep better with you down the hall,” Shinichi said.

“This is really uncomfortable coming from you,” Kid muttered.

“From me in particular?” Shinichi asked, a bit amused. “Or that it’s being brought up at all.”

“Both.” Kid shot him what could have been a death glare if he was a bit less distracted by pain.

Shinichi ignored the warning and smiled a little broader. “He knows what the inside of your house looks like. Meaning he’s been invited. Might even have a key considering he went and got something off your bookshelf.”

“He can pick locks,” Kid said flatly. “And he broke in at least once.”

“I’m sure you’ve done the same right back.”

Kid sighed, knowing he’s not going to win this. “I don’t...dislike having him around,” Kid admitted.

“He knows your son,” Shinichi said.

“He’s my son’s homeroom teacher,” Kid sighed. “Hakuba’s...complicated.”

“You trust him.”

“I do.”

Shinichi hummed and helped Kid back into bed. Kid went paler and paler as he had to lift his leg up into the bed. Shinichi held him steady and tried to make the shift as painless as possible. “Comfortable?”

“Eh. A bit less like my whole body’s one throbbing bruise,” Kid joked. He closed his eyes and let out a slow gust of breath. “I’ll get help next time I do something stupid,” he muttered.

“You do that.” He looked like he was going to fall asleep then and there, so Shinichi straightened the blankets and went to leave.

Kid’s hand caught his shirt before he could take more than a step away. “I should have apologized better,” he said so softly Shinichi almost didn’t hear. “Back then.”

Old fondness made Shinichi smile, whatever hurt had once been there long gone by now. He’d never blamed Kid for being erratic. Trusting Shinichi one moment then putting distance the next. He’d figured out after a while that Kid had lost his assistant somewhere in the mess back then. He probably hadn’t been in the best mental state then. And Shinichi hadn’t been in the right point in his life to reach out and give Kid what he’d needed or to realize he could have chased if he’d wanted when Kid pulled away. Instead he’d respected Kid’s distance without realizing the entirety of what it might mean. “It’s fine,” Shinichi said. He gently unfolded Kid’s fingers from his shirt and held that hand a moment. It had a lot more scars than the last time he’d held it like this. “The timing was wrong then. That wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

Kid sighed. “I’m still the one who ran.”

“Mm.” But Kid hadn’t gone too far either. There were still the occasional message, a birthday gift for him or Ran most years, a message after a really bad case. Kid hadn’t cut contact, just kept it one sided, never letting the line cross between detective and thief again on Shinichi’s side. And he’d trusted him in this moment of vulnerability even if it hadn’t initially been by choice. “You’re at a better place now at least. The past is the past though.”

Kid gripped his hand and let him go. Whatever could have been between them was in that past too. “Now...Hakuba...”

“It’s complicated?” Shinichi teased.

“I’m not sure where the hell I stand with Hakuba,” Kid admitted.

“Ask.”

“This really isn’t the time.”

Shinichi raised an eyebrow. “Take it from someone who almost didn’t get the chance to say something, but if you wait for the right, perfect moment, you might never get it.”

“Kudo, his husband died a year ago.”

“So don’t take my advice,” Shinichi said. “But for the record? Pretty sure he is smitten with you.” Shinichi left Kid frowning after him and went to find Ran where she was curled up, half asleep in their bed. The clock showed two in the morning, so by all rights he should have been there too a long time ago. Thankfully he was someone who could sleep even after drinking a cup of coffee.

Ran pulled him into the bed and her arms, curling around him so his head rested against her chest. Her warmth and heartbeat was instantly soothing. “Everything okay?” she asked, voice raspy with sleep.

“Kid tried to walk on his own. He’s in bed now.”

“Do we have to cuff him to the bed?” Ran mumbled into Shinichi’s hair.

Shinichi snickered. “He’d probably just pick the lock.”

“Mm.” She ran hands along his arms and Shinichi’s eyelids drooped. No longer focused on puzzle pieces of Kid’s files or trying to get Ai to relax, the long day caught up to him.

“I love you,” Shinichi said into Ran’s collarbone, words only a bit muffled against her skin. After the conversation he just had with Kid it felt important to say it again, as many times as he could to Ran all over again because you never knew when you’d next get the chance. “So much.”

“I love you too, you workaholic.” Ran tugged blankets over them both. “Now sleep.”

Shinichi took Ran’s advice.

[lisatelramor]

Not Left To Stand Alone Ch33

“You’re smiling,” Kudo said. “And peppy. You looked like you were going to fall over when you got here.”

“Am I?” Saguru tried to reign in his outward expression of happiness into something closer to his usual self, but it was hopeless; he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. “Kuroba wanted to know if there was anything left from his Kid costume to take home.”

“Ai’s giving him the green light?”

“I think he’s more or less given himself permission,” Saguru said, amused in spite of himself. “Aoko caught the person stalking home this morning.”

“Huh.” Kudo gave him a piercing look. “I hope he wasn’t planning on leaving without saying goodbye.”

“I’m sure he has every intention of saying goodbye in as grand a way as possible,” Saguru said drily. Kuroba had enough mobility back that he could pull off something dramatic.

Kudo rolled his eyes. “Of course.” He went over to his office safe, opening with a practiced flicker of fingers. “I put his things in here just in case. Since they had his blood on them I figured he probably would want to dispose of them himself...” He took out the shredded remains of Kid’s white suit, slit up the sides from where they’d pried Kuroba out of it, the bulletproof vest, the blue shirt and red tie, shoes, and hat following. The glider material was there, jagged holes in Kid’s cape where the poles had pierced through it, but the frame itself must have been dismantled and disposed of.

Saguru’s happiness was dimmed by the bloodstains soaked into the white cloth. It told a story just as clearly as Kuroba’s body did. “Thank you,” Saguru said.

“No problem,” Kudo said. He set a bag on top of the pile. “These are the contents of his pockets. Well, everything he hasn’t taken back yet.”

Of course Kuroba would have found the safe and opened it by now. It truly wouldn’t be Kuroba if he hadn’t. A glance showed a good number of sleeping gas and smoke pellets. “Hopefully he won’t have a reason to use most of this anymore.”

“Ugh,” Kudo said, “I hope not. The number of times I’ve been gassed is ridiculous. He has to have been changing the formula over the years because we’d all be resistant to it by now.”

“He would have to.” Everything bundled up neatly and he gave Kudo a friendly nod. Funny how he went into things not liking the man very much, but was coming out something like friends with him. “I shouldn’t have much reason to use your guest room anymore. I do plan to keep in touch though and updated with the case. Thank you for letting me stay as long as you have.”

“It’s not like there wasn’t space,” Kudo said with a lopsided smile. “It’s always nice to have a second pair of eyes and someone to bounce ideas off of who can follow where my brain’s at.”

Saguru returned the smile. “Best of luck with the case.”

“Good luck with looking after Kid. He’s going to be bouncing off the walls from being stir crazy.”

“I’ll manage.” He saw Kudo’s eyes narrow just the slightest bit and knew he was drawing conclusions on where Saguru would be staying and the status of his and Kuroba’s relationship. Oh well, it wasn’t as if the majority of their acquaintances didn’t already think something was going on already by this point. “And now I’m going to collect Kuroba before he overexerts himself out of sheer joy of freedom.”

Kudo snorted. “Take care, Hakuba.”

***

Saguru woke up for the first time in most of a month to the sounds of Kuroba moving about in his apartment. A television playing and the rush of running water. It was before his alarm was set to go off but Saguru didn’t even mind. He levered himself to his feet and made two cups of tea before heading to Kuroba’s door just because he could.

Kuroba answered his knock, grinning when he saw him. “Morning!”

“Good morning. Care for a cup of tea?”

“I’ll take it. I just put rice and soup on for breakfast; it’ll be ready in a bit.” Kuroba gave him a peck on the cheek and took one cup from him like they did this every day. That...Saguru could get used to that. He could get used to having someone in the mornings to talk to and eating meals together regularly. Perhaps eventually he could get used to falling asleep next to someone again and having them there when he woke up in the morning. He hoped they could be that someday.

Kuroba couldn’t have been awake for long, but the apartment was already showing signs of life again, Kid’s hat resting on the coffee table next to some papers, the stack of books he’d had at Kudo’s set on the bookshelf, and a month’s worth of mail piled up on the kitchen table.

“Slipped my mind to ask you to get that,” Kuroba said. “I’m going to be in trouble with a few bills being late, but eh, that’s not too big a deal in the long run.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask, but how is your work taking your leave of absence?”

“Remarkably ok. It helps that Haibara wrote up a doctor letter to give me a legitimate leave of absence. I should be okay to go in by Monday though.”

“Do you think the museum is under watch?”

Kuroba shrugged. “If it is, not much I can do about it. I am a legitimate employee there though, so it isn’t weird for me to be coming and going. Now getting Pandora from its hiding place at the Beika museum on the other hand might take a bit of planning. But it isn’t time sensitive.”

“And then Kid retires.”

“And then Kid retires,” Kuroba echoed, lifting his tea in a mock toast. “Although I’ll probably have to negotiate something with Aoko on testifying in court. I’m pretty sure that someone could argue amnesty with the proof I brought up and considering everything I steal is usually returned. I bet it could be whittled down to a fine if they’re really trying.”

“So you will testify?”

“If I have to,” Kuroba said, dead serious. “I’ll take jail time if it means I’ve truly wiped out the people who killed my dad.”

It was a bit too heavy to think about over breakfast, especially with the new, fluttery reality of what was growing between them. Saguru sipped at his tea. “I hope you don’t have to,” he said finally.

“Same.” Kuroba waved a hand, pushing the gloom away. “Buuuut, there’s always that witness protection angle. Either way, won’t be an issue until they go from making arrests to putting people on trial. For now I’m going to enjoy the peace.”

“What on earth are you going to do with your free time?” Saguru asked, both joking and truly wondering.

“Hell if I know. Maybe I’ll get a new hobby.”

There were so many things Kuroba dabbled in already that it would be interesting to see what that new hobby might be. “I’m sure you’ll find something.”

“Mm.” Kuroba smirked over the rim of his mug. “Although I do know one thing I’d like to do.”

“And that is?” Saguru asked, eying Kuroba’s expression warily.

“Take you on a date.”

Saguru took too big a mouthful of tea and almost choked on it, face hot. “I have no objections,” he said after swallowing.

“Any preferences?”

“So long as I’m with you I think I’ll enjoy it.”

Kuroba kept up the salacious smirk a moment longer before he cracked up. “That’s the cheesiest thing you’ve ever said.”

“I meant it,” Saguru mumbled, ears red.

“I know.” Kuroba’s socked foot brushed his leg under the table. “It’s cute.”

“Are you going to do this all the time?” Saguru asked, still blushing. He wouldn’t be this easily flustered for long, not once the newness of it had passed, but he couldn’t really see Kuroba purposely flustering him all the time either.

“Not all the time. I just want to see you blush right now.” The miso soup was done and the rice cooker had finished its cycle. Kuroba rose to get bowls and Saguru stood to help him. The help wasn’t really needed; the brace on Kuroba’s leg supported it well enough, but Kuroba didn’t seem to mind it. He passed bowls of soup to Saguru before carrying the rice over himself. A dish of pickles and cold marinated tofu joined it on the table. “I was feeling something more traditional today,” Kuroba said.

“And of course you aren’t going to eat braised fish,” Saguru said.

Kuroba gave him a dirty look.

Saguru grinned back. Finding out how much Kuroba disliked fish was forever an amusing discovery that he intended to keep in mind in case he ever needed to keep something from Kuroba’s natural curiosity. All it would take would be a fish printed box.

They talked a bit more over breakfast, nothing important for once, just light conversation about Saguru’s work or the books they’d both read, and by the time they were done and Saguru was helping clean the dishes, he knew they needed to do this again.

“Come over for dinner,” Kuroba said at almost the same moment Saguru said, “Tomorrow I’ll make breakfast.”

They looked at each other a second before Kuroba laughed. “Sure, breakfast at your place tomorrow.”

“And I’d love to have dinner with you.”

“Good.” Kuroba cupped his cheek with a sudsy hand and pulled him in for a light kiss. It was just as dizzying as their first kiss had been. “Now, based off the time, you have just enough time to get your things and get dressed before work.”

“Damn work,” Saguru said, but he pulled back. “Thank you for breakfast.”

“Any time. If you have a chance, tell Takumi I’m home and almost on the mend.”

“I will.” He kissed Kuroba one more time. He had a feeling that was going to become something of a habit.

***

Aoko’s home was the same as Saguru remembered from his other visits, down to the worn nameplate with ‘Kuroba’ etched on it. The only difference Saguru saw was a wilted-looking pot of flowers set next to the doorstep in what had probably been an attempt to brighten the place up. He had been moving about life in somewhat of a happy daze the last week or so since he spoke to Kuroba, but he was coming back down from it and knew there were still a few things to take care of before he could truly relax, the ongoing arrests, trials, and investigations aside.

Aoko answered his second knock. There were hints of dark circles under her eyes and her flyaway hair was even more untamable than usual, fighting to escape the ponytail she’d forced it into. She didn’t look surprised to see him though. Saguru was surprised when she gave him a tired smile instead of the frown he expected.

“Hakuba,” she said, leaning on the door frame.

“Aoko-san,” Saguru returned. He gripped his cane in both hands, rocking back on his heels. “I thought we should talk.”

Aoko snorted, finding something about the situation funny. She gave him a once over before stepping aside. “Come on in then.”

There were a pair of men’s shoes already lined up next to Aoko and Takumi’s shoes indicating that she already had a guest. They weren’t the right size for Nakamori.

“Don’t bother with guest slippers,” Aoko said with a wave of a hand as Saguru took off his shoes. “I don’t mind. I was just having some tea with Kintaro.”

Kintaro? A memory clicked as Saguru rounded the corner, recognizing an officer from the Kid heist who had worked closely with Aoko. He was perhaps a few years younger than them at most, with a serious looking face. He was relaxed at the moment, one of Aoko’s heavy mugs in his hands.

“Kurenai Kintaro,” Aoko said, nodding at him. “My second in command for the task force. We were partners for a while before I got my promotion. Kintaro, Hakuba Saguru. He was my classmate in high school.”

“A pleasure to formally meet you,” Kintaro said. “I’ve heard quite a bit about you.”

Between Aoko and Nakamori, Saguru didn’t want to know what sort of stories had been told. He nodded politely and gave pleasantries in return. Aoko hadn’t mentioned him, but then Saguru only spoke to Aoko about very specific things. Takumi, on the other hand, had mentioned him a few times if Saguru remembered correctly. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything...?” Saguru ventured.

Aoko gave another small snort of laughter. “No. It’s the first day off we’ve had in weeks and all we could think to do with it is sit and have tea.”

“To be fair, we haven’t been doing much sitting,” Kintaro said with dry humor.

“Or drinking tea. I think I’ve drank so much coffee the last few weeks my soul left my body for a while there.”

“That would be called almost passing out from lack of sleep.”

“I went and took a nap after.”

“Next time I’ll intervene before it gets to that point.”

“Damn, there had better not be a next time of that week from hell.”

Saguru watched the back and forth, the humor at the stress shared between them, and had a stirring of understanding. He was interrupting a bit. But it wasn’t an interruption that would ruin anything, much like Mum showing up wouldn’t ruin the back and forth with him and Kuroba. “I take it that was during the worst of the fall out,” Saguru said.

“Ugh,” Aoko groaned. “It’s been hell. And it’s going to drag on for months until everyone’s had every last thing they’ve done in the last decade turned inside out and upside-down to be sure the corruption’s gone. But on the bright side, now that the hype is fading, the media’s not ringing the phones off the hook and for the moment no one’s breathing down my neck.”

“Small blessings,” Kintaro murmured, straight faced into his mug. Aoko elbowed him and poured Saguru a cup of tea.

“So,” she said. “I figure you want to talk about Kaito.”

Kintaro had a professional blank face. Aoko’s frankness meant he had to know about Kid. How they would manage to cover up that they both knew the identity of Kaitou Kid while the whole of the police were being investigated for anything they were hiding, Saguru didn’t care to know. He didn’t think Aoko would sell Kuroba out, and she wouldn’t have told anyone if she thought they would either.

“Yes,” Saguru said. He’d thought about how to approach this many times, from a roundabout discussion on Kid and Saguru’s past investment in him to attempting to talk through his mental state of recent months. In the end he’d decided to go with the most direct conversation because Aoko was a direct sort of person. Admittedly, he hadn’t expected to have someone else present for this. “You’re no doubt more than aware that I hold more than friendly feelings for Kuroba by this point,” he said, feeling uncomfortably open. He didn’t try to get out of it though, meeting Aoko’s gaze despite the faint warmth of his cheeks. “Recently I became aware that it was not one sided, and now we are dating. I hope that this won’t make things awkward going forward.”

Aoko didn’t look annoyed, just a slightly exasperated smile on her face and a complete lack of surprise. “No more awkward than it’s ever going to be interacting with Kaito.” Her smile went a bit more wistful. “I mean, it does feel a bit weird. Especially thinking back to high school. But it’s been years since then and years since the divorce, so...” She sighed. “Damn well time to let go of all that.”

Kintaro was pretending to be engrossed in his cup of tea.

Saguru cleared his throat. “Right. Thank you for understanding.”

“Anytime. Though if he ever hurts you like he did me, I’ll be glad to smack some sense in him.”

“Thank you,” Saguru repeated. Looking at her, she still had the same fire in her that she had in high school. The same fierce glint in her eye she’d have when wielding a mop or protecting a friend. It seemed he still counted as something of a friend to her. Perhaps here, too, he had a chance of building and repairing a relationship into something new. He hoped so. He liked Aoko even if he didn’t like Aoko as she was around Kuroba. “Hopefully that will never be necessary.”

“It had better not be,” she said with a toss of her head. “And I guess you better not hurt him either. Bakaito’s fucked up enough as it is.”

“I’ll try my best.” He let his eyes drop to his tea and drank a long swallow in hope that it would make the embarrassment a bit less prevalent. Mostly it just scalded his tongue. “Is Takumi-kun in?”

“He’s still grounded for the most part,” Aoko said, “so yes. He’s in his room. How has he been in class?”

“Quiet.”

“He’s been pretty quiet here too...” She glanced toward the stairs with pursed lips.

“There was an incident with someone popping a balloon in homeroom recently...”

“Ah.” Both Kintaro and Aoko winced, having their own bad experiences with sudden loud noises in the aftermath of trauma. “He didn’t mention it...”

“Would you mind if I talked with him?” Saguru asked. “There hasn’t been a chance to at school.”

“Go ahead,” Aoko said. She rubbed the back of her neck, back to looking exhausted and every one of her thirty-four years of age. “He certainly hasn’t wanted to talk to me lately.” The difficulty of being the parent who was responsible for discipline, Saguru reflected, and the ongoing tension of Takumi almost dying paired with Aoko having to work even more overtime than normal.

Saguru left his tea on the table. He caught a glimpse of Kintaro putting a hand on Aoko’s shoulder as he rounded the corner for the stairs, but he didn’t linger. Let them have their privacy. He’d almost assuredly interrupted a heart to heart. Maybe Aoko’s decision to move on wasn’t just for Saguru’s ears.

Takumi’s room was right at the top of the stairs, identifiable by the whiteboard stuck on it. It had a little doodle of a dragon munching on a lacrosse stick with Shiemi’s handwriting indicating that the stick was intended to be the losing team. The door was closed, but Takumi opened it when he knocked.

“Hakuba-sensei?” Takumi looked tired, though not as tired as Aoko. More like high school Kuroba the week before a heist, meaning he hadn’t been getting enough sleep.

“Takumi-kun. I wanted to see how you were doing. A lot happened in the last month, and there hasn’t been much time to ask.”

“Oh.” Takumi blinked and scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “Sure. I guess we can talk. Uh. Come in I guess?” He waved a hand at the desk tucked against one wall. “Pull up a chair.”

Takumi’s room couldn’t be more different from the room at Kuroba’s apartment. That room had minimal personal touches, but here there were posters on the walls and casual clutter, homework and books and bits and bobs of magician paraphernalia here and there in an organized looking sort of mess. Takumi slumped back over to his bed where he must have been sitting as there was the latest novel from the literature club there face down to save the page.

“Sorry,” Takumi mumbled. “It’s kind of a mess. I haven’t felt like cleaning lately.”

“It’s fine.” Saguru took a seat at the desk chair. Takumi’s window looked out at a tree, green leaves heavy and full on the branches. “You look tired.”

Takumi shrugged. “How’s Tou-san?”

“Home.” Saguru smiled as Takumi sat up straighter, relief clear on his face. Kuroba had been much better when Takumi last saw him, but far from well. “He will be back to work any day now and it looks like he will regain the full range of mobility he had before.”

“Thank goodness.” Takumi tucked his legs to his chest, curled around them in an act of self-comforting that Saguru was well acquainted with.

“Are you okay?” Saguru asked directly.

Takumi shrugged again. “I’m not hurt.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.” He looked so young. So young, and he was young, younger than Kuroba was when Saguru first met him, barely older than Saguru was when he ran into his first murder case. So much younger than it felt like when you were that age, something that only hindsight revealed. It was easy to try to live up to some skewed concept of adulthood. Easy to tell yourself to grow up and move on. It was what Saguru had done once. He wished he hadn’t, grown up too fast and pushed down too many emotions before he realized what it did to a person. Saguru sighed and looked past Takumi, to the tree, giving him the illusion of space. “Kuroba hasn’t been sleeping well,” Saguru said softly. “He hides it well, but he’s awake before I am and asleep after.” Saguru stayed one night since Kuroba was back in the apartment, and he’d woken halfway through the night to find Kuroba staring out at the dark streets with no expression at all. “I have had nightmares almost every night since Kid’s glider went down. It isn’t a weakness to acknowledge that the events of the last month haunt you.”

Takumi’s shoulders hunched, his face pressed into his knees. He had a pretty close imitation of Kuroba’s blank face on. “I didn’t get hurt,” Takumi repeated.

“It doesn’t have to be a physical wound to hurt.”

“I know that. Just.” He hid the rest of his face. “Hakuba-sensei, I only wore the Kid costume once. Tou-san wore it for seventeen years. I keep having nightmares and Tou-san’s always had a smile when I need one. Always.”

“He’s a remarkably good actor,” Saguru acknowledged.

“Kaa-san is a police officer and she’s been shot at and she’s still going on with life, and Tou-san became Kid around my age, probably got shot at and kept going and I can’t even get over a few bullets and blood.”

Takumi’s voice cracked and Saguru hurt both because Takumi couldn’t help but compare himself to his parents and because he was viewing it from the wrong angle entirely. Saguru crossed the room to Takumi’s side and red-rimmed eyes glanced up at him.

“And you haven’t kept going?” Saguru asked softly. He didn’t reach out because Takumi looked like the last thing he wanted was to be touched, but he stood close, supportive. “Takumi-kun, you have gotten up in the morning and gone to school and proceeded with your life even with things weighing on you. You didn’t hide away after Kid was shot down, but helped save his life and then turned around and did what you thought was the best option even though you were terrified to do it. Bravery isn’t a lack of fear, it’s acting in spite of it.” Takumi looked at him like every word might be the one to snap the world into some sort of order where fear wasn’t the forefront of his life and Takumi wasn’t full of internal conflict over emotional reactions he couldn’t control. “Nightmares don’t make you weak, and just because your parents have had more trauma in their life than you, it doesn’t negate that what happened to you was traumatic.”

“I should be able to just be myself. Move on,” Takumi murmured.

“Takumi, the only reason your mother and Kuroba and I appear to be functioning better is because we’ve had a lifetime of compartmentalizing and learning how and when to deal with the emotions traumatic events bring up. In the first week after Kid was shot, I had to check on Kuroba in the middle of the night half a dozen times, and probably would have stayed the whole night some of those times if Kuroba hadn’t woken up and called me out for watching him sleep.” Saguru sighed. “What I’m trying to say is that your response is normal. You watched a man—your father—almost die and you were shot at. Those are both extremely upsetting things.”

Takumi uncurled a little, still listening.

“Holding it in and pretending it didn’t happen will not help. Talk to someone. Write out what you feel or think or everything the nightmares stir up. It will get better. I won’t lie and say it will go away, because these sort of things leave scars even if they’re not visible. And Takumi?” Saguru crouched until he was eye level. “Kuroba is better at compartmentalizing than most of the world’s population, and if you strip all his acts away and make him be honest to himself, even he has scars that will never heal and things that will haunt him for the rest of his life. This is the first time you’ve had something traumatic like this happen. It’s a good thing you’re able to feel what you are. Some of us who’ve gone through it time and again can get so numb that we can’t even tell when we’re hurting and hurt ourselves worse. Your mind still has the instincts to try and work through and heal.”

“It sucks,” Takumi said after a few seconds.

“Royally,” Saguru agreed with a twitch of a smile. “Nightmares get old fast. I’ve found that trying to clear my mind before I go to sleep helps sometimes.”

“Only sometimes, huh?”

“As much as we try, the subconscious is unfortunately out of our control.”

That got him another tiny smile. Takumi uncurled from his ball. “It would have been better if I could have gone to lacrosse, but I kinda blew that. At least Kaa-san’s letting me do club activities so long as they’re right after school again.”

“Exercise in moderation can help,” Saguru agreed. “Don’t overdo it though.”

“I know my limits there,” Takumi said.

The tension that had filled the room dissipated as Takumi let out a small sigh.

“So is Tou-san retired?”

“More or less.” Saguru returned to the chair, giving him space again. “He does not intend to do any more serious heists, certainly.”

“Good.” A pause then, “Does that mean Kaa-san’s out of a job?”

Saguru tilted his head, considering. “No, because while Kid might be retired, he’s certainly left plenty of messes to clean up that Kid’s task force is uniquely qualified to deal with. And even if he hadn’t, I’m sure Aoko could easily gain a position working theft or specialized cases. The years of experience have given her and her men a wide range of practical experience that transfers broadly.”

“Ok. That’s good then.” Takumi glanced out the window, eyes distant. “You think it will make things less awkward with them? Kaa-san and Tou-san?”

“I hope so.” When he let himself dwell on it, Saguru couldn’t help but feel sad at the state of Kuroba and Aoko’s relationship. They’d been best friends once, weaved in and around each other with a closeness that he’d envied a bit. It was hard to say if more than a decade of lies and secrets and broken hearts could heal at this point.

“At the very least he won’t be rubbing Kid in Kaa-san’s face,” Takumi muttered. “Or getting shot at.”

“True.”

“Pass on a message for me to Tou-san?” Takumi asked, focusing back on Saguru again. Saguru nodded. “Tell him I expect him to take me to get sushi for my birthday this year.”

Saguru raised an eyebrow. Between the fact that Takumi was grounded and that Kuroba hated fish, it was an outing that didn’t seem very likely. He took it to mean that Takumi was still a bit angry at Kuroba after all. “I’ll pass it along.”

“And...tell him that I’m glad he’s better. And I’ll visit as soon as I can.”

“I will.”

“Thanks, Hakuba-sensei.”

Saguru asked him about lacrosse and how he liked the book from literature club, chatting a bit longer and bringing up Takumi’s spirits until he looked almost himself again. When he left, Aoko showed him to the door with a smile and managed to get a promise from him to keep in touch, not just for case reasons.

Life was settling. Saguru thought he was finally ready to settle with it.

OMAKE

Saguru took all of three steps into the literature club meeting before Momoi Shiemi turned to the other members and said, “Ha! Pay up.”

“Pardon?” Saguru froze just inside the door, absent smile on his face frozen in light of all the stares in his direction.

“Aw man...” Honda Jirou reached into a pocket for his wallet.

“Seriously?” Mizumachi Kou said.

Watanabe Emi turned around in her seat. “You couldn’t have waited a few more weeks?”

“I was betting on that cute guy Takata-sensei mentioned,” Honda sighed. He pressed several folded bills into Momoi’s hand.

Saguru blinked at them as they went on with...whatever this was. “Were you betting on me?”

“It’s not bad for you guys,” Nishijima Yuutaro grumbled. “I bet he wasn’t gay.”

“You suck at this,” Momoi said, collecting money from everyone there. Even a shamefaced Takumi.

“To be fair, statistically speaking—”

“Literally everyone else changed their bets after we read Confessions of a Mask,” Momoi said. “Let alone the news articles.”

“I didn’t want to assume!”

“So you assumed he was straight?” Momoi quipped.

Saguru decided he should have just come to the meeting late. Or not at all. Now that their bet was done they were ignoring him altogether. He sat in a chair and watched with something akin to morbid fascination.

“Nishijima-kun, twenty percent of the population isn’t straight,” Honda pointed out.

“The numbers are inflated!” Nishijima waved a hand in emphasis. “There’s over thirty people in my home room alone and none of them are gay.”

“First,” Takumi said, sounding tired, “not straight does not automatically equal gay. Second, how would you even know? Most people are closeted.”

“Third,” Momoi chimed in, “you’re wrong—you do have someone in your class who’s gay. Me.”

The whole literature club went briefly silent. Half the members looked at Momoi wide eyed. Nishijima looked like he wanted to swallow all the words he’d just said. Takumi looked like he couldn’t be more proud of Momoi in that moment.

“Oh,” Nishijima said awkwardly. He glanced around, lingering on Saguru and Takumi who hadn’t been surprised in the least. “You knew?”

“Shiemi told me ages ago,” Takumi said.

“I overheard certain things,” Saguru said diplomatically.

“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Anyone else gay that I should know about?”

Honda raised a hand. No one except Nishijima looked even a bit surprised.

“Seriously?”

“He chose the gay book,” Momoi said. “He isn’t even trying to hide it.”

“So,” Saguru cut in, “all of you had nothing better to do over summer break than make bets over your teacher’s sexuality?”

“We’ve been making bets since the start of the school year and this one was on your relationship status,” Momoi said with a false innocent look one her face.

Ever diplomatic, Takumi shrugged apologetically. “From the sound of it, last year they bet whether or not Yumi-sensei was pregnant.”

“Nishijima-kun bet she wasn’t,” Mizumachi snickered.

“You have terrible luck,” Watanabe said. “Never gamble.”

Saguru rolled his eyes at the lot of them. “How many people were even in on this?”

“Mm, the lit club,” Momoi said, “a couple teachers led by Takata-sensei, some lacrosse team members including Yuuto-kun—”

“We only met once,” Saguru muttered. “He’s not even in my classes.”

“Five people from your homeroom,” Momoi continued without missing a beat, “a guy I know on the police force, and one of the maintenance men who can never turn down a bet.” She grinned at Saguru. “For the record, I made a lot of money.”

“I feel like I should be discouraging this gambling habit of yours.” First the card games at the start of the year, now she was the bookie of a bet. They were lucky he was mostly exasperated and embarrassed than annoyed by the speculations. “Also, how do you know you won anything?”

Momoi snorted. “Please. You and Kuroba-ji have been dancing around each other since you moved here. You have to be as blind as Nishijima to miss it.”

“I take offense to that,” Nishijima grumbled.

“Also,” Momoi said ignoring Nishijima’s commentary, “besides your totally sappy look coming in here, Takumi totally witnessed you two kissing and if you aren’t dating after that, I have questions about how you draw lines in your relationships.”

Takumi didn’t meet anyone’s eyes, flipping through the novel they were supposed to be discussing. The tips of his ears were red with embarrassment. He’d handed over money with everyone else, so clearly he had been betting on this too. Honestly, at this point the only thing Saguru was surprised about was that Takumi never confronted him about seeing them kiss at all.

Saguru sighed, rubbing at his forehead.

“So,” Momoi said, “are you dating?”

Saguru held up his copy of that week’s novel. “So. This is literature club. Where we discuss literature. Form a gossip club on your own time.”

“Spoilsport.” She had a predatory sort of smile that promised nagging questions later and Saguru resigned himself to trying to ignore that for the rest of the day. If she wanted confirmation on anything, she could drag it out of Takumi or Kuroba, not Saguru.

AN: Just the epilogue left guys! Thanks for sticking with this fic so long ^_^ And thank you for all your awesome comments every chapter. They always make me smile. (Promise I'll go answer them eventually! Haven't been in the right head space to do so, but they're still very appreciated ^_~ ) There's going to be more extras and a prequel fic for this universe at some point, but I think I'll be taking a bit of a break after posting the last chapter before posting them all. Thank you for reading! <3

[lisatelramor]

NLTSA Extra: Takumi Pieces Things Together

Warning for a mild panic attack toward the middle. Takumi’s not dealing well.

Takumi was going crazy by increments. First, he was grounded. This meant he was stuck in the house and his phone was gone and he couldn’t even throw himself into something like he normally would do when his thoughts wouldn’t shut up. Like lacrosse. Lacrosse that he was missing practices for and possibly games if his mom kept his punishment this strict for another week. Second, he hadn’t talked to Shiemi in a week. Third, he hadn’t seen or spoken to his dad at all either. And fourth, well, fourth was that every time he closed his eyes he was seeing smoke from the bombs at the heist going off. Or caught in the panicked crowd. Or reliving that sickening moment when they found Kid and he was still conscious enough to try to move even with blood pooled around him and his leg at a weird angle and— Takumi swallowed. So yeah, he was slowly going crazy. His mom hadn’t given him any updates, and he couldn’t exactly call Hakuba-sensei to find out if Kid was still alive. He didn’t have his number or his phone right now.

Even that he could have probably just dealt with, but after a frustrating day of trying not to think about a week ago and trying to force his way through summer homework for lack of anything better to do, his mom came home with bad news.

“Your father has had an accident,” Aoko said between returning Takumi’s greeting and reaching the kitchen to start dinner. The way she said it made it sound like his dad had been the one at fault. Takumi froze on the kitchen threshold. ‘Accident’ brought to mind Kid, which brought to mind Kid’s glider falling, which brought to mind Kid broken on the ground.

“How?” Takumi demanded a breath later. “How bad, is he okay?”

“It was bad enough to go to the hospital,” Aoko said.

“Which hospital?” Takumi asked, already planning to run off and find the right room.

“I’m not sure.”

“How can you not know?!”

“I didn’t think to ask when I got the call,” Aoko said. Her lips were pressed in a firm line. “And you are grounded.”

Takumi swayed, feeling like his feet had been kicked out from under him. “But it’s Tou-san in a hospital. I know I’m grounded and not allowed over to see him, but I can’t even see that he’s okay?!” Takumi wasn’t prone to anger or violent impulses, but for a moment he wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her. Whatever her grudge with his father, he’d never thought she’d go all...all cold and closed up about it rather than bursting out like usual. Never thought she’d keep him from seeing him or going to see Kaito herself if something happened. Aoko still got groceries for him when she was in a good mood and Takumi was staying over the weekend. She’d gone and picked him up places before during the few times Tou-san did something stupid like get too drunk in public to get home. She still cared about if he lived or died, or at least Takumi always thought she did. “Kaa-san—”

“No.” Aoko turned her back, washing her hands at the sink like she was trying to remove the emotions clinging to her. “I’m keeping up with Chikage-baasan. You can visit in a few weeks.”

Weeks? In a few weeks, would his dad still be in the hospital? Or home? And if he would still be in the hospital, just how bad was that accident? Takumi’s hands clenched and unclenched, full of anxious energy and no direction to aim it in. “Okay,” he said forcing his voice calm and rational even though he felt the situation deserved anything but those things. “Okay, in a few weeks. Will you at least find out the details about what happened?”

“I’ll call Chikage-baasan back later tonight.” Aoko went to the fridge and stared a few minutes too long at the beer she kept in the back. It was one of those nights. Aoko didn’t drink often but when she did... She didn’t get angry or cry, she just got really quiet and it always made him uncomfortable for reasons he couldn’t put words to. She didn’t reach for it though, but pulled out an onion and chicken from yesterday’s grocery run.

Takumi had to get out of this house. He had to get out or he was going to explode at Aoko or just explode in general. He clenched his hands again. “Kaa-san, I know I’m grounded, but can I go to Shiemi’s? I’m stuck in my summer homework.”

“If I let you out that door, would you even go to Shiemi’s?” Aoko asked.

“Straight there and straight back,” Takumi promised. “I’d call you when I got there and when I left and Shiemi could tell you I was there too. Please. She’s better than I am at English.”

“You’re doing fine in English.”

“Only the stuff I had the extra homework sheets on,” though that was a lie. English was coming easier lately because he’d started trying harder because Hakuba’s approval had somehow become important. “I haven’t been doing extra work lately.”

Aoko tossed a cutting board onto the counter with a clatter. She fixed Takumi with a hard stare. “Straight there. Straight back. And you’ll show your homework when you get back.”

“Thank you.”

“I will know if you go somewhere else.”

“I promise I won’t go anywhere else.” It stung a bit. Her anger and mistrust. He was used to it when he stayed late with Kaito, but there Aoko always put some of the blame on Kaito. Until this year he’d never acted out much at school or disobeyed her ground rules. But he’d broken her trust and Takumi wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have done it again even with the consequences. Now, though, he would take what he could get.

“Call me!” Aoko shouted after him as Takumi raced upstairs to grab his things and go. “Take your cell phone from my room!”

He grabbed his phone on the way out and didn’t look back. Part of him was worried she’d take it back. He was half tempted to call his dad with it, but hospitals usually didn’t want cell phones in bed, and...and he didn’t know how bad the accident was. Kaito might not even be able to answer.

Takumi didn’t call to tell Shiemi he was coming over. They had been friends long enough that they had keys to each other’s homes and a standing invitation to come anytime. When he got to Shiemi’s tiny one room apartment, she was just starting dinner of her own.

“You look like hell,” she said giving him a once over.

“I’ll talk in a sec just...” Takumi called his mom’s number and thrust the phone at Shiemi. “Confirm I’m where I’m supposed to be.”

Shiemi took the phone. “Hey, moshi moshi Aoko-basan. Takumi made it here in one piece. Mm hmm. I’ll call back when he leaves.” She ended the call. “Grounded?”

“Yeah.”

“I told you it was a bad idea to go to the heist.”

Takumi tucked his phone away. “You said it would be interesting, not that it was a bad idea.”

“And anything I find interesting always ends up a bad idea for you,” Shiemi said. Accurate when Takumi stopped to think about it, from the time with the bees in primary school to only a few months ago when Shiemi had dragged him into trying things she saw in parkour videos. Shiemi hadn’t been the one covered in bruises the next day. “We’ll talk after dinner about whatever’s bothering you.”

Takumi didn’t protest. Instead he picked up a spare knife to cut vegetables as Shiemi finished her tempura batter. They worked in silence, comfortable in the familiar motions of preparing food. Takumi only spoke once to ask if Shiemi’s mother was joining them for dinner, but as usual, Keiko was working late. Shiemi set aside a portion of tempura for her.

It was only when rice was doled out in bowls and there were no more small tasks to keep Takumi’s hands busy that the tension crept back into him.

“Or we can talk during dinner,” Shiemi said as she saw Takumi’s shoulders creeping up toward his ears.

“Did you know Tou-san’s in the hospital?”

“No.” Shiemi’s eyes went sharp behind her glasses. “If he’s in the hospital, what are you doing here?”

“I’m grounded,” Takumi said with a hollow laugh that he’d never felt less. “Kaa-san’s angry at Tou-san because I went to the heist. He didn’t even do anything, it was all me and...” Takumi gripped his chopsticks. The food that had looked and smelled appetizing while cooking it didn’t seem all that tasty after all.

Shiemi watched him struggle with words for a long minute. “Start at the beginning. What happened with the heist?”

Takumi nibbled at a piece of tempura asparagus. “I didn’t have too much trouble getting in. The police blockade was pretty flimsy—too many people there to see the heist, too few officers to man it in comparison even with officers from outside Kaa-san’s division joining in. Actually, that could have been a problem in general—too many people who weren’t used to working with each other. Anyway, got past them easy enough, but before I could get anywhere near the heist room, Hakuba-sensei showed up.” He frowned at his plate. “I must have been seen on camera or something.”

“So Hakuba-sensei shows up and...?” Shiemi prompted.

“He shows up and tries to drag me off site because I’m not supposed to be there. Of course I’m arguing the whole time. Then the lights go out and Hakuba-sensei drags me past a couple of unconscious officers. Perfectly normal apparently. There were fireworks.” His hand shook slightly, the piece of asparagus between his chopsticks wobbling. “Then the bomb went off.”

“How close were you?” Shiemi watched him intently, eating her own meal at a fixed rate, bit by bit as he struggled to take even a few bites.

“Not too close,” Takumi said, shrugged. “We were almost back to the police line by then. I tried to run toward the building because Kaa-san was in there and I was scared she’d been caught in it.” His mouth opened, closed. “Everything was chaos. People screaming, rushing around. There weren’t enough officers to deal with something like that. We got caught up in that until Hakuba-sensei pulled us into an alley. I don’t even know how many people got injured in that mess.”

“Sixteen bystanders and two officers were badly injured,” Shiemi said. “I think maybe more people in the bomb but the news wasn’t reporting that. No one died.”

“Ah.” Knowing the numbers didn’t really make him feel any better or worse, just tired. “Anyway, we were in an alley out of the mess for the moment. We saw Kid escaping by glider. The glider went down.” Takumi went silent. Shiemi was silent with him, waiting. “You know, when it happened I thought, oh. This is the moment someone dies. I’m seeing a man die right now.” He didn’t want any of his food now even though he had been eating poorly all week and should all rights feel starving. “He wasn’t dead, but somehow that was worse than if he was.” Kid twisting and trying to move in those awful seconds when they got there. The blood. The way Kid looked at Hakuba-sensei before passing out. The glider like a mirror of its owner, broken, tangled, torn.

Takumi didn’t realize he was breathing hard until Shiemi’s hand touched his arm. His eyes snapped to her face. She was concerned, but she was calm, and Takumi latched onto this with his whole being. Shiemi caught his scrabbling hands and held them tight.

“Counts of four,” she said. “In...two...three...four... out... two...three...four... in, like that.”

He tried to copy her, using her counting as a focus, and eventually it worked. He felt like he’d just run a mile. “Sorry.”

“You went through some scary shit,” Shiemi said in her no-nonsense way. “It’s going to mess you up for a while.”

“Yeah.” He exhaled shakily. “Yeah, I know.” And it had hit Hakuba-sensei worse. He wasn’t sure what to feel about seeing Hakuba-sensei have a panic attack. Usually it took a lot to get even a reaction from him. “Anyway,” he continued like the whole thing hadn’t happened, “we called for help. Couldn’t go to a hospital because Hakuba-sensei was pretty sure people could find Kid there and kill him that way. So he made a phone call and people showed up, and we took Kid in the back of a car somewhere and he got fixed up... Hakuba-sensei was scary calm the whole time until Kid was being treated, and then he went and freaked out in a corner. I mean I went and freaked out in a corner too, but I didn’t really expect it from him.”

“Maybe it reminded him of something.” Shiemi tapped her fingers along Takumi’s arm. “The papers said his husband died tragically, but they didn’t really say how.”

“Oh.” Now Takumi felt even worse about the whole thing. Seeing Hakuba-sensei break down felt a lot like the times he’d seen his mom cry or when his parents had been arguing and his dad got that dead, disconnected look in his eyes. Not dead, Takumi thought, taking back the previous description when it made him remember his father was hurt. Not dead like Kid is not dead. “I forgot to call Kaa-san and so she was worried sick when morning came and I wasn’t home. So I got grounded. And today she said Tou-san got into an accident but I’m not allowed to go see him because she’s mad about me going to the heist even though it’s not Tou-san’s fault that I went.” He gave up all pretense of even pretending he was going to eat, lifting his feet up into the kitchen chair so he could hug his knees. “I don’t get it. I don’t get why she’s so angry at him, or how me attending a heist is connected to it beyond some stupid fact that Tou-san’s a Kid fanboy. I don’t get why she wouldn’t tell me what happened or why I wouldn’t be allowed to see him. He’s my dad. He’s my dad and with everything that happened to Kid, my brain is shoving Tou-san in Kid’s place in my memories. Just. What the hell, Shiemi?”

“That sucks,” she commiserated. “I can look into what happened if you want? Call around? Someone has to know the details.”

Takumi shrugged, still curled up in the chair. “Kaa-san didn’t even give a hospital name.”

“So I call all the hospitals in the area and ask them, and if that fails, I call Chikage-baachan and see if she’ll talk. And if she won’t, I’ll try Kuroba-ji’s cellphone because maybe someone is keeping track of it even if he’s in the hospital. Or heck, maybe he’ll even answer.” Shiemi gave him a quick, sideways hug, tipping him against her hip. “We’ve got this. As for your mom... Well, can’t do much about you being grounded or her having your phone watched, but you can always call me on the land line and I can use my phone.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have Hakuba-sensei’s number, would you?” Takumi asked.

“I might possibly have it,” Shiemi said, giving no indication of how she might have gotten said number. Takumi could see her getting it because of the literature club though.

“Kaa-san probably didn’t call him about Tou-san since she’s angry at him too. And...and I’d like to know if Kid is still alive. Hakuba-sensei is probably keeping track.”

“I can do that.” Shiemi prodded him in the side. Takumi twitched away. “Eat while I make the calls. If there’s any food left on that plate, I’m going to be annoyed.”

“Shiemi, I don’t even feel hungry.”

“Tough. You look like you haven’t been eating enough so you’re going to eat now while I’m watching. Especially the tofu. You need protein.”

“You sound like my mom.”

Shiemi snorted. “No, I sound like a friend. Eat.” She pulled out her phone and gave him some distance.

Takumi tried not to strain toward her voice on the phone as he forced a few more bites of tempura. Not for the first time he was glad he had Shiemi for a friend. Her tendency to take charge took away some of the overwhelming stress. She had a way of pulling information out of nowhere sometimes; he didn’t doubt she’d figure out what was going on.

That gave his brain the chance to think about something beyond the how and where and when of everything. He nibbled a piece of tempura tofu not tasting it at all. It was weird and unsettling to find out his dad was hurt so soon after Kid. Had it happened today? Or had Aoko only told him about it today?

There hadn’t been any texts on his phone or calls from Kaito over the week that Takumi didn’t have the phone—or Aoko had deleted them, but Takumi didn’t think she would go that far. She might be tracking his phone to make sure he was where he said he’d be, but she was never the sort of parent to rifle through her son’s phone or personal journals or anything like that.  It wasn’t like Kaito to not call at least once a week. Or text. Sometimes he sent a text a day full of random things involving coworkers or something he’d seen on his commute. But there wasn’t anything, and that raised the question of why, or more, if Kaito was injured, when did it happen? A day ago? Three days ago? Four days ago would be the start of where Takumi would have texted Kaito if he hadn’t gotten a message to see what was going on.

A niggling bit of him wondered if Kaito had been hurt all week.

It was probably just the part of his brain that wanted to project Kid’s crash memory on whatever accident had happened to his dad, but it was a persistent feeling in the back of his mind.

By the time Takumi had managed to nibble his way through almost all of the food on his plate, Shiemi returned from her phone calls in the corner. She tapped a pencil on a notebook full of quickly scribbled notes, frowning.

“Well,” she said, I can tell you that he’s not at any hospital in the area. I called all the places I can think to call in Ekoda and the surrounding areas to a couple towns out, but nothing. No Kuroba Kaito at any of them. Chikage-baachan picked up when I called, but she kept talking around my questions. As far as I can tell, Kaito-ji’s not at death’s door or anything, but whatever happened was pretty bad. She might have alluded to a car crash, but she never actually used those words, so... not much to give you there.” Shiemi shrugged. “Kaito-ji didn’t pick up his phone, but I left a message. Will see if that gets me anywhere.”

She sank into a chair across from Takumi, still tapping absently. “Hakuba-sensei did pick up. He confirmed that there was an accident. Interestingly enough, he implied that Kaito-ji wasn’t in a hospital at all, but that he had checked in on him a few times and he was healing okay. I also find it interesting that he said he was healing, because that implies that it’s been long enough for there to be an improvement from however Kaito-ji was when he was first injured, and improvement takes time.” She scratched her head. Her hair, wild when it wasn’t in braids, stuck up at an angle. “As for the update on Kid, Kid’s also healing. No infections and he’s awake and aware, though it sounds like there was a bit of memory loss about the day before the heist and the time between crashing and being fully conscious. That’s kind of normal for concussions though; it’s surprising he remembers anything about the heist at all. So far it looks pretty bright for his chances of a full recovery. He sent along hopes that you’re doing okay,” she added, “and that you can call him if you need to talk.”

Takumi hummed, brain going over her words in that nitpicky way it got sometimes  like when he was picking apart one of Kaito’s tricks. “If he’s not in the hospital, where is he?” And was it just him or was there an awful lot of parallels between what was said about his dad’s condition and Kid’s? Healing. They were both healing. Both badly injured. Both technically in an accident of a sort. Crash. Crash like the glider crashed. Takumi huffed a breath out hard through his nose, refusing to let his brain wander back down that path for the thousandth time that week.

“At home?” Shiemi said, though she didn’t sound convinced. “Or with Chikage-baachan? If he’s hurt bad, he’d need someone looking after him.”

“Hakuba-sensei?”

“No, he sounded a little distracted when we were talking. Like he’s working on something. There was someone else in the background too.”

“He could have just been visiting Kid.”

Shiemi shrugged. “Let’s lay out what we do know. Kaito-ji is injured—everyone admits to that.” She held up a second finger. “His injuries are bad.” Another finger. “He’s been injured for more than a day. We can say this because of what Hakuba-sensei let slip and because no one else actually stated when said accident occurred.” Shiemi had a look of deep focus on her face that Takumi couldn’t help latching onto with hope that she could make sense of it all. Three fingers tapped the side of her face before she slowly raised a fourth. “He isn’t in a hospital. Both Aoko-bachan and Chikage-baachan dodged naming a hospital and no hospital in the area has him. Plus Hakuba-sensei also let it slip a bit. What else?”

“Kaa-san’s still angry at Tou-san even though he’s injured,” Takumi said. “Which, ok, they have a weird, complicated, explosive non-relationship. But when he got the flu two years ago, she brought him medicine and soup and she’s not visiting this time and for all we know, Tou-san’s hurt bad enough it could be months of recovery.”

“Good point.” Shiemi held out five fingers.

“She didn’t even ask for details of what happened or what hospital Tou-san was in from Obaa-chan.”

“...Maybe she didn’t need to?” That was Shiemi’s Shogi face, right before she pulled out a move that would turn the tide of a game. “Maybe she didn’t ask questions because she already knew what happened, but she couldn’t give you details for some reason.”

“What the hell couldn’t she tell me for?” Takumi felt his hands clenching into fists. He didn’t get truly angry often, but he was nearing that point now. “Obaa-san, Kaa-san, Hakuba-sensei—they all seem to be on the same page. What big secret could they possibly have that would mean hiding Tou-san?” A thought struck him. “Unless he’s actually dead...”

“He’s not dead,” Shiemi snapped, killing that thought before it could do more than start to sink him into the icy grip of fear. “If he was dead they’d just call it an accident and say it upfront. You don’t get shifty about a death unless you had a part in the killing.”

And no matter how often his parents fought, Aoko wouldn’t kill Kaito. And Chikage-baachan wouldn’t kill her son. And considering how Hakuba-sensei looked at his dad sometimes, he definitely wouldn’t kill him. Plus there would be no way he’d be so calm on a phone conversation either. Takumi relaxed infinitesimally. “Okay. Good.” But what could it be? The only secret Takumi could think of off the top of his head was why his mom divorced his dad because she never talked about it. ...But now that he thought about it, it was a secret that Hakuba-sensei knew the answer to, and Chikage-baachan had to know as well...

“Do you know why my parents divorced?” Takumi asked Shiemi.

She shrugged, taking the change in topic in stride. “I always figured it was life differences. No offense to your dad, he’s an awesome guy, but he has a very different life approach than Aoko-bachan.”

“Yeah.” And at one point Takumi had figured that too. But they seemed to accept those parts of each other when it got down to it. The only thing that Aoko had zero tolerance on was... “Kid,” he murmured.

Shiemi went still across from him. Takumi bit his lip. No, no, it couldn’t be possible. It was just his brain being stupid and shoving traumas back in his face. But. Kaito was injured. Kid was injured. Kid didn’t go to a hospital. Kaito wasn’t in a hospital. Kid was healing. Kaito was healing. What consistently made Aoko mad? Kaitou Kid. Who was Aoko mad at most in regards to Takumi showing up at the heist? Kaito. Not Takumi who took the time to sneak through a police barricade. Not at Kid for holding a heist that put hundreds of people in danger. Aoko was holding a grudge with Kaito. Kaito who hadn’t even been at the heist or made any mention of it to Takumi. Unless Takumi’s brain wasn’t crazy and Kaito had actually been there. As Kid.

He stared at Shiemi with mounting horror and disbelief. The serious set of her jaw and the direct stare back said her mind had gone the exact same place. “It can’t be,” he said.

“Can’t it?” She drummed her fingers along the table. “I have to admit, I’ve thought it before. Kid’s a showman and really skilled. The only person I’ve ever met with that good of sleight of hand is Kaito-ji.”

“There have to be hundreds—thousands—of magicians or...or thieves or whatever out there who are that skilled.”

“Who are Japanese?” Shiemi countered. “Who have that kind of background in magic to draw on? Who keep practicing even though it’s not their profession?”

“It’s homage to his dad...” But the idea had been planted. “He’s just. Kid’s fanboy. He even consulted on Kid heists in the past. I mean, he’d have to have been, what? Sixteen when he started?”

“Easier to pull a heist if you have seen it from the inside,” Shiemi said. “And he was skilled even back then.”

Another awful bit slides into place. “Hakuba-sensei got in arguments with Kaa-san in high school because he accused Tou-san of being Kaitou Kid.”

“...Does he still think Kaito-ji is Kid?”

“When I asked he just said that he doesn’t.”

They both sat there a moment, digesting this. The same traitorous part of his brain that kept connecting things together helpfully pointed out that thinking is different than knowing.

“He might not be,” Shiemi said.

“But he might be.” And Takumi was not okay with that. He was not okay because if Kaito was Kid, that explained a lot of things but left so many more full of questions. If he was Kid, then Aoko had been chasing after her own ex-husband. If he was Kid then much of Kaito was someone Takumi barely knew. If he was Kid then when Kid had crashed Takumi had almost seen his dad— Takumi stopped that thought in its tracks.

“You okay?” Shiemi asked, giving him a once over that meant his face was showing who knew what.

Takumi wanted to laugh hysterically. Okay? He was the furthest thing from okay. Instead he did his best mimic of his dad’s poker face—and wasn’t that a skill that could be useful in more than putting on a show—and shrugged. “I’ll be fine. I think...I think I’m done trying to find answers for the moment.” He wet his lips, only now aware of how dry they felt. Rough, because he kept biting them out of nerves. “I brought homework over as my excuse to come. Help me with that?”

Shiemi knew him too well to even pretend to be convinced by that, but she didn’t push him about it yet. Yet, because she would push eventually, she always did and he loved her for knowing when it was okay to do it and when it wasn’t. “Fine,” Shiemi said. “But you have to get me gossip on the girl’s lacrosse team before summer’s over.”

“Deal.” He didn’t even ask what she wanted it for. He gladly dove into the usual bargaining of little, inconsequential favors that they had between them. Then he buried himself in the incomprehensible mess of the English language until he and Shiemi had done more than three quarters of the entirety of his summer English homework in one night.

They didn’t talk about Kaito or Kid again the rest of the night, not even to wonder if he was okay. And when Takumi got back home late, it was to find Aoko drunk in the kitchen on beer and two glasses belonging to other people in the sink. One was his grandfather’s; the ashtray Aoko kept for his visits had been left on the counter. Aoko was asleep, the dregs of beer still at the bottom of her glass. She had to have fallen asleep between when Takumi called to say he was leaving and when he returned to the house.

He didn’t know what to feel seeing her like that. Sad? Angry? The tiniest bit glad that it could be an emotional response besides anger directed at his dad?

Mostly he just felt tired.

He washed the dishes in the sink, pulling the glass of beer from Aoko’s limp hand. After, he nudged Aoko awake enough to help her upstairs to her bedroom. It left him with the bitter taste of irony, him in a parental moment toward his mother instead of the other way around.

Takumi went to bed determined not to think about when he and Shiemi had possibly uncovered again.

That resolve lasted until three in the morning when he woke up from a nightmare where Kid’s broken body had Kaito’s bleeding face.

Takumi didn’t get much more rest that night.