#so kaito like knew what they were going through mostly. all the cards were on the table

[neodiekido]

can't stop thinking about how maki became a sidekick before she told kaito (+ shuichi) about her talent in utdp/danganronpa s. definitely would change the dynamic up a bit but it'd be incredibly funny. kaito drags along his grumpy "child caregiver" classmate to his workout group thinking she's just got some stuff she needs to work through and then like a few months later she just goes "im actually the ultimate assassin" unprompted in the middle of kaito talking about space

[shidoukanae]

YGO! Questionnaire

Tagged by @cipher-wise​

Favorite series:

My favorite series based on what I watched and enjoyed would have to be Arc-V!!! It's honestly the series that got me to adore YGO when previously I'd seen YGO as, and I chilidishly quote, "uncool". Everything about Arc-V is pretty much wonderful: Yuya's presence as a "everyone MUST be happy" kind of character in a plot that discusses themes of war, revenge, and despair is absolutely refreshing (especially when Yuya's ideals of happiness are stripped from him and made a mockery of by, *coughs* one of my favorite characters in the franchise *coughs*). 

I love how the four Yuu boys are a wonderful combination of "protagonists" (/anatagonists) and how they each play off of each other's weaknesses and strengths, often acting as mirrors to each other in their individual dimensions while having amazing interactions (Yugo and Yuri, anyone? Yuri and Yuya?).

I admire how the endgame plot is a perversion of Yuya's ideals: he gets what he wants, showering happiness upon all, but that "happiness" is corrupted into the notion of entertainment. While Yuya seeks to provide people with smiles and laughter, to give them hope to work together through tough times and to stay strong in the face of adversity, his "counterparts" in the endgame are really good at acting as Yuya's mirror: showing that his style of performing can also be used to appease the bloodthirst of one's own self and that happiness can be corrupted into self-deserving power.

...Hard to put that into exact words without spoiling a lot of things but, gosh, let's just say that Yuri and ____ are the perfect mirrors to Yuya in terms of what his entertainment dueling style is meant to be.

The plot over all is pretty good! I won't lie and say it stands strong all the way throughout the story but the first half is amazing and there are some pretty strong episodes in the second half (Yugo and Rin, the parasite episodes in general, Yuri Yuri YURI). I can definitely say that the humor is there, the characters are amazing (if nothing else, watch for the Yuu Boys, the Bracelet Gals, and Shun versus Sora!!) and having come into the show around episode 104, I was pleasantly surprised by the trip Arc-V brought me and how it played with its protagonist, giving him hope, kicking him down, and toying with his mind - just like the way a warzone might to any idealistic individual.

In terms of other series, I like VRAINS but only up to like episode 19 (or the end of the Data Bank arc). It had potential and I kept hoping it would get better but the plot was constantly floundering, there are plot holes abundant (sewer monsters, ugh), character development is inconsistent not to mention very shallow, VRAINS has some of the best side characters but they're kicked to the curb by a bland protagonist and a villain that could've been so much cooler but they made him a sympathetic mess.

...I have a lot of gripes with VRAINS but, if it were to ever be rewritten with clear goalposts and plot twists in mind (not to mention development on ideas like Charisma Duelists because at the end of the show I still have not a fucking clue what a Charisma Duelists is or was) I would say it has potential to become my favorite series but Arc-V clearly beats it for me in every category lmao.

Zexal’s also really good too!!! I don’t get all the hate behind it because it’s actually really interesting and engaging (also IV’s definition of fanservice is literally the only type of fanservice I will ever accept) and I think I’ve even cried a couple of times during the course of the plot which is like,,, shocking considering it’s not a show I thought I’d cry over (I cried in Arc-V too but goddamn does tiny Yuya just want to make you tear up lmao). This show is really good emotionally and it’s literally so stupid how Kaito carries a lot of the early and middle game of the show yet most of the meat of the plot doesn’t begin to unravel until the second season.

Also, if you ever want to watch a show of 100+ episodes that is so masterfully written that there is foreshadowing for stuff in like episode 130+ on EPISODE ONE, please watch this. Literally there are so many hints of what is going to happen in the future in the early episodes and you won’t really be able to tell what those hints are until you’ve finished the show but goddamn when you go back and rewatch things it does indeed feel amazing how much foreshadowing they threaded into the show without you ever knowing...(please don’t search for spoilers if you intend to watch this. I went into the show knowing some spoilers tho not all and, while I was still pleased by what I watched, I honestly can agree the show is A Lot Better without knowing ANYTHING)

Favorite Protagonist: Yuya. For sure, out of all the series, Yuya. 

He’s a refreshing protagonist, especially considering he shines in a world of war and despair. He’s also someone who you empathize with right at the start and want to hope in, especially since he is the “happiness” in a word of “madness” and “sorrow”. He’s not someone out to save the world (not really, anyways), but his actions touch on the lives of others anyways, giving people in a hope in a world that is otherwise cruel and heartless. Also, it really helps that he’s able to pull you into his world of “egaos”, making you believe in him and root for him despite how cheesy his ideals may or may not sound.

Also love how, despite being the centerpiece of “happiness”, Yuya isn’t allowed to always be happy :> Not spoiling plot related things but if you like protagonists going off the rails insane at times, Yuya’s definitely a fun protagonist for that!!!

Favorite Rival:

Kaito Tenjou!!! Literally the best rival in the series that I’ve seen. Everything about him is literally perfect ngl. From the way he’s chillingly introduced, with the spine-tingling whistles and cruel, almost merciless nature, to the way he slowly becomes sympathetic while also remaining a terrifying presence whenever he appears...I love him????

Favorite BFF:

Does Shoichi count? Because like...he’s Yusaku’s closest friend and ally in the series and I generally don’t pay attention to the other BFF’s in the other series (or at least, the ones I can recall bc I know in Zexal that Yuma has a whole group of friends lmao).

But I like Shoichi!! He cares about Yusaku a lot, is pretty damn cool as a sidekick hacker, his sideplot with his brother was actually honestly endearing and I loved the mystery about him. His early-game jokes w/ Ai to tease Yusaku were also a good laugh.

Favorite GFF: 

Not a girl friend forever for the main protagonist (although she like...lowkey confessed to him...though that plot really never went anywhere so I still don’t know what the fuck THAT was about) but,,, Ema Bessho,,

If y’all knew me back in my peak YGO days when VRAINS was airing,,, this gal was and STILL is my favorite girl of the YGO series. Even though she was pretty much done dirty imo I still love her (even despite considering she’s been made a damsel-in-distress at least three times, she’s only ever won one duel on-screen despite being supposedly good at dueling, ngl they could’ve done so much more with her but tbh she’s mostly just an asset to solve problems at whim and barely gets character development/does nothing but watch and spectate stuff late-game).

Even though she’s like...the unfortunate side character who’s probably meant to be more fanservice than interesting, in the first 19 episodes (and even the Revolver vs. her fight as well as the one time she meets Aoi IRL early-game) made her out to be a lot cooler and complex than she ended up being. I mean,,, a hacker gal who’s self-serving, cynical, and cold-hearted taking on the tasks of her (potentially ex) boyfriend while being really nice to his sister to the point she baffles even herself,,, we could’ve had a really unique and cool character to play around with here but instead we got...cool-ass character with potential to be something more reduced to a spectator with nothing better to do than idolize the main protagonist and have a plot with her brother that honestly detracted from her character more than it added to it imo.

Also Ema could’ve been a female Yuri but,,, nope,,, they decided she was better as a background piece instead TwT

Favorite Villain: Yuri.

Literally Yuri.

I could choose the leather jacket w/ fluff boi in a certain series because hot damn was that guy convincing AF that he wasn’t an evil psychopath (and even while knowing that he was, I still got fooled into thinking he was a good guy somehow omg) however,,, I’ve always held a love for Yuri and the way he’s been portrayed.

Despite ALWAYS being the bad guy, the show has always made this purple fucker into the most entertaining character on-screen. He even beats Yuya sometimes in terms of how entertaining he is - that’s literally how good he is,,

Also his facial expressions are amazing, he’s a VERY VALID threat to the main cast (and his creeper levels are not only off the charts but literally called out by the main female protagonist herself lmao), and he acts as the perfect foil to Yuya, battling not to entertain others but to entertain himself.

Also, he likes killing people.

No this is not a joke.

He literally likes killing people. And is pretty sadistic about it, too.

(^^^^ for those who don’t get the joke, “Fusion” is pronounced “Yuugo” which sounds similar to “Yugo” which is what,,, Yuri is making fun of,,, more context is needed of course but this is a Great Running Gag)

Favorite card:

I don’t know if it actually exists as an actual card but...that crystal dragon from the YGO movie with the glass pyramid. Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon...it’s really pretty...I love it...

Favorite Episode:

I’m...too lazy to search for names of these episodes but I can give brief summaries of them,,, because I can’t choose,,,

Arc-V: Shun vs. Sora (ALL episodes). Hot damn if you have never watched YGO but want to try and see for yourself why people like it: WATCH THESE EPISODES. I can’t explain how amazing these episodes are and, while I admit jumping straight into them might have you missing out on some important context (such as who Shun is or why Sora’s battle tactics lead to revelation) it’s honestly an amazing fight regardless. The battle starts off plain enough - there’s obvious tension, it seems like a typical fight of a battle royale, etc. - my god does the battle ramp up in emotional tension and promptly kick you in the gut with not only how blindsided you’ve been, but it also showcases just how cruel these “entertainment duels” can really get.

Any episode with Yuri. Literally any episode he’s in. 

I think this is like...episode 8 of VRAINS...but whenever it is that Akira hires Ema to find the reason why Aoi just...straight up got knocked into a coma. Literally this is my favorite episode when it comes to Ema. The way she makes fun of Akira even while aware of his situation,,, her cruel selfishness and desire for money bubbling to the surface, the way she confesses how she can’t be trusted willingly and still asks Akira why he’s hiring her,,, god I love this episode in terms of what Ema could’ve always been.

Episode 13 (/14?) of Zexal!!! This is the episode Kaito appears and when the show REALLY picks up. Kaito is a fun bastard of a rival and tbh I don’t think I’ll ever stop getting chills of him walking in, debris frozen in time all around him, as he approaches his victim, whistling an eerie children’s tune as he gets ready to close in for the kill,,,,

Favorite Deck to Use:

I don’t...really play the game itself but...I have used a couple of decks and I guess you can say I really love Raid Raptors??? First of all, those warbirds make really fun sounds I love ‘em in the anime but they’re also just fun to use in general (even tho I used a,,, very basic deck for them,,, I love them still).

Fusion, Ritual, Synchro, XYZ, Pendulum or Link:

XYZ bc it’s really the only summoning method I’m used to lol :P. Also XYZ loyalist I guess???? 

Years in fandom: roughly five to six years iirc? I mean, I was a fan of the early day YGO and watched it as a kid but not active enough to be in the fandom for it lmao. Also not in the fandom atm because Sevens lost my attention (it’s a good show!!! I’m just unfortunately more a fan of things with serious plots and darker themes and it’s hard for me to stomach slice-of-life shows that don’t focus on a mature and engaging plot). However, Arc-V and Zexal holds a special place in my heart (as does VRAINS, begrudgingly) and so I occasionally find myself wandering back to these shows like right now,,, 

[sparrellow]

It’s Not a Date (Or Is It?)

“Why would I, of all people, ask the poor girl out on her birthday, of all days,” he said. “That sounds like the worst birthday gift ever.”

rating: T genre: romance, humour pairing: rinlen words:  5,141

Although they had been friends since they were in diapers, when it came to Rin’s birthday, Len always had no clue what to give her.

You see, the girl was difficult. She didn’t really like her birthday—she refused to celebrate it, even. She went so far as to threaten to blackmail him (with childhood photos of him half-naked, suction cups on his nipples; it was better not to ask, for childhood had been a strange time) if he so much as ever planned a surprise party behind her back. 

Whenever he’d try asking about what she’d want for her birthday, she’d scoff and roll her eyes and tell him something stupid like, “A will to live.” Yes, Rin, we all want a will to live, he’d think. But alas I need something a little more obtainable.

And, well, it wasn’t like Len could just not give her a gift—he had to. It was obligatory. While Rin’s blood curdled at the mention of her own birthday, whenever it came to anyone else’s, she would go ham. The previous birthday, she’d knitted Len a sweater. A whole, mcfucking sweater. And you can bet this simp wore it so much the armpits started permanently smelling like the inside of a men’s locker room. 

So he had to give her something back as equally as awesome. It was just an unwritten rule in his book of life. It was Len law.

Despite spending a good portion of the year listening out for any things she could want, this year around was particularly tough. Rin had mentioned, in the off-occasion, wanting several things; a television (he couldn’t afford that even if he wanted to), a boyfriend (well… maybe? Ahem. Just kidding), and a trip to the ISS (h… how).

For obvious reasons, such gifts were unobtainable. Which came to the dilemma he experienced almost every year: what in the ever loving fuck should he give to Rin this year?

It hit one week before her birthday when he started to grow desperate. So desperate, in fact, he consulted two of Rin’s closest female friends—Gumi and Miku, who seemed to be (sometimes, mostly) on the same wavelength as her. 

He didn’t like talking to them. They were painful to engage with. Insufferable. The human embodiment of gremlins. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

“A gift for Rin, huh,” Miku had echoed, when he’d planted himself at their desks one morning. Rin always came late, so, it wasn’t like he’d be caught in the act or anything anyway. 

Len nodded.

Gumi and Miku exchanged looks.

“How about you ask her out,” Miku suggested, a deadpan expression. Gumi, however, couldn’t do much to hide her amusement; bursting into a fit of giggles behind her hand.

He rolled his eyes. “A serious gift, Miku.”

“What?” She looked innocent. “It is serious.”

Gumi continued to snort-laugh off to the side.

“Well, what are you two giving her for her birthday?” he asked, deciding it wasn’t worth the effort arguing.

Miku tossed a pigtail behind one shoulder. “We’re going to have a sleepover, where we will forcibly sing happy birthday to her and make her eat a cake.”

Len frowned. “That sounds… nice. I guess.”

“You can’t steal our idea.” She jabbed a finger at his chest. “Like I said, just ask her out.”

“Why would I, of all people, ask the poor girl out on her birthday, of all days,” he said. “That sounds like the worst birthday gift ever.”

It was their turn to roll their eyes. “Maybe to you, banana brain,” Gumi said. “It’s pathetic that you’ve been friends with her the longest out of us three, and you still don’t know what gift to give her on her birthday. Talk about dumbass energy.” Then they high-fived each other.

Len bristled, his pride taking a hefty blow. “And? At least I’m trying to give her something she wants,” he reasoned, voice squeaking.

“If you used any of that big, big brain in that big, big head of yours, you would know what she wants,” Miku shot back, waggling a finger at his forehead. “Like I said: kissy kissy. Go on a date with me. Let’s get married or something and live happily ever after.”

But he was unconvinced. Rin? Living happily ever after? That girl couldn’t sit through any romance movie for the life of her. 

He decided this conversation was not worth having. He would figure this out on his own.

Maybe. Hopefully. Probably.

.

“A gift for your girlfriend,” Kaito mused aloud, looking distant as he hung over the fence separating him and Len. Kaito was his neighbour; an older, more experienced neighbour (he was a university student and proudly boasted about his experience having dated two girls and one guy).

It was T-minus three days until Rin’s birthday, and Len was still running in circles trying to figure out what to give her. It had come to asking his neighbour. Who, in all the times they’d interacted, always smelt like bong water and cigarettes.

Len winced. “She’s not my girlfriend,” he said—or, well, insisted.

Kaito ignored him. “How about a date,” he suggested. “Like, a really sweet date. You take her somewhere she likes to go and treat her. It doesn’t have to be grand or extravagant, or anything.”

Huh. Huh. The guy had a point. Not the date part, but the taking-her-out-and-paying-for-her part. It didn’t seem too bad of an idea, actually.

All of a sudden, Len had a great idea for what to do on Rin’s birthday. He quickly thanked Kaito for his advice and ran off, annoyed he hadn’t thought of it in the first place, but nevertheless plotting a master plan of where he could take her on her birthday.

First, of course, he had to check whether she was available that day.

Rin r u busy on Sunday, he texted her on LINE.

She replied two minutes later with, I’m at Miku’s in the morning, but I’m free in the afternoon. Why?

Okay, good. He didn’t need to rethink schedules or anything. Do u want to hang out? We could go 2 karaoke or smth.

Sure. What time?

Len paused to think, before responding, How abt one?

Rin’s reply came back almost immediately. Sounds good.

He was relieved. Okay. So. Now he just had to figure out what to do to make the whole thing, well, special. It was her birthday. Sure, going to karaoke was good and fun and all, but they already did that pretty regularly. It was part of the plan, but he needed something more. 

How about a nice restaurant? Or was that too, well, suggestive? Besides, he only had so much of his allowance he could spare. Hmm.

He pulled up the internet browser on his phone and began typing into the search function, Places to go on dat— Wait—delete delete delete. Places to go for birthdays. There we go.

Some articles popped up. He clicked on the first one, scanned the list. Restaurant. Cinema. Musical theatre. Park. Museum. Observation tower.

Observation tower?

Len thought for a moment. He knew he was too broke to take her somewhere exciting like, uh, Skytree or whatever. But then there was the Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku. And that was free. And they had a cafe at the top. 

Plus, it was sort of romantic— 

But the point of it was, it was for her birthday. Not a date. And it was something nice and unique, and he could totally imagine them sitting in the cafe watching the sunset over Tokyo's skyline.

So, that was decided. Karaoke. Observation tower. Maybe dinner if Rin was keen on getting something like Gusto because he didn't have the bank account for it. Man, Kaito was sort of a genius, in his own strange, Kaito way.

He reminded himself to buy the guy an ice cream sometime as a thank you gift.

.

Sunday finally came, and Len arranged to meet Rin out front of their usual go-to karaoke box. She was already there waiting when he arrived—which was strange, given the girl's notoriety for being fashionably late in most situations—looking bored and scrolling through her phone. She was dressed sort of cute; a mustard yellow overall dress and white collar shirt underneath, hair tied back by her signature white bow. 

He swept her up into an embrace, which she wriggled out of with a groan. "Happy birthday!"

Her cheeks flushed red and she rolled her eyes. "Shut up."

Len took no offence, steering her into the lobby of Joysound. "How was your sleepover with Gumi and Miku?" he asked.

Rin looked surprised. "You knew about that?"

"Oh. Yeah. I talked to them last week about it."

She blinked. "Huh." She seemed to brush it off as something minor, answering his question with a shrug of her shoulders. "You know. It's Miku and Gumi. We played monopoly before Miku got bored, and then they forced me to play truth or dare."

"Truth or dare, huh." Len had heard multiple horror stories about her previous experiences with the girls playing truth or dare. He grinned, glancing over at her. “So what did you do?”

“Dare, of course,” Rin said. She held up her wrist, showing an elaborate illustration of an erected penis. “What do you think?”

His eyebrows shot up. “That’s creative.”

She snickered. "Yeah. I think they were getting a bit frustrated with me. I kept saying pass on their dares, so the punishment was to drink a whole bottle of ketchup."

Len wondered what possible thing they were trying to get her to do that she would willingly drink ketchup over doing. "Did you?"

"Yeah. And then I threw up all over Miku's carpet, so they called it a night."

The way she said it so nonchalantly caught him off guard as they stepped up to the counter. He fumbled with his wallet, pulling out a membership card and scrambling to fill out the slip of paper the front counter clerk handed to him.

Rin was reading his writing over his shoulder. “Four hours? Really? I thought we would be going for like, eight hours.”

He handed the paper back to the staff and shot her his best, reassuring grin. "I've got other stuff planned after this, you know."

She quirked an eyebrow. "Other stuff?" she echoed. "Better not be a surprise party, or I will post those pictures of you all over—"

"It's not a surprise party. It's just you and I. Jeez."

The staff told him how much they owed, and he dished out the money before Rin could even get to her own purse. 

She frowned. "Hey. Tell me how much it was when we get to the room so I can pay you back."

"No," he said smoothly, pocketing the change and taking the receipt. "Today, it's on me."

Rin opened her mouth to argue as they started off down the corridor towards their allocated room number. "Are you sure? Four hours isn't cheap—"

"It's fine," he insisted. "It's your birthday. Think of it as part of the gift."

She wasn't impressed, but she knew better not to argue.

The room they were given wasn't huge—which was fine, not that they needed the space—so they sat next to each other bumping shoulders on the far side of the room, facing the television. Rin already had the remote in hand within moments of sitting down, queuing a ton of songs they usually defaulted to singing every time they went to karaoke.

When they cleared out what she had queued, she reached for the menu on the table in front of them and started looking through it. “I’m hungry. Can we get something?”

Len was trying to remember how much he had left in his wallet in terms of cash. "Uh. Sure."

She pointed at a picture of a plate of takoyaki. "Want to share some?"

They were only 600 yen. Not too bad. 

He nodded, before noticing a lack of drinks on their table, and the dry, scratchy feeling in his throat. He quickly checked the receipt they were given. "Shoot. I got us the drink bar. Want me to grab you something?"

"Oh." Rin thought for a moment, as if the decision was really tough, although the selection at the drink bar almost never changed. "Just get me some minute maid. The usual."

Right. Orange soda. The usual. As he got up from his seat, she reached over to unhook the phone from the wall.

"I'll order the food," she told him before he left.

Len poured himself a glass of calpis, grabbed Rin's soda. While waiting for the drink machine to finish, he acknowledged that he was feeling sort of nervous. His heart was beating hard against his ribcage, palms clammy. Why though? It wasn't like this was any different from any other karaoke venture him and Rin went on.

Well, besides the plans he had for the evening, but it was because of her birthday. Nothing else. No sinister thoughts here.

When he got back to the room, Rin had already queued another block of songs and was in the middle of singing something. He hadn’t even the chance to queue anything he wanted. 

God, she was such a remote hog, and he thought to tell her off, but reminded himself it was her birthday. Let her be the evil remote hog that she was for the day.

The food came when they were in the middle of a duet. Len almost missed his part of the song, because she hadn’t just ordered takoyaki, but also a plate of fries and a strawberry parfait. His eyes popped out of his head as the employee set down the food on the table.

Rin, he thought. Why are you like this. I love you, but why are you like this.

“Are you going to eat all of that?” he asked when the song finished.

She gave him a look. “No? We’re sharing.”

Len mumbled something along the lines of okay yeah whatever but I didn’t ask for this much food. He reached for a soggy fry, mourning his allowance.

.

Karaoke went by fast. In retrospect, it was probably better to have only spent four hours there, because his throat was raw by the third hour. Rin—the absolute madman—was still going somewhat strong, although her voice was a tad raspy by the end.

After Len paid for the food, they left and headed for the station nearby. On the way there, Rin asked, "So, where to next?"

"Shinjuku." He left it brief.

She screwed up her face. "Shinjuku? Ew. Why are we going there?"

"Because that's where I planned for us to go?" He gave her a hurt look, and she returned it, playful.

Admittedly, Len was a little worried, considering Rin had consumed almost all of the food they were supposed to share (not to forget that she also put another dint in his wallet). He was planning on them having cake or something at the cafe at the top of the north tower, because it was her birthday, but she probably wouldn't even be hungry.

The trains were starting to get a little busy—Sunday afternoon, everyone was going home—so they had to stand a little close together. Rin parked herself in the corner between the seats and the door, and Len right beside her, trying to avoid touching the other people around them but leaving enough space for Jesus between each other.

Normally Len wouldn't find himself so worked up over this situation, but today, his brain was like, stupid teenage boy mode or something because being so close to her was really bothering him. She seemed unaware of that, though, recounting some of the misadventures she'd had with Miku and Gumi the night before.

He listened, but didn't really listen, hyper aware of their hands and arms grazing with every jolt of the train, and eyes betraying him every few minutes by slipping down to her lips. Why, oh why, was he sexualising his best friend like this? On her birthday? Really, Len?

Eventually, they reached their destination station, and headed towards the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.

Rin tried nagging him again about where they were going.

"You'll see in, like, five minutes," he told her.

She sulked. “Why is it some big secret?” she complained. “I hate secrets.”

“It’s not a secret. I just like seeing you suffer.”

“Len. Choke.”

He grinned as they turned a corner in the underground walkway leading them away from the station, reaching a set of long, long escalators. Rin peered up at the sign above, trying to catch a glimpse of what possible location they were heading to.

"Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building?" she read. "What's so special about that?"

Len feigned nonchalance, tossing a shoulder. "Oh, you know," he said. "There are observation decks at the top of each tower, and I heard it looks really nice at sunset, so I was just thinking of going there with you."

"Huh." Her expression went blank. "That's nice."

It was a short walk amongst the towering buildings of Shinjuku. This part of the city wasn't as busy or touristy; clean and pristine with wide, empty footpaths. A clear, blue sky peeked through the skyscrapers overhead. It was only five or so, so they still had a bit of time before sundown. Luckily, the weather and visibility were good that day, much to his relief.

The wait in line to reach the observation level was long, but admittedly, worth it. Rin seemed happy once they reached the top, running over to the closest window and pulling out her phone to snap pictures of the skyline. She ushered him over, made him squint into the distance to look for the ocean, and they spent a good half hour trying to spot landmarks amongst the sea of buildings below.

After walking the perimeter of the building, they settled down in the seats of the cafe. “Do you want anything?” Len asked.

Rin hummed, eyes skimming over the menu. “I think I’ll just get tea.”

He was a little disappointed she wasn’t interested in any of the sweets on display (the banana cake looked really good, okay), but decided in retrospect, he would’ve been terrified if that girl could fit anymore in after eating takoyaki, fries and almost all of the strawberry parfait.

After he came back with their drinks, they settled into a comfortable silence. Rin was responding to messages on her phone, and he was just happy to watch as her expression shifted with every thought.

Eventually, she set down her phone and stared down at the table between them. “So,” she began, in a tone that meant business.

He sat up in his chair, smiled at her, but it was nervous, because she—all of a sudden—seemed very serious. And serious Rin was not a common occurrence.

Her fingers curled into fists on her thighs, and her gaze flitted everywhere in the room but his face. “Is this, um, a date?”

At first, Len didn’t know how to respond. 

His mouth hung open, before he became aware of his expression, snapping it shut. Then he cleared his throat. “Um.” To be honest, he didn’t know. Was it a date? Well, maybe he lowkey wanted it to be but did Rin want it to be? By the looks of it, she didn’t seem very… impressed by the idea. “It’s, uh… whatever you want it to be, Rin.”

She blinked, eyes falling on him, then dropping back down to her knees. “Oh.”

Was that the right answer? Had he just made her uncomfortable? Had he just ruined her entire birthday?

He was too afraid to ask.

They sat in awkward silence, until the sky outside started to turn various shades of orange, and people began swarming the windows to watch the sunset.

Rin was kind of peering over, as if torn between getting up from the chair or staying seated.

“You want to go look?” Len asked, giving her a smile to try and ease the uncomfortable air between them.

She hesitated, the corners of her lips twitching. “I won’t even be able to see over everyone.”

He, with the intelligence of a mitochondria, said, “Well, I can just hold you up.”

Rin snorted. “Are you sure you can do that?”

He blew a raspberry, faking confidence. “Uh, yeah, sure I can.”

“Okay then, Mr Buff Arms. Prove it to me.”

She got up from her seat with a shit-eating grin, and he scrambled after her, crossing the floor in direction of one of the busiest windows. The reason why the crowds were gathering at that particular spot was not just because of the sunset, but because of the fact that you could see a beautifully clear silhouette of Mt Fuji in the distance.

He hadn’t even realised that; it was hiding behind the clouds before.

Len gestured for her to climb onto his back.

“Are you sure?” Rin looked uncertain, eyeing him like a venomous snake. “I’m like, almost the same weight as you, Len.”

“So?” he bluffed.

She stood there staring, before giving in with the roll of her eyes. “Don’t cry if I break something.”

Then she wrapped her arms around his neck, hiking one leg up his side, and he hooked his arms under her thighs to hoist her up. She was right. She was heavy. But he was willing to be crushed under the weight of her for her to have a nice birthday.

“Hold on to me,” she ordered, arms unlatching from his neck. “I want to take some pictures.”

Len gave a grunt as a reply. It was the best he could do.

After a while (probably like, two minutes or so), he felt like he was going to burst a blood vessel somewhere in his body, so he wheezed out, “Rin. Are you done? I gotta let you down now.”

“Oh, yeah. You can let me down.”

He released his grip on her legs and she dropped back down into standing position behind him. Grabbing his lower back in pain, he turned to her looking like a crippled old man.

Rin laughed in his face. “Feeling sorry for yourself now, huh? I told you.”

He waved his hand, straightening up with a groan. “Yeah, yeah. Did you get any nice pictures?”

“Hmm. Let’s see.” She looked at her phone, then moved in close to show him her screen. “They’re not too bad, besides the dozens of heads in the foreground.”

It was strange, oddly disproportionate, the way Mt Fuji loomed over the busy streets of Tokyo. The sky was a beautiful array of golds and oranges and yellows; a perfect sunset for a perfect birthday.

“They’re nice,” he said. He glanced up from her phone to look at her, becoming aware of their distance, and aware of her ogling up at him. The golden light coming through the windows lit up her face, brought out the highlights of her hair, accentuated the freckles on her cheeks. 

Wow, he thought, his breath getting caught in his throat. He was utterly in love with her.

Much to his surprise, Rin’s face seemed to be moving closer. And so was he, his body unconsciously moving forward, down to her like drawn to a magnet. 

Her eyes fluttered closed, head tilting. 

Their lips were about an inch away from touching when a child right beside them started screaming. Immediately, Len was drawn out of his strange daze, jumping away from Rin. She seemed to do the same thing, putting at least a metre space between them.

Her face was bright red, and she forced her fingers back through her hair with a nervous laugh. “You know, we should get going before everyone else gets the same idea,” she said, acting as if nothing ever happened.

Len blinked, unsure if he’d just imagined what happened thirty seconds prior, or if he was really just about to kiss his best friend in front of thirty or so strangers. He decided not to think about it. “Right. That’s a good idea.”

So they headed for the elevators and made a quick escape before the crowds followed. His head was still spinning as they walked down the footpath back towards the entrance to the underground walkway. The sky was now fading to a deep blue; bare remnants of the day clinging in streaks of orange above their heads.

Rin tugged on his sleeve, pointing a finger at something across the intersection they stood. “Hey. I want to check that out.”

It was a park—Shinjuku Chuo Park, to be exact. He’d seen it on the map when researching where to go with her, didn’t think much of it. There was a waterfall display and some flowerbeds, people lurking about. There were winding paths and a handful of trees lining them, a maze within the middle of the city.

He shrugged his shoulders.

It wasn’t like he was in a hurry or anything. They had time, still, to go for dinner, if Rin was keen on it. She seemed awfully pensive compared to before, though, as they crossed the road and made their way over to the park.

He wondered if he’d said or done something wrong. Or… if what had happened between them with the whole phone-and-faces-getting-close-like-they-were-going-to-kiss-or-something had like, offended her.

They strolled down the winding path of the park in silence. There was a playground, some monuments, and finally, a shrine.

Rin slowed to a stop, staring at the shrine. He halted beside her.

“You want to pray?” Len asked.

She was quiet, before shaking her head. “No. It’s alright.” She glanced up at him, a small smile. “I was thinking, let’s go sit down somewhere.”

He obeyed, and they set off again, finding a lone seat along the footpath nearby. There were still a few people out and about, but it was relatively quiet. It had long turned to night, the cityscape surrounding them lighting up like tetris blocks. 

Their shoulders bumped, and Rin eased herself against him, before bringing her head down to rest on his shoulder.

His heart hummed to life in his chest, but he tried to ignore it.

“This is really nice,” she said, her voice soft. “This was a really nice day, Len.”

After a moment of hesitation, he lowered his cheek against the top of her hair, taking in the familiar scent of her favourite shampoo. A hint of something floral, a hint of something citrus—and a hit of something Rin.

He hummed. “I’m glad.”

Rin was silent for a passing moment, before she spoke again. “Do you know what would make it even better?”

Len’s stomach growled. “Gusto?” he half-joked.

“No.” She pulled her head away to look at him, and the cool night air hit his cheek like a slap to the face. He stared back down at her, captured by her gaze.

It was happening again. The whole moving-in-close thing, that was. Her face was getting bigger, and he could feel her hot breath tickling the tip of his nose. His head ducked down to close the gap between them, catching her wet mouth with his own so suddenly that he pulled away, shocked at the boldness of his actions.

Rin didn’t seem to care, though. Her hand went up to the back of his head and pulled him back down to her lips. It was sloppy, kind of gross, but they didn’t care. It was their first time. It wasn’t supposed to be perfect.

She kept him in place, balling up the fabric of his t-shirt with her fists. He allowed himself to melt into the kiss, hands trailing down to hold her by the waist. He wasn’t expecting the day to really end with them sitting in the middle of a park in Shinjuku making out, but he wasn’t mad by the outcome, either.

When they pulled away to breathe, Rin smiled something nervous, her lips glistening under the glow of the city lights. Her hands unravelled themselves from his shirt. 

“Better,” she said.

Len was stunned silent, just stared at her. He wasn’t sure if what happened had just happened. So he went back in for another kiss; this time a little bit more tender, less wet. 

“So Gumi and Miku were right,” he thought aloud against her mouth.

Rin pulled back a bit to give him this horrified look. “What did they tell you.” It wasn’t even posed as a question. She’d already made the assumption they’d told him something awful.

He chuckled nervously. “Well, uh, I tried asking their opinion what to do for your birthday…”

She raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“They straight up told me to ask you out.”

Her eyes narrowed into slits. “Those bitches.”

His lips curled. “Well, I mean. It helped. Somewhat.”

“Yeah.” She frowned, reaching up to curl a strand of her hair around a finger. “I can’t believe they just—so blatantly did that, though. Even after I begged them not to say anything.”

She begged them? Wow. “I thought they were joking up until five minutes ago, Rin. You know I don’t take anything they say seriously.”

Rin sighed. “Yeah, but—” She paused, thinking, before tossing her shoulders. “Well, it doesn’t matter anymore anyway. I just want to know, Len— is this a date?”

Len pressed his forehead against hers. Gazed into her eyes. They were a dark blue; alluring, always drawing him in, keeping him in orbit around her like a planet to its star. He admitted, “Not my original intention, no, but I think the simp in me was projecting a bit much that it ended up being one anyway.”

She cracked a grin. “Simp, huh,” she said. She lifted a hand to his jaw, trailed her fingers along it until her palm was resting on the back of his head. He wanted to shudder into her touch. “Well, kiss me more. I’m not done making the most of my birthday privileges yet.”

He opened his mouth. “I can kiss you like this every day if you wan—”

She silenced him with her lips, closing the space between them once again.

.

[epilogue]

The following weekend, Len knocked on Kaito’s door with a week’s worth of his favourite lemonade-flavoured popsicles in one hand.

Kaito’s eyebrows shot up into the ceiling upon spotting the bag of goodies. “What’s this?” he asked.

“A thank you gift,” Len said, handing it over.

“Huh.” Kaito took them, a confused expression on his face. “What for?”

“Your idea about the date? It worked. Rin and I are a thing now.”

A lengthy silence followed.

“You mean… you two weren’t dating before?”

[jitterbugperson]

Talentswap AU Prologue: Part 2

Yeah these are gonna come out weird, you’re gonna get a flood of updates when I have a random spike in motivation and then just radio silence for a month, that’s just how it goes.

Prologue: Same School, Same Rules, Different people - Part 1

As soon as the doors swung open, fluorescent lights even brighter than those in the hallway pierced his eyes, causing him to flinch back away from the door and close his eyes for a moment. When they opened again, he noticed an abrupt halt in the speaking, and several pairs of eyes were on him now. He felt a shiver run down his spine at their presence, feeling a strong aura coming from the students in this room. He couldn't let it get to him though. He knew what he was getting into by accepting the invitation, and he was prepared. Keeping the smile wide, he stepped into the entrance hall.

“Um, hi everyone! I guess I was a little late to the meeting, huh?” He said sheepishly, feeling his heart start racing when no one answered him, only continuing to stare.

“Sorry if I’m interrupting something.” He tacked on fast, trying to cover up his embarrassment. The tension grew when again, no one answered, until someone towards the front stepped forward.

“Are you the sixteenth student?”

Kaito felt surprised at that. This person was getting straight to the point. He turned to the voice and saw a small girl staring up at him with piercing red eyes. The first thing he noticed about her was that she was much shorter than he was (not entirely surprising considering his height), with brown hair in a loose ponytail and a deep red jacket that matched her irises buttoned over her uniform, which was mostly just a button up, tie, sleek black legging and dress shoes. He could feel her gaze peering into his brain, and he gulped, keeping his smile. <i>So this is what the Ultimates are like.</i> 

“Yup! Guess everyone else is already here?” He asks, quickly counting the others in the room with him to make sure the number was correct. The small girl hummed in acknowledgement, stared him down for a few seconds longer, then stepped back. Kaito took the opportunity to relax a bit, not realizing he was so tense until she was further away from him. He turned away from the girl to look at the others in the room.

“So, is this all like, tradition at this school? I know this school isn’t like the others, but are all of the windows and creepy lighting necessary?” He tries to make a joke to lighten the mood of the room, but it doesn’t have the intended effect. Instead, several students made eye contact, communicating something between them that he wasn’t aware of. 

One of the others, a much taller girl with sleek blonde hair in a very professional looking pink dress with a leg cut, high heels, and a feathery white boa around her neck, made eye contact with Kaito. Her gaze wasn’t as intense as the smaller girl’s, but it was still very intimidating by her sheet height alone.

“How do you remember getting here?”

That was an odd question, but considering the odd circumstances around his arrival, it may be important.

“Well, I don’t actually remember. I sort of passed out in front of the building and woke up in one of the classrooms.” He gave a small laugh, hoping it didn’t sound as nervous as he felt like it did.

At his response, the tall girl seems to get disheartened, for some reason Kaito can’t pinpoint. He hears a few sighs ring out in the group he’s in, making him more confused.

“Is… something wrong with that?”

“It’s how we all got here.” A girl with pinkish-blonde hair standing next to the one with the boa spoke up. Similarly to the boa girl, this student was dressed rather lavishly too, although more in a fashionable sense. She wasn’t wearing her uniform, and was instead wearing a several piece outfit centered around the black, white, and pink color scheme. It was fashionable, and rather provocative in some areas. She definitely had no problem showing off some skin, that’s for sure. Keeping his eyes locked with hers and away from her more… exposed areas, Kaito gave her a questioning look.

“Wait, so none of you know how you got here?” He asked, taking a step closer. Both girls shook their heads. 

“Nope. At least from what we’ve gathered so far, no one remembered much after arriving at the building. Of course, we all remember the basic stuff, like our names, our families, our talents…” The boa girl trails off at the end, her eyes unconsciously traveling to a group of three standing in the corner of the room, one of which being the girl in the red jacket who’d talked to Kaito earlier.

“Well, most of us anyway.” The girl finished off, before turning to face Kaito.

“Speaking of, none of us have introduced ourselves.” She calmly offers a hand to Kaito, along with a small, charismatic smile.

“Kaede Akamatsu. You probably recognize my last name I assume.” 

Kaito took a second to process this after taking her hand and shaking it. He did recognize her last name, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly from where…

“OH! The Akamastu corporation!” Kaito blurted out as soon as the realization hit him. He heard some laughter next to him, and the crudely dressed girl leaned over, slinging her arm over the taller girl’s shoulders. Kaede seemed comfortable with this and made no move to retreat from the gesture.

“Hell yeah she is. My girl here’s got a fortune behind her name, so you better be nice.” 

Kaede let out a small, breathy laugh.

“She’s joking, of course. I’m the Ultimate Affluent Progeny, which sounds sort of threatening, but it simply means I’m to inherit a large fortune when I become an adult.”

“Oh.” Kaito muttered. No matter how she phrased it, that’s still threatening, especially to someone like him, who’d never gotten an allowance over $20 before in his life.

“Yup. But she works hard for that money, so don’t go thinkin’ she’s one of those pretentious brats who get everything handed to ‘em.” The pink-blonde spoke up on behalf of the other girl. 

Kaito gave them a once over, noticing their comfortable posture around one another and the fact that the pink-blonde keeps speaking up for her taller friend.

“Do you two know each other?” He questioned. They both nodded.

“My parents like me to have the best of the best, and often buy me more expensive and lavish clothes than necessary. Because of her profession, we often come in contact with each other, and we’ve become friends over this.” Kaede explained.

“Profession?” Kaito felt like he was missing some information here.

“Yup! I’m Miu Iruma, Ultimate Fashionista, baby!” She yelled out, proud and cheerful. It was a good energy to have, considering their situation. 

“Oh, yeah I think I’ve heard of you before too. You’re in a lot of teen magazines.” Kaito now recognizes her from magazines he’s seen in stores before. He’d never bought any, but he now realized where she seemed familiar from. 

After he’d said that, Miu looked him up and down, sizing him up.

“Don’t think I’ve seen you before though. You have to be big to get into this school, so what’s your deal kid?”

He mentally flinched at the use of the word “Kid”, as that was not one he liked to be used to describe him, but he didn’t comment on it.

“Uh, well it’s not special, and I’m not big like the rest of you are. I don’t really have a talent, I’m the Ultimate Lucky Student. It just means I got here through chance, they picked me out of a bunch of average students.”

Miu and Kaede shared a look, but it wasn’t one of pity or disgust like he’d been expecting. 

“That’s still a talent nonetheless.” Kaede reassures him. Miu pipes up from behind her.

“Still better than those three.” She gestures lazily to the three in the corner Kaede had looked at earlier. Kaede elbows her friend at the comment.

“Stop being rude.”

“Wait, what’s wrong with their talents?” Kaito asks instinctively. Kaede gives the three a sympathetic look.

“Well, that’s the thing. You see, Miu and I were one of the first two to wake up and make it to the entrance hall, and we’ve been gathering people’s talents since they’ve started arriving.” Kaede pulls a folded paper from a well hidden pocket in her dress, along with a pen. As she unfolds the paper, he notices the outside of it is from the card he’d seen on his earlier with the scribbled crayon writing. <i>So everyone got one of those.</i>

“I’ve been keeping a record of names and talents, but those three over there-” She gestures to them, “- don’t seem to remember their talents, unfortunately. Well, we think the purple haired one doesn’t remember. He wouldn’t tell us that or his name.”

Kaito looks at the mentioned purple haired guy, finding him to be the shortest one of the bunch. He had dark purple hair, a shade not unlike Kaito’s own, tied in a tiny bunch at the base of his neck. He was wearing very comfortable clothes of the gray, white, and black color scheme, obviously not caring for the dress code or required uniforms. He seemed fairly normal, the only defining features of his outfit being the grey and black checkered scarf around his neck, and the military-style black hat on his head. 

Kaito heard a snort from beside him, making him turn his gaze away from the short guy.

“Yeah, little asshole laughed at us when we tried to get his name and talent. I’d stay away from him if I were you, he’s definitely bad news.” Miu said, taking a moment to stick her tongue out at him, to which he didn’t respond to.

“Oh, alright then.” Kaito looks at the three outcasts of the group, standing away from the others, composed of the purple haired guy, the girl in the red jacket, and someone else he hadn’t talked to or heard about before. He was furthest away from the group, keeping to himself. He was dressed modestly, in normal everyday clothes of a darker hue. He had navy blue hair, from what Kaito could see underneath the large hat he kept his face hidden under. 

Kaito broke his gaze away, realizing he was staring, turning instead to face the two girls.

“So uh, what about the others? You’ve been keeping track, so I’m guessing you know the names and talents of the other nine?”

Kaede nodded.

“The others were much more cooperative, and didn’t seem to have any trouble sharing their talents with me.”

She looks up at Kaito.

“Are you interested in learning about the others?” She asked. Kaito nodded without hesitating.

“Oh, alright then.” She looks down at her paper, and begins to read them off.

[balancingdiet]

Tabula Rasa

Detective Conan & Magic Kaito Characters: Shinichi/Kaito Words: 2100 ish Chapter: (1) ... (10) (11) (12)

Shinichi always finds his neighbour weird. But he didn’t expect to find his neighbour lying on a patch of grass and donned in Kaitou Kid’s costume, too.

“I can’t believe you’re worse than me,” Kuroba wheezed, his laughter bouncing off every kitchen cabinets, walls, and into Shinichi’s ears, much to his utmost annoyance. “At least I have a pot and a frying pan,” Kuroba continued.

Shinichi crossed his arms. “I don’t have the things that I don’t need, as simple as that.”

Walking towards the counter, Kuroba lifted the lid of the pot and stared inside it. “When was the last time you used this?”

In all honesty, Shinichi didn’t know the pot even existed until Kuroba asked for it and he found it in one of the cabinets. He briefly wondered what kind of excuse would make him and his kitchen-state less pathetic than it already was, but he came up with none.

Then again, why should Shinichi care about Kuroba’s opinions at all?

Thankfully, Kuroba seemed to have moved on from the conversation as he picked up the pot and brought it to the sink. He gave it a good scrub before using it to cook his rice.

Just when Shinichi thought the whole conversation was over, Kuroba laughed again when he pulled out a drawer. “C’mon. You don’t even have a spatula?”

Shinichi bumped Kuroba away from the drawer and searched on his own. When he couldn’t find it, he tried the next drawer, and the next, until he found one. He pointed it at Kuroba’s face (who was trying hard not to laugh again). 

“You shouldn’t be insulting the person who is lending you his kitchen and gas.”

“Since when was I insulting you?” Kuroba took the spatula and cocked his head to the side. 

Shinichi narrowed his eyes. 

Kuroba grinned, waving the spatula at Shinichi in efforts to calm him down. “I wasn’t insulting you. I’m just concerned.” 

“I don’t need it.”

“Huh.” Kuroba’s smile didn’t falter as he turned back to the pot. “For a moment you sounded almost like me.”

Shinichi closed his eyes in a long-suffering manner. “Just hurry up and cook and then get out of my house.”

Kuroba glanced at him. “Are you going to watch me the entire time?”

“Yes. In case you do something funny, like planting a camera or stashing your stolen diamonds here.”

“Suit yourself. It’s your house after all,” Kuroba said with a shrug and continued his work.

Shinichi had his fair share of his own work too. He swiftly brought his computer down from his study room and to the kitchen, using the counter as his temporary desk. Often when Kuroba walked behind him to get something from the other side of the kitchen, he would tilt his computer screen down while eyeing him suspiciously. In return, Kuroba would laugh.

Speaking of which, Shinichi noted that today was probably the day he heard Kuroba laughed the most number of times. 

Besides those stupid “peeking-incidents,” the kitchen was more than often silence when they were busy with their things, saved for the sizzling sounds from Kuroba’s frying pan and Shinichi’s rapid typing on the keyboard. But for the latter, it became lesser and lesser when Shinichi realised he was getting more and more distracted by the smell of whatever Kuroba was cooking.

And it wasn’t in a bad way.

During Shinichi’s seventh attempt to try reading past the first sentence of his email, Kuroba snapped a finger over at him. 

“Mind passing two plates?” Kuroba paused. “Please tell me you have at least two plates.”

Shinichi decided that five wasn’t very far off from two, so he kept silent and picked what was needed from a cabinet. When he passed the two plates to Kuroba, he caught a glance of the frying pan—fried rice. 

When Shinichi returned to the kitchen counter to continue his work, a plate of the said fried rice appeared in between him and his computer screen. Shinichi shut his laptop, and glanced over at Kuroba who was standing next to him.

“A thank you gift—for letting me use your kitchen,” Kuroba said, gesturing his head at the food.

Shinichi wordlessly took the warm plate, too dumfounded to react. Not only because of Kuroba’s act, he also found himself ridiculously stupid to not realise when Kuroba asked for two plates instead of one.

He watched Kuroba walking to the opposite side of the counter and placed his plate down.

Shinichi blinked. “You’re… eating here?”

“It’s better to eat it while it’s hot,” Kuroba said, already mouthful. "You should too. Stop being a workaholic.”

“I’m not a workaholic,” Shinichi spat, drumming his fingers over his closed laptop. He glanced at the rice, unsure…

Kuroba chuckled. “Scared I’d poison you?” 

Not-so-strangely, that was the last of his worries; the true worry was actually the opposite. Muttering his thanks for the food, he picked up the spoon and took a bite.

It was delicious.

And this was his worry.

Likewise to the many different versions of Kuroba, Shinichi wasn’t used to this version of himself. He hated when one was not acknowledged for their efforts and talent, but he also hated how it was Kuroba that he had to praise.

But Shinichi didn’t have to worry much about it, though. Kuroba was hardly looking at him as he continued to gobble down his own plate of food, as though he hadn’t eaten for days—

Then again, he must be too busy to eat since his next announced heist was coming around the corner.

Calling me the workaholic… What an irony, Shinichi thought drily.

“Where or who did you learn to cook this from?” Shinichi casually asked as he resumed his attention to the rice. But from the corner of his eyes, he noticed Kuroba shifted, and there was a millisecond pause as his spoon hovered over his plate before he dug in for the next scoop.

“A childhood friend,” Kuroba said, his voice surprisingly levelled. 

Shinichi nodded. He wasn’t sure what he was nodding to, but it was the only reply he knew to give.

He wondered if that childhood friend’s name happened to be Aoko.

“Anyway, I noticed your plants need a bigger pot. Like seriously.” Kuroba pointed at the window facing the backyard. “You may be a detective, but you’re becoming a murderer yourself.”

Shinichi couldn’t tell if Kuroba was using the distraction method to change the conversation or if he was genuinely worried for his plants, but Shinichi gave him the benefit of the doubt and continued the diverted topic, remarking how he didn’t have the time to change before Kuroba started calling him a plant-murderer for about five times or so. Soon, their conversation wasn’t about the plants anymore; it drifted from significant to insignificant things, like the weather, some gossips about their common neighbours, a bit of Shinichi’s job, and all the names of Kuroba’s doves. 

Their half-eaten fried rice was forgotten for the rest of the time… until Kuroba’s phone rang, and he had to leave.

Shinichi washed the dishes.

All along, Shinichi felt the walls Kuroba built around him were made of glass. No, not because they were easily breakable, not even close, but because of how transparent it was. If Kuroba was willing to switch on the lights on his side, Shinichi could see him entirely through the glass. But if he chose to switch off the lights, there was nothing Shinichi could see. He could try by using a torchlight to shine it through, but what he would see was only his reflection.

(There was him, in he.)

But these days, things seemed a little different. It was as if Kuroba was playing with the lights, flickering it on and off; it was common for Kuroba to remain as distant as he always was, but there were sometimes when he would randomly open up a bit more to Shinichi, like during their short and coincidental meetings on the streets, or during those times when Shinichi dragged him out to clean his "freshly-painted" mailbox.

Perhaps it was because Kuroba didn’t find it a risk to share these small, surface-level kind of things about himself, but Shinichi thought otherwise; he marked all of their importance while he listened attentively. Like knowing that Kuroba liked blue explained why all the decks of cards he had were of the colour, or that those loud music Kuroba played wasn’t directly to annoy Shinichi, but because drinking caffeine didn’t work for him.

It all explained many other things, but mostly it came down to the same point; that Kuroba Kaito was still a human, and he really wasn’t as bad as what Shinichi liked to think.

----

Being the only blonde in the cafe, it wasn’t hard for Shinichi to spot Miyano Shiho, who was sipping on her coffee as she admired the view outside the cafe. Shinichi glanced at his watch, wondering if he should order a drink, but decided against it as he headed straight for the table.

“Sorry for being late,” Shinichi explained, pointing through the window. “Traffic was bad—”

Shiho sipped her drink impassively, her loud slurps cutting Shinichi off before she placed the cup back on the table. “No matter what, your excuses will not bring back the half an hour I have wasted waiting here.”

“Well…”

She picked up a bag from the ground and pushed it across the table.

“Thanks.” Shinichi took the bag and briefly rummaged through it. They were mostly his cancelled bills, some miscellaneous mails and small parcels that reached his old house instead of his current one. Due to some complications in changing all of his mailing address, he had to trouble Shiho to clear, pick up and gather the mails before they met like this once or twice every month.

Shinichi glanced up after the checks. “I would love to stay and chat—”

“Please don’t.”

“Oh, alright.” Shinichi stood up from his seat. “I’ll see you soon. Send my regards to Professor Agase.”

“Before you go.” Shiho cleared her throat, stopping him in his track. “There’s something you need to know.”

Shinichi sat back down immediately. “What is it?”

Shiho glanced outside of the cafe, looking a little hesitant, or wistful? It was already hard to read her as Haibara Ai, much less as her grown-up self. Shinichi tried to make some guesses. Given his last conversation with Professor Agase…

“Did Satoshi ask you out?”

Shiho whipped her head back. “What?”

“Satoshi. The guy from the HR department in your research company?” Shinichi frowned, looking up at the ceiling. “Or was it the IT department?”

“No.” Shiho gritted her teeth as she started muttering incoherently under her breath, though Shinichi could make out a sentence that was close to, “he’s going to get it from me.”

“Then what it is?” Shinichi asked hesitantly.

“It’s not about me. It’s about Mouri-san.”

The name, like magic, squeezed Shinichi’s heart on the cue. The coffee-making machines and chatters around the cafe seemed to disappear for a good three seconds before he could start hearing sound again. “You mean… Ran?” Shinichi said after a long while.

“Who else?”

Shinichi tugged on his collar. “What about her?”

“She went to your house last week,” Shiho said.

Shinichi gaped, eyes so wide he thought they were about to roll out.

“Naturally, when she couldn’t find you, she came over to look for Professor Agase. But he wasn’t in that time, so I answered the door.” Shiho picked up her coffee, taking a slow sip. “She then asked me for your address.”

“Did you give her?”

She stared at Shinichi across the brim of her cup. “I can’t say no to her request, can I?” 

“I... supposed not.” Shinichi dragged a hand down his face. “Did she say anything else?”

“No. She left after a thanks.”

“You said this happened last week?”

“Yes.” Shiho raised an eyebrow. “I assumed that you haven’t seen her?”

Shinichi bit his lips. “No, obviously.” 

Shiho paused, a look of wonderment breeze past her face. “Are you disappointed?” 

Disappointed? Shinichi had a fair share of disappointments in his life, but the churning feeling in his stomach was definitely not close to it

He realised it was more of a dread.

Shinichi wished he could wonder or try to explain why, but he really didn’t have the time for this. He glanced at his watch and stood up from his seat the second time. “Thanks for telling me, but I really have to go.”

Taking his bag of mails, he dashed out of the cafe.

[squidpro-quo]

sharp as your smile (1/?)

A/N: because of the kaishin discord’s mafia discussion, i got an itch and had to write some! feat. lots of thinly veiled insults and tea

Kaito took the steps slowly, partly because he wasn’t about to show up to a meeting exactly on time when it was with the Shinigami of Tokyo and he could make him wait, partly because the movement pulled at his fresh stitches, and mostly because he wanted to look at the gilt pictures on the walls more closely. There was a silkscape of a mountain, done in black and white except for a splash of red dripping down the side like a meandering river and that Kaito suspected hadn’t used mere sienna for the color. It was framed by two swords hung on the wall, scabbards stained and the hilts worn smooth by long and extensive use. By the time he reached the door to the meeting room, he had an idea for some redecorating, although he couldn’t say just yet if he would through with it. 

The guard to the side pulled open the doors for him, neglecting to bow but inclining his head just enough that Kaito didn’t bother with the slight in the face of more pressing matters. The scale tipped just slightly to ‘yes’. 

“Ah, Kuroba. I trust you were in no discomfort on your trip here.” The Shinigami’s voice came from the other side of a low table set with an earthen teapot and two thin, ridged cups. “I’m surprised this is to be our first meeting, after having heard so much of your… exploits.” 

Kaito smiled mirthlessly, blinking his eye at the man sitting across from him and debated the decision to lower himself to his level. After seeing the rest of the elegant house, with its sculpted, peaceful gardens and beautiful scrolls decorating the walls, its owner laying sprawled behind the table with his head resting on his hand and one leg propped up, struck him as another slight in his reception. The scale was weighed down another centimeter or two. 

“Your reputation precedes you as well, the tales of your…” he slid his eyes over the man’s partially undone black kimono and the light grey haori coat sliding down his shoulders, “hospitality are not exaggerations, I see. The Kudo estate, however, is quite elegant.”

The twitch in Shinichi’s right eye as he sat up slowly until he was leaning on his hand in a decidedly less relaxed manner was all Kaito needed to tell that his barb had hit its mark. He sat down, satisfied. Splaying his coat behind him, he threaded his fingers together and rested them on the table as he settled himself on the cushion.

“I am pleased you find it so. Let it not be said that we don’t extend a welcome to all those who enter Tokyo under our business.” Shinichi poured them both tea and added idly, eyes flicking up to Kaito’s chest, “Although, the Phantom is not an easy man to pin down.” 

Kaito blew on his own tea, black gloves against the green ceramic, and fought against the urge to grit his teeth. He didn’t acknowledge the pain, but his wound almost seemed to twinge at its mention and his fingers tightened on the cup. 

“Would you care to explain what your aim is with this meeting? I have pressing business elsewhere tonight as well.” 

It would have been pressing business if he was interested in antiques, but he trusted Aoko to be able to pick out a damn cabinet if it came down to it, and anything else would have been better than sitting through a barely tolerable conversation with the most annoying competitor on the market. 

“Mainly, I wanted to talk about your current holdings in Tokyo and your method of acquiring them.” Shinichi sipped at his tea, eyes dark over the rim and too hard for Kaito’s taste. He shifted in his seat, feeling the press of a barrel along his back and assuring himself that he wouldn’t need to exert himself tonight. 

“I was under the impression that the western sector was free for the taking. It had little to no defense, or really any established presence that we could detect and with how easy it was to obtain, I don’t see any problems.”

He was close to enjoying himself when he saw Shinichi’s lips thin, caught the flash of a glare from across the lacquered table and schooled his own features into a careful nonchalance. Everything he’d said was true, to the point that he didn’t consider the few houses they’d raided and the parties they’d dispatched as enough resistance to make a blip on his radar. He’d dealt with worse and this was just the beginning of his exploits in the city. If the Shinigami had decided to call a meeting for such a small matter, he was going to have to reassess his initial calculations of effort to be much lower. 

“I wasn’t speaking of the western sector. That area has been flagging as of late in its profit and relinquishing it frees up our hands to more important work that requires our attention. But I am more interested in what you intend to do with them now that you have them, or better yet, what other areas of interest there might be in my city?”

Kaito leaned back with a wide grin, wondering if Shinichi knew how many cards he’d given away with that one foolish speech. This meeting had been well worth its while for that information, he could leave now and be satisfied with the direction to go in but where was the fun in that?

“It’s a temporary setup, just for a few weeks and no more.”

“I’m sure you’ll find something better, it’s only natural to start at the bottom.” Shinichi waved an attendant over to kneel beside him and pour them some more tea. 

Kaito took a slow look around the room, noting the faint shadows striping the window and Shinichi’s hand tapping the table’s surface in an erratic rhythm. 

“This place would certainly be ‘something better’,” he remarked mildly, setting down his refilled cup and standing up. “My time is up, I’ll see myself out.” 

Shinichi was on his feet in a heartbeat, hand outstretched and glaring at Kaito with cold intensity. Kaito pinched the end of the blade held beneath his throat and glanced down the sword’s length at Shinichi before smiling so wide his cheek pushed at his eyepatch.

“I don’t see the need to rush, Shinigami, we’ve only just met.”

“This is a simple warning, I don’t intend to dispatch what is beneath me at the moment.” His words came out clipped and precise, something flashing in his eyes as the sword stayed steady in his hand. 

“For future reference, I don’t bother with warnings,” Kaito said, firing without preamble. 

Tell me if you like it and want more!

[flyswhumpcenter]

Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me I give myself self-indulgent requests according to this marvelous card!

The last thing I expect going into this bingo was to end with an Arc-V fanfiction of all things, but those things happen, sometimes... It was a fun one to write, even if I’m sure I got either of the characters right. Writing fanfiction is hard guyze.

I’m later going to make a retrospect on my BTHB experience and fills in a video, so I won’t go into too much detail on the background being this one, just that I just find Peregrineship to be really neat and I wish we got more of it in the actual show.

(yes, my title is garbage, I know that. my brain just froze trying to find one.)

---

Time Is Pouring Out

Summary: An unlikely duo of lone wolves find themselves split from their group of friends in the ruins of a desolated city. Of course it had to go wrong somewhere and get one of them injured, but stubborn; because they're both stubborn, but one of them is more of a fool than the other.

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V (canon divergence: see AO3 notes) Ships: Peregrineshipping (Serena/Shun, pre-rel, can be considered as platonic)

Wordcount: 2.8K words

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo

AO3 version available here.

----

“You… You’re a fool, Kurosaki.”

Serena didn’t even look up as she told her fellow Lancer so, her hands busy disinfecting small wounds and applying bandages around the cuts he had gotten from duelling Academia students. Not that he was any happier about having to be bandaged up on the go than she was: they were searching for the “Duel Sanctuary” the Resistance had taken shelter in and that Allen and Sayaka had told them about before they had all gotten split up, it was costing them time and, frankly, getting scolded wasn’t a part of his passions. He had essentially duelled these guys because they wanted to abduct her, he’d have thought she’d have been happy about that.

“I’ve told you not to barge into action like that several times already, do you even listen to me?” she continued as if she hadn’t gotten the urge to fistfight her own former alliance before realizing it was going to be hopeless. “Look at where that got you.”

 He didn’t respond, preferring to grit through his teeth as she applied antiseptics on his cuts and focus on where exactly he had been hit (mostly his sides), before getting up again and zipping back his coat close. They were losing time, they both knew that, but she had thought patching up some little cuts was important enough to waste that precious time. They needed to meet back with the others before a catastrophe could happened. After all, the ruins of Heartland could have been hiding all kinds of direct threats to them, he knew that well, but she didn’t know what kind of threats exactly. At least, not yet.

“Just be careful, next time,” she told him as she got to her feet. “I don’t have that many bandages on me.”

They exchanged a smug smile.

“Will do. Thank you.”

“It’s nothing. I, at least, owe you that.”

 They resumed their walking, gazes looking around for their comrades, their footsteps echoing in the deafening silence of death and past destruction. As their eyes kept admitting all there was, was the ever-lasting void of an annihilated city, Shun wondered what exactly had made him trust Serena, who clearly had once been the enemy (and hadn’t hidden that fact to what her faction would have called “Xyz scum”), enough to let her patch up some small cuts.

In a way, she had been lucky that the eerie calm of their situation had made it so he had allowed her to wrap some cloth bandages she had on her (“Academia taught us to patch ourselves up if we ever got injured, so I’ve always had some first-aid stuff on me,” she had told him as he had been opening up his coat). Maybe the sheer absurdity of bandaging someone in a physical representation of what desolation felt like had made it so being a prude had no value anymore, no shame to expose one’s skin to someone else.

And, to be fair, he did trust Serena like he trusted the other Lancers, if not more. She had helped him escape when he had broken a rib: it wasn’t even like she hadn’t seen him when he was vulnerable and left wide open for any potential assailant. Moreover, as far as he knew, things hadn’t changed in that regard between them for her to suddenly want to do the opposite way around: they still were allies and, dared he thought it, friends, despite all odds and the warfare going on. They had to stick together until they reunited with the others anyway: better make the best of it.

 “Was it always this silent, before you left for Standard?”

“No. They must have left the city once the Resistance moved bases.”

“…I see.”

Silence again. Neither of them was good at small talk and, considering the current atmosphere, they more than likely didn’t know what to tell each other about either. Looking around for danger was already enough of a distraction.

 It wasn’t like either of them wasn’t entirely focused on the mission at hand either. They were the kind to think of the objective and only the objective, which made their tandem surprisingly work despite the former rift between them. Their goal: finding the others, reunite the Resistance, get Kaito back into it and help the survivors fend off against Academia. Nothing else mattered, really, as long as they were aware and able to walk.

Yet, something was off about the situation. Serena could just feel something strange, a something she couldn’t describe in words: a feeling of something about to go wrong, or already going wrong. It wasn’t exactly unfamiliar, but she wasn’t used to it either, like a distant thing she had used to feel before forgetting all about it years ago. Maybe it was just the smell in the air, akin to rust and blood, of dust and, in a way, death. Academia had been made out of monsters all along, and she had contributed to it… The horrors of Heartland kept clutching at her heart, reminding her of the actions and ideology she had once defended.

 As she didn’t know the city, Serena was walking behind Kurosaki, who always made sure to signal her when they’d turn around a corner by putting his arm in front of her. She didn’t need protection, as she could perfectly fend off for herself; but her reason told her not to risk getting lost in the ruins and, as such, to tolerate it. Perhaps he was simply trying to pretend like she was his lost sister, as if he was protecting Ruri and not her, making sure she was safe by putting himself first. At least, he seemed passionate enough to do that, to her.

(They didn’t know each other that much, despite the intensity of their recent experiences. Getting to know someone when both parties are involved in a war whose dimension is way above their heads was arduous, and getting split from the group was the best way to learn about a comrade in misfortune).

 Nonetheless, even with the needed precaution and the eerie lack of activity all around them taken into account, it was still weird to her that Kurosaki was that slow. His footsteps were heavier than hers, sloppier even, and he was, she’d have sworn, losing more and more speed as time went on. For someone who had first protested against getting his wounds treated, “we don’t have time to do that, we need to find the others”, he sure was the one making them lose all that precious time he had ranted about wasting to his own wellbeing.

The ambient smell was what bothered Serena the most out of all these little things surrounding them. It was, like the impression of incoming disaster, not a stranger to her: in a way, it was frighteningly the opposite. It was faint, but her sense had been sharpened by the training of Academia: she caught up on the iron smell, on the fact it was indeed weak, yet present and strengthening. There had to be a reason why she hadn’t been disturbed by it before, right? What was that reason?

 Because she didn’t pay attention as much as to where she was walking anymore, she almost crashed into Kurosaki who, to her surprise, hadn’t anticipated it and almost tripped over himself. At first, she had guessed his foot had gotten tricked by a piece of debris or shrapnel; but there was nothing at his feet, only dust and a plain, crackled surface. His loss of balance seemed more and more unnatural as it went, making her heart do that weird little thing she had felt when she had seen him at the bottom of these stairs, a hand trying to clench his own ribcage through his clothing.

(Funny enough, she had taken advantage of having to take care of his wounds to check if there had been any bruising there. There hadn’t, but she was still left wondering why she had even thought about checking that out. Of course it’d have healed since then).

Serena quickly realized that she was, in fact, getting concerned for him all over again, except she was even more surprised this time around: back during the Battle Royale, she hadn’t had the time to wonder why she was worrying for some “Xyz scum”. Now, due to his speed and now the fact he had stopped altogether for a few seconds, she had the time to question her own feelings for once, not hindered by Academia’s mould or peer pressure. Usually, she’d have been infuriated to be stopped in her walk when she had no time to lose, getting aggravated the moment someone would slow down; but that was then, she supposed, and now she was concerned because the guy she was walking with should have been much quicker than that on his feet. Something was wrong.

 “Kurosaki, why did you stop?” she asked him, her voice trying to be both loud enough to get an immediate response out of him and low enough not to echo in the void.

He didn’t respond immediately, preferring to turn towards her before. Looking at his face again, she was realizing he had begun panting despite the low effort they were doing (he hadn’t shown any signs of fatigue beforehand, that was beyond suspicious), eyes looking hazier than they had done before. The smell had gotten stronger too, to the point she was finally able to recognize it: it was, unmistakeably, blood.

And the red stain Kurosaki had his hand over was giving it all away.

 “Don’t tell me you’re bleeding again!”

She was more upset at the wound than him, because he wasn’t exactly responsible for the liquid pouring out of it to act up on its own after she had tried to stop it, but her emotions had taken over. He hadn’t recoiled, didn’t even look fazed by getting yelled at, simply looked at his wound and fingers starting to coat in red.

“I guess so,” he responded nonchalantly before ducking his head in the other direction. “I think I saw Yuya and the others far away, we should be close to finding them.”

“Don’t change the topic, let me check that!”

 Shun frowned in response. Did he know he was bleeding again? Yes, or at least, he had supposed so before she had pointed it out. Did he want to waste even more time on what was most likely still a minor injury? No, absolutely not. He could swear he had just heard, in the distance and faintly, but had still heard nonetheless, the voice of his companions. There was no mistaking about the fact he had heard Sayaka, Allen, Yuya and the others. He felt faint, a bit weak on his legs, but still very much able to walk.

He’d have had all the time in the world to bleed after they had found the sanctuary and their friends, so pressing on was a better strategy than just stopping there to see what cut had continued bleeding despite the care Serena had put into stopping their doings.

And yet she grabbed his wrist, put her other hand on his shoulder, and forced him to sit down here and there without any warning, leaving him lightly stunned and, admittedly, defenceless.

 “We won’t get anywhere if you pull that crap on me, so stop being a child and let me see! I don’t want to drag you through the wastelands because you’ll have passed out from blood loss!”

Shun sighed, but gave in and started opening his coat again. There was no reasoning with the thick-skulled, stubborn, proud Serena: it’d just be a lost battle and, frankly, he felt too tired to deal with it. On second thought, the fact he felt that fatigued was a dead giveaway that these bastards had gotten more hits on him that he’d thought. In fact, she was as stubborn as he was: that was why he felt so comfortable working with her, he supposed. It didn’t help make his wounds look any less concerning, though.

“Make it quick, we need to catch up on them as soon as possible.”

“Will do.”

 Serena kneeled to his head level and put out her first-aid kit again. Having nothing else to do and feeling his consciousness starting to leave his body through his vision dimming, he focused his attention on her, on her hands finding the source of the problem, on the kit she had next to her, on the floor. Focus, don’t let yourself pass out. Someone fainting out in the streets was a sure way to get killed. Focus, don’t let yourself pass out. He was in good hands anyway, and would soon be joined by their comrades. Focus, don’t let yourself pass out.

She still had her fingers coated in a think layer of dried blood, showing up as maroon plaques on her hands. Her fingertips traced across his abdomen until she gritted her teeth, having found the culprit. It was, honestly, easy to spot: a red spot tainting the white of the bandages, soaking them until she could visibly guess they were going to stick. Serena gritted her teeth again: she had thought that had really just been a cut, not even thinking back on it that it could have been any deeper.

Her frustration would have to wait.

 “Don’t faint on me, Kurosaki, got it?”

He nodded, as it to save energy by doing so.

“I’ll need to peel that off, then disinfect the wound again, so it’s going to sting more than earlier.”

 In full silence, she started on her work, doing as she said she would. Her guesses had been right, this time: the bandages stuck to his skin around the cut, the fabric sipping with blood on her hands, until she had reached a point where she had to suddenly tear it off. She muttered an almost-quiet apology before yanking it off, leading Kurosaki to strangle a yelp. She could have contemplated the pain it was bringing him considering her past experience with him, but their time was running out like his consciousness was pouring out of the wound, so she simply kept on with her procedure.

As she disinfected the source of their problems, Serena examined it. It clearly was deeper than she had thought it to be at first, the stench coming out of it almost nauseating, more akin to a stab wound than some artificial scratch done with a blade. From what she could gather, he hadn’t exactly gotten stabbed, but it had been his assailant’s intention all along, leading to a deep cut bleeding heavily, but not immediately life-threatening. Considering their scarce resources in this dimension, Serena chose to bandage the wound again after making sure it wasn’t going to get infected anytime soon, pushing a compress against it as she did so. As she did so, she heard grunts, even if he mostly stood quiet as she did what she had to do. Truly, they both had their ability to hold their ground against their own injuries.

 “I’m done,” she said, not without pride, as she rose her eyes and put her kit away. The lack of any response and his glassed eyes made her heart jump for a moment before she had to make sure and asked, “Kurosaki, you’re still with me?”

He zipped his coat close, yet again, got up – and so did she as to follow along –, and shook his head, exhaling what sounded like a sigh of relief, or one at to chase the pain away. She wasn’t exactly able to tell.

“Yeah… Let’s meet up with the others, now.”

As if they had been in the known, she heard their comrades in the distance, before spotting their shapes in the distance, on the other side of the street. As she felt a smile appear on her face, either in relief or just in happiness to see them all again and in one piece, she decided she’d help them go forward by putting Kurosaki’s arm on her shoulders (not that he was objecting to it, busy trying to remain conscious).

“Yeah. Let’s do that.”

 They, obviously, were much slower than before, and it’d have frustrated her to no end if she hadn’t able to see their partners coming towards them, Yuya waving at their duo. As it stood, instead, she told herself that she could stomach the slowdown and support them until they’d be reunited, making sure that he was still awake and able to walk with her. They, again, exchanged smiles.

“Thank you… again.”

“You’re still welcome.”

 She’d scold that fool further later. For now, she had friends to join back, and he had a situation to explain. In a way, they were both fools.

[lisatelramor]

Lay In the Atmosphere Ch1

So as I was writing Not Left To Stand Alone, the idea for this fic, with Kaito's history with the Kudos, was nagging at the back of my brain and the second I was done writing the bulk of NLTSA, I was writing this fic. ^_^;;; Which... emotional whiplash as NLTSA ends on happy notes and this is ANGST-DEPRESSION-TEARS for Kaito. >_> I mean it's not 100% angst, but let's be real, most of this is a grief and anxiety spiral mixed with shit life choices that Kaito eventually manages to drag himself out of.  That said, if you haven't read NLTSA this should stand well enough on its own as a separate story.

I was listening to Panic at the Disco almost nonstop when I was writing this so the title comes from “A Casual Affair” which is kind of ironic since Kaito, Shinichi and Ran don’t do casual anything. ^_^;; A more fitting piece of music for this fic is “Smoke and Mirrors” by Imagine Dragons, but that could just be my current music binge talking. :P Hop on the angst train, guys, hope you enjoy sadness catharsis and bittersweet ends since this fic is Kaito at a very low point in his life.

Chapter 1

Kaito shuffled a deck of cards absently as he and Jii leaned over a map. It was covered with Kaito’s notes and annotations about guard shifts, traps, and escape routes. “I think that about covers it,” Kaito said. “It’s only a small role you’ll be playing this time, Jii-chan.” He flashed his assistant a grin, “You shouldn’t have to worry about anything tripping up those bad knees of yours.”

“My knees are perfectly fine, Kaito-sama,” Jii said with a sniff. He was older, much older than when Kaito first met him, and he’d looked old then. His gray hair was going mostly white now, what little he still had left of it, his glasses that much thicker and his hands a bit more gnarled than before. He was still a capable magician in his own right though, keeping up with Kaito like he was half his actual age.

Still, Jii wasn’t getting any younger, and sometimes Kaito worried that he was asking too much. Ever since the divorce with Aoko, Kaito had been holding more heists again, and it was taking a toll on both of them. Kaito sat back with a sigh. “I think we’ll take a break after this one,” he said. “Rest a bit and do some research. Leave the police guessing. Work on some new gadgets to keep them on their toes.”

“Active resting,” Jii commented, amused.

“You know me, always doing something.” It was a joke, but it wasn’t; Kaito hadn’t rested much at all since Takumi was born, not even before then with school and Kid work, but especially not after Takumi. “Buuut, you should actually rest. You’ve been saying you wanted to go on vacation. Why not close up shop for a bit? Go to Okinawa and get that time on the beach, or heck, go to France for a few weeks.”

“I don’t know...” Jii gathered papers together, conflicted. “I couldn’t leave all the work to you to do. You should take a proper vacation too, Bocchama.”

Kaito was hardly as young as he used to be, but he couldn’t help a lopsided smile. He’d always be the ‘young master’ to Jii. “It’s fine. I’m not planning on doing much. Just scouring webpages. I promise that I won’t do any legwork until you’re back.”

Jii returned the smile. “Well, if you insist...perhaps a short vacation would be nice.”

“Of course it would. You’ve earned it.” The deck of cards fanned from one hand to another and vanished up Kaito’s sleeve. “We’ve earned it,” he corrected at Jii’s pointed glance. “I promise to do actual resting.”

“Perhaps take a real vacation of your own?” Jii said pointedly.

Kaito considered. How long had it been since he went somewhere just to relax? Since he didn’t have work or school or Kid or child-rearing? He drew a blank. That was probably Jii’s point. “If I take a vacation I don’t think I’d go anywhere, or not far. I don’t want to miss spending time with Takumi.”

“Then take him with you. A family vacation.”

“That could be fun.” Takumi camping or taking him to visit a zoo or to see the sights in Kyoto. Kaito could show him how to do coin tricks and do every fun thing he could think of that a child might enjoy for a week. Aoko would never go for it though, so it would never happen. Not a weeklong trip like he desperately wanted. Kaito shook his head. Maybe he’d just settle for taking Takumi to an amusement park sometime soon. Take Takumi and Momoi’s kid, Shiemi, since they got along so well, let them get hyped on sugar and run it all off between rides. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good,” Jii said. He smiled, the sort of proud, doting smile that always made Kaito wonder if this was what having a grandparent felt like. Probably not. Grandparents didn’t defer to you.

Kaito stretched. “Get some rest, Jii-chan, we’ll have a lot of work tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Kaito-bocchama.” Jii collected the notes into a neat pile to stash away in his office like so many other heist prep days before.

“Night, Jii-chan.” Another late night, another early morning, but nothing out of the norm for either of them. Kaito fixed tomorrow’s plans in his head one last time as he left. It had been a while since he pulled a supposed teleportation trick. They got harder every time he had to think up a new way to make one work. Thank goodness Jii was still quick as ever. The usual firm resolve solidified around the plan’s concept. He’d get it done. He always did.

***

The jewel-inset mirror in his hands felt abnormally heavy as Kaito raced through prepared retreat paths. His heart pounded overtime with adrenaline and the steely satisfaction of leaving Nakamori-keibu in the dust, cuffed with his own cuffs to a guard rail. “Jii, I have the mirror,” Kaito said, curt as he saved most of his breath for running. “Get yourself out.”

Ideally, Jii would already be on his escape since his role in the teleportation trick had ended, but knowing Jii he’d stuck around. He had the habit of doing it to make sure Kaito had someone watching his back, and it had helped Kaito more than once out of some bad scrapes over the years. There was an affirmative through the earpiece; Jii would take the north route while Kaito kept attention his way a little longer before he pulled his final vanishing act. Good.

Kaito dived down a stairwell leaving a smoke bomb bubbling thick blue smoke behind him. A slap of a hand on a trap trigger, and somewhere his dummy should be taking off, one more diversion.

The number of diversions he needed were ever increasing. There had been no gunshots during the heist proper this time, nor the time before that or the one before that either, and the gap had him feeling twitchy. It was usually every couple heists that there was some sign of the crows he attracted with his shiny displays. Nothing.

A face switch, clothes switch, quick change and makeup in record time for a young woman to emerge around a building and watch for a moment as the task force scrambled by a few minutes later, going straight in the direction Kaito had been headed.

There was a burst of static on the com. “Jii?” Kaito checked the mirror. The gem was dull in the moonlight and the faint neon light a short ways outside the alley Kaito hid in. Not Pandora. He slid it away again. There was another burst of static. Kaito glanced up just in time to see his dummy going down, perfectly silhouetted against the moon. The false glider made a V as it tipped straight down.

The crows or Nakamori? Kaito shivered. “Jii-chan?” Kaito tried again.

Nothing.

That didn’t necessarily mean something was wrong. Jii could be somewhere he couldn’t answer for fear of being caught. Or maybe he hadn’t heard—he was a bit hard of hearing in one ear...the ear that didn’t have the earpiece... Or maybe he’d been forced to drop the earpiece altogether for some reason.

Kaito clenched and unclenched his hands, staring back toward the route Jii would have taken.

He turned back.

No one paid any attention to a young woman dashing down the street—she wasn’t running away from the scene of the crime but toward it after all; Kid wouldn’t run back toward it and ruin his escape. Kaito was glad for the anonymity as he slipped past a few stray groups of officers doing rounds and circled around to Jii’s escape route. The north route had less bolt holes and twists than the path Kaito took, but Jii should have been plainclothes, back to being a seemingly frail old man. Even if the police stopped him, it wasn’t like they’d hold him. He wouldn’t have a mask and Kid was well known to be a young adult.

“Come on, Jii, where are you?” Kaito murmured under his breath. If Kaito was Jii and sure that he wasn’t needed anymore for the heist where would he...? Kaito ducked down an alley. Jii had a stiff knee and a lot lower stamina than Kaito. He wouldn’t have climbed, but he’d probably run until he found a good place to stop. This alley came out on a side street and there was another even narrower alley up ahead with a fence that was easy enough to put between him and a pursuer...

Kaito rounded the corner, inching past an over-full garbage can and froze. “...Jii...chan?” A shape was huddled at the end of the alley near the fence, on its side in almost a fetal position. Kaito took a step forward. “Jii—” He saw the blood. Too much blood. One more step and Kaito recognized the scarf, had given that scarf to Jii a month ago for his birthday, had joked about the four leaf clovers woven into it marked him as a Kuroba in all but blood. The clovers hadn’t brought Jii any luck as part of his face was missing where the bullet must have exited. Kaito’s stomach clenched.

Jii. Jii was on the ground, broken, bleeding. Dimly, Kaito guessed he’d been climbing the fence. When he was hit. The earpiece had fallen out, blood-soaked now. The shot and the fall the bursts of static? Or had Jii realized...? Kaito reached for him—to check what he already knew, move him, cover his face, Kaito wasn’t sure—but as he bent a shot cracked just past his head into the concrete wall beside them.

He dropped on instinct. Jii three feet away, but bullets. But Jii. Kaito bit his lip hard enough to bleed. Another shot made the choice for him, sending him back out of the alley and its deadly narrow confines. Each footfall was a reverberation in him, ache spreading out from his chest like he’d been the one to get shot, throbbing like a bruise. Beat-beat-beat and Jii left behind him.

The alleys and roads were a blur, indistinct and unreal compared to the scene by the fence and yet so sharp in focus Kaito could remember the glint of broken glass on the pavement like dozens of knives and the cold press of metal searing into his palm when he ducked past a fire escape to get to another bolt hole and change identity again.

Nothing from the earpiece, broken, nothing to receive.

Kaito was a middle aged business man when he got back to his neighborhood, inconspicuous. Another person walking home. Another person possibly drunk. He didn’t need to affect his stagger. Each step was heavier the closer he got to his own door.

Change to himself, go home, hide the mirror, check the phone for messages on automatic because maybe Kaa-san or Jii—

Feed the doves. Sit in his childhood bedroom come home again.

Kaito sat and stared at the same walls he’d stared at the night after meeting Jii years ago. On his desk was a note about looking into vacation spots. If Kaito stared at them long enough, maybe it would all prove to be a bad dream and Jii would still be planning a trip south and Kaito would call Aoko and make a bargain to get Takumi an extra night so they could have an adventure.

The moon was still bright and silver out the window. Light enough that it could reveal anything, even what you didn’t want to know.

Kaito wanted to believe Jii was okay. That he’d walk around the corner any moment and apologize for making Kaito worry. But death was a lesson learned young.

—Kaa-san with her hand across his eyes, “Don’t look, Kaito, don’t look,” the impression of a fireball burned into his retinas as tears dripped down his face without him knowing why, yet, just that something was terribly wrong—

Kaito touched his cheek. It was dry. Funny. It felt like he was crying inside.

On the desk, his phone buzzed. He didn’t remember putting it there, but the body would follow routine when on automatic. It showed Aoko’s number. Kaito watched it ring, the phone buzzing and buzzing before it rolled over into voicemail. A minute later it buzzed again with an incoming text message.

The thought of talking to Aoko right now was too much. Kaito left the phone buzzing and headed to the bathroom, stripping out of his clothes and stepping under water as hot as he could bear it. Its sting left his skin red and aching.

If he’d been faster...no, Jii would still be dead. If he’d pressed Jii to go on vacation sooner... If he hadn’t gone with a doppelganger teleportation plan. If Jii had been safe at home tonight. If, if, if. He looked like he had a full body sunburn by the time he shut off the water. It gurgled down the drain, chased by drips and drops as he stayed hunched over the shower knob. He hurt all over, inside and out now, and it wasn’t quite enough still.

Kaito left a trail of wet footprints back to his room, not bothering with a towel. Kaa-san was away. No one would care if he was naked because there was no one there to care. His phone showed several missed calls from Aoko and four texts.

Kaito, what the fuck. They just ID’d a body as Jii. What’s going on? Kaito closed his eyes. Jii... to be found be some unknown person like that... Kaito wished he could have taken him from that alley. But then what? He looked at the next message. Kaito? then, Pick up your phone dammit. The phone started ringing again as he held it. Kaito read the last message with a squirming feeling of guilt inside the numb grief and horror: You’d better not be dead too. The caller was Aoko again of course. He answered.

“Aoko.” There was a long silence on the other end. Kaito wasn’t sure what tone his voice had had.

Aoko let out a breath. “You’re not dead.”

“No.” That was Jii. Kaito wasn’t hurt at all for once.

“What happened?” Aoko demanded.

“I don’t know. He didn’t answer and I found him like that. Had to leave when someone shot at me.”

“...fuck.” There were goosebumps all over his arm and legs now. He ignored the cold, listening numbly for Aoko’s voice. “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but they’re reviewing this as a mugging because Jii didn’t have a wallet on him. The only reason he was ID’d is because one of the officers that found him remembered him from seeing him around us over the years.”

“A mugging? With that angle of a shot? And high caliber rifle bullets?” Kaito said, disbelief leaking through the shock that had followed him from the scene of the crime. “Anyone with eyes could see he was climbing the fence when he was shot.”

“Look, I didn’t see the details, that’s just what I’ve heard.” Aoko was tense, upset. She had been close to Jii once too, even if since the divorce they cut contact.

“A cover up,” Kaito said. He could almost laugh because of course. Of course it would be covered up, swept under the rug and dismissed as quickly as possible. Kaito was willing to bet the case wouldn’t even last a month. Old anger curled through him at the unfairness. They took his father and now they took Jii and both of their deaths would be seen as chance happenings instead of the premeditated murder they were. “Dammit.”

“Was Jii at the heist tonight, Kaito?” Aoko asked. There was the cold, judging tone he had come to expect from her. The one that laid blame on his shoulders every time she spoke to him or looked his direction.

Kaito didn’t answer that question. Answer or no answer, it would damn him either way.

“Damn it Kaito,” Aoko said. “It’s not enough to just be you, but Jii?”

Kaito didn’t answer that either and for a while there was just Aoko’s ragged breaths over the line and Kaito’s controlled ones. The world was falling out from under him but he still had control over his body. He could walk out of here and in the path of a bus and die smiling if he felt like it, a convincing smile even as he couldn’t cry. Not tears that were his own anyway.

He licked his lips, mouth feeling dry, swallowing past the lump in his chest. “How soon do you think the body will be released?” It was Kaito who would arrange a funeral. Kaito who was the officiator of Jii’s will. Kaito who had been everything to Jii once he stepped up into his father’s shoes. It felt a bit like betraying Jii, worse than failure, that he was in this position now, stuck fulfilling these roles long before either of them thought he’d need to.

“I don’t know,” Aoko said. “Until they close the case. If they don’t find any leads or if someone is framed...”

“Okay.” He could handle this. He was an adult. Almost twenty-six. He could handle this and Jii’s loss. “Okay, thanks.”

“Kaito—” Aoko’s voice low and sharp with anger or a threat, he wasn’t sure, but he hung up on her anyway. She’d take that out on him some way later, probably when she dropped of Takumi on the weekend. If she dropped off Takumi on the weekend. Fuck.

Kaito scrubbed at his eyes.

Just...fuck.

Jii was dead and it was Kaito’s fault. There was no going back from this.

***

Jii left him everything. His business, his collection of magician paraphernalia, his house, his savings—everything. Kaito wasn’t sure what to think or feel about that. Jii’s body had been released only two weeks after his death when a supposed mugger turned himself in, pled guilty, and got a life sentence. Kaito looked into the mugger, but whatever they had on the guy to make him be a scapegoat, Kaito didn’t find it.

And now here he was, holding a memorial in Jii’s bar for him because his body was already cremated and he hadn’t left any specifications for his burial. There were frequent patrons drinking to Jii’s memory and old magician friends. Not Chikage. Kaito hadn’t been able to get ahold of his mother in the last few weeks. Of all the times for her to pull one of her radio silences, this was the worst moment for it. She should have been here. As Toichi’s wife, one of Jii’s older friends, she should have been here but she wasn’t and might not have even seen any of Kaito’s messages to know Jii was dead yet.

Alcohol burned down his throat. He’d poured himself a glass of Jii’s favorite whiskey to drink for him and hadn’t stopped drinking since the memorial started. It was a bad idea but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

There were two regulars—Ryousuke and Yuuta, both people Jii had been on first name basis with—in front of Jii’s memorial photo at the moment. They had offerings of alcohol and the mochi from a shop a few miles away Jii had loved.

There was something restless rising in Kaito, had been rising for the last few weeks since Jii’s death. He wanted to take a pool stick and shatter it.  Jump off a building and wait until last moment to deploy his glider. Bait the police and the organization on his tail until there was no room for thinking beyond what was needed for survival. There were two dozen half-planned heists on his desk in the hidden room at home. Kaito hadn’t slept much lately. The only time the restless feeling was quiet was when he was pushing his body in the small hours of the night, seeking out what he needed for the next heist, the next, the next, however many he had to do.

There’d been a moment where he wondered if it wasn’t better to quit. It got Oyaji killed, got Jii killed. It’d probably kill Kaito too. But that moment had passed quickly and it felt like there was even less reason to stop. They kept taking and taking and he’d have to be the one to stop them somehow. He had to.

The whiskey tasted like nothing. One more liquid swallowed down. At the door, Aoko and Takumi entered, dressed for a proper funeral instead of...this. Kaito swallowed again, though there was nothing in his mouth. “Hey.”

“Kaito,” Aoko said. She looked around the room and the people at various stages of drunkenness with a small frown. “This is...lively.”

“Yeah, well...” Kaito shrugged. He had let whoever showed up, show up. Some of them might only be there for the alcohol. He crouched down beside Takumi to give him a hug. Small arms hugged back. Takumi was six now, already so big, and getting bigger every time Kaito saw him. Aoko who lived with him every day probably didn’t notice little things like how Takumi’s hair was just shy of needing a haircut or how he’d gained a centimeter that month alone. “Hey. You doing okay?”

“Yeah.” Takumi settled back on his feet, glancing at the rest of the room. He’d been here before. Jii had a holiday party most years, and he’d babysat Takumi a lot, especially in the first few years. “Kaa-san said Jii-chan died.”

“Jii-chan did die,” Kaito said, heart heavy. Takumi was old enough to understand death, had been for a while. This was just his first encounter with it being someone he knew.

“Is he like Yuki?” Takumi asked, referring to one of Kaito’s doves that had died a few months ago. She’d died of old age and they had found her body in the dovecote when they went to feed the birds one morning. It had been a chance to talk about life and death. Kaito was glad they’d had that talk because Takumi was glancing around like he expected a body to roll off one of the pool tables.

“Not quite like Yuki,” Kaito said, “but he’s passed on like she did. There isn’t a body because it’s already been cremated—burned up.”

“Oh.” Takumi bit his lip and Kaito gave him another careful hug. He hadn’t drunk so much that he’d lost control of himself, but he’d had enough that Takumi needed his full concentration. “That doesn’t hurt right?”

“No, he was already dead.” Kaito glanced at Aoko, and from her expression, he guessed that this was something Takumi’d asked already and he was getting a second opinion on. “You can’t hurt anymore if you’re dead.”

“Oh,” Takumi said again.

“There’s a memorial if you want to say goodbye to Jii-chan,” Kaito said. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear from you. Ok?”

“Ok. I’m going to tell him I’ll miss him and I hope he’s happy wherever he is.”

Kaito forced a smile for Takumi and patted him on the head before Takumi marched toward the memorial with a determined look in his eye. That left Kaito with Aoko.

“He cried when he heard,” Aoko said.

“He loved Jii-chan,” Kaito said. Takumi was in front of the memorial, hands clapped together and his face screwed up like he was trying to will his prayer to reach Jii through sheer determination. It was uncomfortably similar to how Kaito used to stand in front of his father’s memorial as a kid, face screwed up as he promised he was working hard to be a magician.

“You’re drunk,” Aoko said, and Kaito realized she’d been studying him. Sober, he would have noticed immediately.

“I had a few drinks in Jii-chan’s memory,” Kaito said. “He ran a bar, Aoko, it’s how he’d have wanted it.”

“That doesn’t mean you should go get drunk.”

“Maybe you need a drink.”

Aoko glared at him.

Kaito held up his hands. “Fine. Stay sober.”

Aoko crossed her arms, clamped tight around her middle like she was holding herself together. “This shouldn’t have happened,” she muttered.

“No, it shouldn’t.”

“I know he was helping you,” she said, not looking at Kaito at all. “He’s the only one who could have been all these years.”

“I never denied it,” Kaito said tightly. His hands itched to fiddle with his cards or perhaps pour another drink. He settled for rolling the buttons on his cuffs between his fingers. Takumi’s serious expression had softened into something sadder. A bittersweet expression better fitting on an older face than a six year old’s.

“They killed him for it.”

“I know.”

“Like your father.”

“I know.”

“Like they’re trying to kill you.” Aoko gave him a pointed look.

Kaito hissed out a breath between clenched teeth. “I know, Aoko.”

“Hasn’t stopped you from throwing yourself head first into danger.”

“Who the hell else is going to do anything, Aoko? The police? You? The police just arrested a man for mugging Jii when anyone with eyes could see that wasn’t what happened. The police can’t stop a damn sniper from showing up at heists. The police have done jack shit in getting rid of any of the crows.”

“Oh, because committing crimes is vigilantism and everyone knows how effective that is,” Aoko said, scathing.

Kaito’s hands clenched into fists. He didn’t want to have this argument. Not again, and not here. “Drop it.”

“Kaito, Jii’s dead. How many more people are going to die before you’re satisfied?”

“Aoko, shut up,” Kaito said, teeth gritted.

“No. You’re out there on a grudge mission and who the hell is benefitting? Jii-chan was like a grandfather to you and he died for your damned selfishness. Who’s next Kaito? You? Me? My dad?”

“Dammit Aoko, not now!” Kaito’s throat hurt and he realized he’d just shouted. Everyone in the room was looking at them and he couldn’t grip his control at all in that moment. “This is a funeral,” he said, still loud, but not quite shouting, anger burning through him because couldn’t they just...just feel sad about losing Jii together for one moment? “If you’re going to get mad at me, you can leave.”

Aoko stared at him, and he realized this was one of the only times he’d raised his voice at her. Aoko yelled. Aoko was flashfire anger, outbursts that burned quick and died when she let that anger out. Kaito didn’t yell. Kaito tried not to ever yell at all even if he was angry, and he’d screwed up this time. In the mass of faces looking at them was Takumi, eyes wide with something a lot like fear. It hit like one of Aoko’s mop swings to the gut.

“Please,” Kaito tacked on, quiet again. “Not today.”

Aoko’s lips formed a tight line. “I’ll say what I need to say to Jii-chan and we’ll go.” She was across the room in a handful of strides and Takumi was still staring at Kaito like he’d never seen him before.

The other people in the room looked away, trying to pretend they hadn’t been staring and Kaito sat heavily in the closest chair.

It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes before Aoko was marching back toward the door. Takumi trailed after her, hesitant.

“We’ll talk later, Kaito,” Aoko said to him before she left. When Kaito offered Takumi a hug, he held on to Aoko’s hand and didn’t accept it.

That was another blow to Kaito’s heart. He’d messed up bad. When the door closed, Kaito buried his face in his hands for a moment. “Fuck.” Years of trying to at least look like he and Aoko didn’t fight in front of Takumi, years of keeping his voice down and not escalating things and he’d fucked it all up in one moment.

Was it the alcohol or his own emotions betraying him? Both? His patience finally reaching a limit? Why didn’t matter, it had happened either way. “What am I supposed to do with this mess, Jii-chan?” he mumbled to himself. Around him the funeral was continuing, people moving on from his family’s outburst and returning to celebrating Jii’s life.

Well, Kaito had already fucked up and he was already halfway to drunk. He might as well bury himself deeper. Kaito poured himself a new glass and forced himself to mingle with the other people. Jii would want to be celebrated so Kaito was damn well going to try.

***

Kaito gripped the toilet as his body did its best to physically remove his stomach via his esophagus. The alcohol burned twice as bad coming up as it had going down and left an even worse taste on his tongue. Ugh. He hadn’t had this bad of a hangover since... since maybe forever. Kaito hadn’t even drank that much at his own wedding. Ugh. Never again. He wasn’t touching alcohol ever again. Sorry, Jii, all of it went to paying customers only. Kaito would leave a bottle on his memorial instead of drinking a glass in his memory...

Ugh.

It would be bad enough to be glued to the toilet with his insides roiling, but Kaito’s conscience was nagging at him too. He’d been drunk when he argued with Aoko last night, but not so drunk that he didn’t remember Takumi’s fear or rejection. Fuck. Kaito was the worst father. He’d scared his kid and lost his temper and for what? Getting shitfaced in an ill-advised moment of trying to forget he existed? He deserved each and every moment of agony he was experiencing.

What had he been thinking?

Kaito had work in an hour. Work and then he had to take Jii’s ashes to his family grave. Kaito wiped his mouth as his stomach twisted again. No vomiting this time. Just a steady nauseated ache that filled his whole body. Tomorrow he was supposed to have Takumi for the day. He’d planned to take the day off work and spend it with his son at the zoo or something, following Jii’s advice to take a break back when they were planning a vacation. Kaito had put in the request for the day off and everything, but it was kind of hollow now. There was still the opportunity to make up for scaring Takumi. Put on his happy mask and do fun things and make Takumi laugh because hearing his laughter always made Kaito feel lighter inside.

He could fix this screw up even if—

Kaito shoved away from the toilet, flushing its contents like it would erase the last half hour from happening. Move, he had to move, get dressed, drink water and get out the door. Don’t linger in the kitchen with its unwashed dishes and the table where he’d laid out dozens of heist plans over the years. Don’t linger on the urn in his bedroom. Don’t linger on the new set of keys or paperwork to be filled out or any of the other official odds and ends that had been dumped on him. Definitely don’t linger on the photo hanging in the hall of Jii and Kaito and Aoko at Kaito’s wedding.

Somehow Kaito made it out the door and to work without being late. The glass of water had had middling success of staying down and the pill he took to counteract the headache only soured his stomach more, but he made it. Another day at work, another day his coworkers couldn’t see him hanging on to his sanity by the skin of his teeth.

He forgot to pack a lunch, but then he wasn’t really hungry anyway.

***

There were three heist plans spread across the table, all of them for the next month. He’d planned to have a break, but now it felt like if he stopped even for a moment, life would shatter apart at the edges. Takumi hadn’t come over on the weekend—Aoko said he didn’t want to come that week, and Takumi had agreed when Kaito asked to talk to him, and this wasn’t the first time this had ever happened, but for it to happen now... So no Takumi and still no Kaa-san around the house and too much time and space to himself just like in high school, Kaito had to fill it with something.

All of the heists were ones he’d started compiling information on a while ago, things Jii had gathered preliminary information on. Now Kaito would have to do all the legwork and research himself. This was fine. This was fine, he could handle it. The first was at the museum and he knew it so well by now that he could plan an exit at any point in the building in his sleep at this point. And the other two were owned by collectors and he’d been chipping away at figuring out the defenses on those for a while. There hadn’t been any callouts from Jiroukichi in a while so he should keep an eye out for challenges soon as that would be on schedule any time now...

Kaito lost himself in minutia, going over things with a fine toothed comb and composing the first of his heist notes bit by bit.

It was easy to lose track of time in Kid’s hidden room. Especially when there was no one there to drag him away from work.

Kaito wasn’t getting much sleep these days.

***

He’d said he wasn’t going to touch alcohol again, but that was a lie. Funny thing about being left a bar; there sure was a lot of alcohol in it. Jii’s whiskey glinted golden in the light, one light in the back because the bar was closed. Just Kaito and a bottle of imported whiskey and a heist note.

He needed to hire someone to run the bar. For now it made a nice place to be when he didn’t want to go home. The back room smelled like Jii—cigars and cologne and a particular brand of aftershave all mixed into one scent that lingered. Jii’d lived out of that back room. The bar was a home and a business and the back room was testament to it with its shelves of collector items and Jii’s futon folded away in the closet and his scent seeped into the tatami. The bar was Western, but the back room was Japanese. Jii’d served them tea under a kotatsu in the corner, peeling tangerines and plotting new magic tricks.

The room spun a bit as Kaito sat up from the floor. He didn’t remember lying down, but he must have at some point. There was the heist note. The note he meant to do something with tonight. Send it?

He used a children’s substitution cipher, worked it into a poetic format that read like a nonsense poem until you pieced its clues together. It mentioned blackbirds. Would anyone notice the significance? Would anyone care if they did? The police didn’t catch his watchers often. They were like literal shadows sometimes, more slippery than Kaito as Kid when they sent out the snipers, the professionals, the assassins, not just the run of the mill thugs.

The golden whiskey—no, it was amber, wasn’t whiskey always amber? Kaito couldn’t decide if that mattered or not—caught the light one last time before it slid down his throat. Gone. (More in the bottle, but—) Kaito set the glass down hard enough to smack over the bottle. It had its cap on though, nothing spilled, wow didn’t want to spill Jii’s whiskey. The room went a bit hazy on the edges, tilting as Kaito stood, or no, that was him tilting and he had better muscle control than that.

Steady. In control. His hands didn’t shake, his body didn’t waver. Deliver the note.

To who? Nakamori—no, too loud, bad choice. Not Aoko. Couldn’t be Aoko, Kaito couldn’t be around Aoko that would hurt worse and if he hurt worse—not Aoko. The owner? Too far, trains weren’t running this late. Maybe the paper, but the paper was last note and there was such a thing as too predictable and maybe he should choose a police member... Kudo! Kaito grinned, wavered in place a moment. Kudo hadn’t been to the last few heists and that wasn’t right, Kudo saw things better and he noticed the shadows even if Nakamori didn’t and Kudo still owed him for helping take out the crime organization a few years back. Give Kudo a note and he had to come and that would make the heist harder, but that just meant Kaito would have to work harder and working harder meant less time feeling and Kaito wanted that even if it was too hazy right now to pinpoint why—

Jii.

Kaito frowned. The room was empty, just a light and a bottle and a glass and Kaito. It smelled like Jii and whiskey where Kaito spilled a bit pouring, though that was his sleeve not the room. Jii wasn’t there and Kaito was alone. His throat went tight and his hands went clammy and the room spun in a way that wasn’t from the alcoholic haze in his head.

Note. Note to Kudo and then home, sleep, work, heist.

Jii’s bar was closer to Beika than Kaito’s home. It was closer, but by the time he reached the Kudo manor, his head was a bit clearer, enough to wonder what the hell he was doing, but not so clear as to change his mind and back out.

Even drunk it wasn’t hard to avoid Kudo’s surveillance cameras. Kaito had visited before, a few times, all the way back in high school, and while the security was better than back then, it wasn’t that much better. A light’s on in the study, and another upstairs. Kaito perched outside a second-floor window, glimpsing Kudo Ran in a night-light lit hallway pacing back and forth with a child in her arms.

Kudo had a daughter. Kaito’d forgotten that, but there she was, still a toddler, so little that it hurt to look at her because it brought up all sorts of memories. That had been Kaito once. Kaito, pacing with a crying Takumi, woken up by nightmares and Aoko living in the police dorms during her training so there had only been Kaito to hold him. Whispered words and hummed songs, little silly stories and soft reassurances in the dark until Takumi had calmed and slept again. Long, achingly exhausting nights that Kaito sometimes wished he could live again because for all that it had been hellishly difficult, it had been happier too. Simpler. Ran’s lips moved and Kaito could make out syllables of a lullaby.

He tore himself away, moving to the next window and the next with a clumsiness he blamed on the alcohol, then back down toward the glow of the study.

Kudo sat at a large wooden desk, paperwork strewn in front of him. Not that anything was getting done. Kudo kept starting to write then stopping and glancing at the door. If he wanted to check on his daughter, he should just check on his daughter.

Kaito fiddled with a pen in his pocket, filled with the urge to add a personal note to the heist note. Kudo should know not to waste what he had. If it was Kaito he’d—

Kaito flattened himself to the wall as Kudo glanced up at the window. The light inside would make it hard to see anything outside, but the mirror effect meant nothing if Kaito was all but pressing his face against the glass.

Kudo stared for a minute before shaking his head. He rubbed at his eyes with the weariness of a man that didn’t get near enough sleep as he should. Kaito knew the feeling well.

Go, Kaito thought. Go to Ran-san. Lo and behold, Kudo did, giving his work a last look of distaste.

The light in the study went dark. It took a matter of seconds to get the window open and land amidst Kudo’s stacks of papers. Kaito staggered a bit on the landing, the room spinning a bit. Still drunk. The papers on the desk were gibberish until Kaito’s brain clicked and the writing resolved itself into English. English case files? He could pick out the words, but the meaning wasn’t forming a whole. Kaito gave up snooping and set the heist notice in the middle of Kudo’s desk where he’d be sure to find it when he went to do paperwork tomorrow morning.

Kaito always thought Kudo would be neater than this. Files, files everywhere, with an organization system only Kudo would know. They’d tell him what Kudo was up to now, but it wouldn’t give Kaito any information he could use. He tiptoed around them, back out the window and into the dark. He should leave now. Instead, Kaito climbed upward again.

Ran was still in the hall with the night light, but Kudo was there too, arms around her and gently running a hand over his daughter’s hair. Kaito ached inside alongside a bitter twist of jealousy. Stupid brain, he had no right to be jealous when he ruined things himself. But Ran forgave Kudo. Why couldn’t Aoko forgive me?

His hands hurt, clenched tight on the window frame. No wonder Kudo hadn’t been to many heists lately. He had this to come home to. This to protect. He didn’t need the distraction of Kid heists like he did once. Didn’t need the danger they could bring either.

Kaito could climb back down and take his note back, plant it somewhere else.

But Kudo dealt with murderers and Kid’s heists were no more dangerous than Kudo’s daily life most of the time.

If Kaito opened the window, waited for Kudo to let Ran put their daughter to bed, waited for him to turn and walk down the hall and find Kaito there, how would he react? With fear? Block off his wife and child and stand defensive in the hallway? Or would it be like in years past, when Kaito had time to bother him more? Would he roll his eyes and complain after that first tense moment of anticipation? Kaito’s hands itched to open the window, to see if Kudo saw Kaito as a threat or not. To see what would happen simply for the sake of curiosity.

He shifted in his perch and—slipped. He was falling before the sensation registered as falling, a beat too late to stop. Only muscle memory had his arm flinging out and catching a thin tree branch to slow the fall. It broke with a sharp crack, wrenching his arm and leaving him to smack face first into Kudo’s azalea bushes.

“Owww....” He hadn’t done something that clumsy since high school when he was constantly flying by the seat of his pants.

Upstairs, the window opened. Kaito flattened himself against the wall.

“...No, I don’t see anything. Maybe a tanuki?” Kudo’s voice said.

Adrenaline pushed the last of the alcohol haze away. Wait...wait... The window closed. Kaito dashed for the walls and was over them in record time. He was two blocks away before he realized he’d taken the tree branch with him. He left it at the next trash site he ran across.

Yet again, Kaito vowed not to drink that much anymore.

***

Normally Kaito felt at least a bit of a rush from heists. Even the ones he was least excited about brought on the adrenaline rush of a performance, the thrill of having eyes on him that would always happen because he was a performer at heart. Since Aoko joined the grunts in the Kid task force, though, that rush hadn’t been as sharp. Since Jii’s death, well, Kaito wasn’t feeling much of a rush at all.

There was still a flow of emotions animating his movements under his skin, but it wasn’t a performer’s high where everything came together in the moment. No, it was closer to desperation and the chilling certainty that he was always dancing on a knife’s edge these days. With Aoko, with Kid’s goals, with his own sanity.

His cape billowed white around him, snapping in the wind. Rooftops felt a bit like freedom. Jumping from them felt a bit like absolution.

Kudo stared him down, there before Nakamori or Aoko, one step ahead as always. That, at least, Kaito could rely on. He’d take what little slices of normality his life could get.

“I see you accepted my invitation,” Kaito said, pulling his hat at a better angle to shade his face.

“Considering you broke into my home to leave it...” Kudo said, trailing off as he narrowed his eyes. “What’s your game this time, Kid?”

“Game?” Kaito smiled. It was easier to smile with Kudo right there, easier to play the part when he had a foil to work against. “Can’t I just miss having you chase me? It’s been, what? Over half a year? You’d think I wasn’t your favorite thief anymore.”

Kudo huffed. “Kid, I work homicides.”

“Then this is like a vacation. With less bodies. Your vacations always end up bloody.”

For a moment Kaito thought he would get a smile from Kudo, but he got an eye roll instead. Pity. Kudo had a sense of humor unlike some other detectives Kaito knew. “Give the gem back, Kid,” Kudo said, one hand held out like he thought Kaito would comply. Oh such optimism. There was open air behind Kaito’s back and even with the search lights combing the wrong direction, there was nothing stopping him from jumping.

“Has that ever worked in all the time you’ve known me?” Kaito said.

“Mm, if you feel threatened enough.”

“You’re not chibi Inspector Gadget anymore; somehow you were more threatening a meter high with a soccer ball.”

That did get a flicker of a smile. Good. Good, something bright to spark a bit more life into the hollow thrill. Kudo had a gun. He didn’t aim it in Kaito’s direction though. Instead he...pointed? “Who says I don’t have any more gadgets, Kid?”

Kaito’s eyes widened as there was a flicker of something— He fell backward off the roof before whatever it was could hit, activating the glider. That had been too easy. What was the catch? The air caught, jerking him from a plummet into a glide. Kudo was left standing on the edge of the roof, watching. No further attacks, no gunshot-cracks or stinging pain from a glancing blow. Far below police lights flashed blue and red in little clusters, lost to his misdirection. Their lights didn’t touch him here, and the bit of him wound tight since the start of the heist uncoiled. Kaito exhaled slowly, letting lingering tension leave his body.

Exhaustion creeped at the edges of his consciousness, but for now it was ignorable. Just fly a bit more, change to something less noticeable, and get home.

Halfway to his rest point, Kaito noticed a small white object on his sleeve, almost unnoticeable except that it was a shade too bright compared to his suit. A tracker, tiny and intricately made, and something that had to be Agasa’s work. Ha. Kudo almost had him there... Kaito made sure to slip it onto a neighborhood cat collar when he changed clothes; they liked to linger near a convenience store a block away and would lead Kudo on a frustrating chase.

***

Aoko was up late again, nursing a cup of coffee from what Kaito could tell from his vantage point. Doing paperwork, writing reports, some of them probably relating to the third heist he’d pulled this month. Kaito could almost feel the beat-up wooden kitchen table under his fingertips and smell the sour scent of coffee brewed too dark too long. Aoko would have her hair pulled back and the tired frown between her eyes and her free hand tapping away as she tried to put things into objective, unemotional accounts. Kaito used to sit across from her and see her get closer and closer to boiling over before doing something little, like a shoulder rub or refreshing her coffee with something better for her to get the persistent frown to melt away into a tired smile. There was no one to do that now.

Takumi slept upstairs, had been asleep for several hours now. He came over to Kaito’s home over the weekend, but he had spent most of his time with Kaito’s birds and none of Kaito’s attempts to engage him in things that would normally brighten his day had worked.

This wasn’t the first time this sort of thing had happened. Kaito knew that it was hard on Takumi whenever Aoko and Kaito were more at odds than usual but... It still hurt.

It felt like he was missing all the important things in Takumi’s life. He was in first grade, and his best friends were Momoi Shiemi and Fujitaka Gen, and right now Takumi loved frogs and sentai shows and anything he could learn on animal origami. Last year it had been kites and things that flew and Kaito had helped him make a giant kite in the shape of a penguin because Takumi had insisted that penguins should get to fly.  But Kaito didn’t see the day to day. He didn’t see Takumi get excited on the first day of school or when he made a new friend. He didn’t see him come home every day and hear what he thought about each new thing he learned. Kaito heard it after the fact, on weekends when Takumi would rather draw pictures or go to the park or practice simple magic tricks than talk about things like school.

It was Kaito’s own fault he didn’t have that and life never stopped shoving it back in his face.

At the kitchen table, Aoko made an unhappy face at the taste of cold coffee. That was Kaito’s cue to leave. He could only get away with looking so long. Somehow, eventually, Aoko would notice and she’d be mad.

Sometimes Kaito needed to see them breathing to know what was real though.

***

“I’m so sorry about Jii, Kaito. He was a good man...”

“He was so much more than that,” Kaito said into the phone cradled in his hands. A phone call, not even a video call, but a phone call. He couldn’t even see her face to see how much she meant it, though she had to mean it. Jii was important to Kaa-san too. “Where were you? Where are you, it’s been weeks—” He caught himself before his voice broke.

“I’m so so sorry, Kai-chan,” his mother said, voice soft like it was when he was little. It was too little too late to soothe him now though. “I should have called... My suitcase got lost and I only just got it back. I didn’t know. I didn’t know...”

Kaito stared up at him father’s painting, the side with Toichi, not Kid, and Kaito was almost as old as his father had been when he had Kaito.  A few more years and he’d have outlived him age wise. A small, unfair part of him wondered if she would notice if he was the one that died tomorrow, not Jii. Chikage had been globe-trotting for years now, this wasn’t anything new, just a bit longer than they usually were out of touch for, just... He wanted to cry, but there weren’t tears to do so, just a clogged up feeling in his throat and a tight chest like when he’d broken a rib and he’d been wrapped in bandages for weeks. He breathed and it didn’t show at all.

“...How are you holding up? Do you need me to come home?”

Yes, Kaito thought. Yes and Please and I need someone so much right now, but what came out of his mouth was, “No.” Kaito marveled at how calm it came out. “No, I’m fine. I’ll be fine. You’re busy doing...” She hadn’t said what she’d been doing this time, or where she’d been going that led to losing her suitcase. “You’re busy. I can handle things. I’ve been handling them. Jii left me the bar and I hired someone to run it. I was thinking about hiring Momoi Keiko—you remember Keiko?—to keep track of stock and finances...” In his spare time—ha—Kaito was looking into what it took to run a business and what he’d need to know to make sure the bar was running properly. He’d moved anything Kid related far from Jii’s place and he’d managed most of the other trying details that death left behind. Paperwork. Emotional weight. Kaito managed for the last twelve years well enough without his mother to turn to at all times, he could do this now. “I’m fine.”

Part of him hoped she’d insist on coming home anyway.

The rest of him wasn’t really surprised that by the end of the call he still didn’t know when she would be back home.

***

Blueprints and messily handwritten notes laid spread about the table. Kaito’s pencil tapped at an increasingly rapid tempo as he scowled at the executive office diagram. “It’s like they designed the room to be as restricted to get to as possible. Not only is it the top floor, it only has one window of bulletproof glass, and can only be accessed by a private elevator.” The CEO had recently obtained an ornate antique clock set with large gemstones at four quarters of the clock face, and of course he’d chosen to have it displayed in his office. An office that was ridiculously secure. The man had to be paranoid. Maybe justifiably paranoid if he’d risen to his position under suspicious means, but that wasn’t Kaito’s main concern.

“Ugh...” Tap-tap-taptap-taptaptap. “I could probably impersonate an employee to get in there, but that’s the first thing they’d be looking for. Maybe if I climbed the elevator shaft...? Jii, what do you—” The tapping died as Kaito froze, realizing his mistake. He stared blankly at the papers in front of him for a moment. “Shit. Right,” he said. “Right.”

The silence he’d momentarily forgotten felt too loud. The house was too big, the rooms too empty. There were photos of dead men on the walls in the hallway and all the decorations were chosen by a woman that spent less than a full month a year in the house. The pencil lead snapped under the pressure of Kaito’s hand.

“Right,” he repeated under his breath.

He clicked out a new length of lead.

It was harder to get back to work now that he’d remembered he was alone.

***

It felt a bit like when Takumi was a toddler; Aoko at the police dorms and Kaito juggling school, a baby, and Kid all at once. Only now it was Kaito juggling work, attempts at bonding with his son, and filling every spare hour he had with Kid until it felt like he was more Kid than Kaito. Kaito had loss and family struggles hanging over his head. Kid had targets and research and traps to funnel energy into and Kaito was funneling more energy into them than he had in the last five years.

If he held still too long, the world would catch up to him, so he kept going. Delved into gem trade records and museum collection records. Scrounged through rumors and imports and legends. He ran through blueprints and pieced together traps and smoke bombs and a new knock out gas. He constructed new tricks and practiced them until he saw them in his sleep. Mirrors, wires, speakers, training doves to go to new places and carry new things.

Kaito sent his attention in a dozen directions and felt each new task stretch him a little bit thinner. He was caught in the arc of shuffled cards but he didn’t know who held the deck or what card would come out on top.

He’d learned how to balance things, once. He knew how to take breaks and appreciate little moments and build relationships with coworkers and informants and what not. Kaito had learned to enjoy early mornings with cups of coffee and the sound of doves waking up in their roosts and the orange glow of the sun peeking over the horizon. There weren’t any of those moments now. He slept when his body gave out and he woke to the shrill of his phone alarm with enough time to get to work. The ate a lot of take away and instant meals when he remembered to eat at all, and it was only in the moments Takumi was there that time seemed to slow into anything resembling the calm he’d found.

It was better this way though. It was better because Kaito would rather keep busy, burn himself out, than find out what would happen if he stopped moving.

[savefrog]

im just gonna give my dangan ronpa v3 thoughts so far so we can laugh at them when they all fucking die SPOILERS UP TO: I’ve gotten to the first murder, haven’t started the trial yet. Only 1 dead.

my fave is gonta i fucking love gonta hes a buff baby bug boy and i love him. anyone who loves bugs is a gentleman in my eyes: 1000000 points

[sadly at this point things are not looking good for Gonta with the evidence I have (an open door that can only fit a ball through....and a shotput ball murder weapon.) but knowing dangan ronpa this HAS TO BE A RED HERRING RIGHT. RIGTH????]

keebo is also fantastic, absolutely wonderful robot, and im really sorry i offended him by mentioning roombas or something last month: 1000 points

I also really love Angie. She’s adorable but also i like the weird route they went for an Ultimate Artist. being one of those fuckign FanganRonpa RP people, whenever someone does a SHSL artist its like....art. but they were just like “nah she’s gonna be into that religion from Cats Cradle or some shit”: 100 points

Kaito is great. i mostly just call him purple larry buttz. he’s hoenstly the only one here acting like a normal human being. Hope he doesn’t die (he probably will) 99 points

Ryoma is also great. I screamed when I heard his voice. He killed a man with tennis. He speaks serious truths. I hope he redeems the small cartoon guys with goofy eyes genre that Teruteru wrecked havoc in. 199 points

Korekiyo and Kokichi sure are gonna be THOSE characters, huh. the thing i really enjoy THOSE characters because they’re such wild cards. wtf are they gonna do. they’re suspicious and wanna see the world burn but that’s what makes these games fun and they’re probably not gonna kill/die til late game or at least one of them won’t. My bets on Kokichi lasting longer. 180 points to split between them

RIP RANTARO. I really liked him but I was honestly so bewildered and confused by him the whole time that i didnt know what to think. FOR CHRIST SAKE his profile has “Likes: Extraterritorial Rights” WHAT THE FUCK. My biggest regret is thinking “Oh they won’t kill off the Ultimate ??? right away so I won’t hang out with him yet”. sigh. 95 points???

Kaede is a cute protag. She’s got a bit more quirkly-dangan flavor than Naegi and Hajime even though I love both of them (actually having a talent can help with that...though I kinda miss Hajime’s snark). Also I like how they show her motivational speeches working....and then slowly falling apart as everything goes to hell. 88 points

Shuichi is also cute. give this boy some self confidence 85 points + 5 more to give him some self confidence something bad’s definitely gonna happen to one of these lil friends

Himiko’s existence sends me into a crisis. how does magic work in dangan ronpa. its not established, does it even exist???? i feel like we’re not supposed to know, and that’s the entire sick joke. For gundam we knew he was probably full of BS but... also the personality they chose for her adds to the audience frustration that we will just NEVER KNOW how magic works, but...idk i’m not digging it yet. maybe im just extra wary of character made to look really young bc of the creeps :/ :/ 60 points

Kirumi. I feel there’s no way a maid character won’t be a total badass. So far im just concerned for her health. 75 points but with great point investment potential

Maki  well she’s not what i expected. also her title is a fucking mouthful. she could’ve been Ultimate Nanny. or Ultimate Babysitter. Ultimate Guardian even? but that’s dangan ronpa i suppose. She’s intriguing, just haven’t seen enough of her yet. I smell tragic backstory. 70 points

Tsumigi ah finally. a cosplayer. I like her so far. yup. 88 points

Tenko. Well. yeah. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm yeah really not liking her. Like i can laugh at myself being a “””tumblr sjw””” and all, and laugh at the “degenerate male jokes”; and i wont even go into the feminist and lesbian jokes. but. can she not harass Himiko; like they just gotta have a creep character. its been a while since i played the intros, so maybe it wasn’t as bad as I vaguely remember....but i remember it just not sitting right with me. But idk in the end I still kinda liked Teruteru and Souda in SDR2 despite them bein creeps for various reasons so maybe i can still turn around on Tenko if she isn’t just the same flat joke every time i see her. 5 points but potentially redeemable?

And finally we have Miu. At first i was very afraid seeing as she’s WEARING LITERAL BONDAGE GEAR and seems to be our main dirty joke character. But I’ve warmed up to her. She’s clearly one of the more useful characters but the fact she’s so fuckign hard to deal with was interesting. Also certain interactions with her have been intriguing, there’s clearly something goin on with her. I’m still conflicted but I’ve decided I want to like her and I hope the writing keeps helping me out with that. 77 points (lucky numbers!!)

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Rewards of Losing:  Chapter 21

Durbe bent over the duel disk – or what had been a duel disk. He’d taken it apart and now stared at each individual piece, trying to figure out what they were. He knew how most duel disks worked. This one had a few extra abilities. The first thing he’d identified was the self-destruct mechanism. That one was taken away to be dealt with. They didn’t need it.

But now he looked for the way they could cross dimensions and how to make their monsters solid. He worried at his lip, then glanced at Chris, who stared at some of the software he’d managed to extract.

They didn’t have as many computers as they really needed for this, let alone ones of high enough power, but they did what they could. It wasn’t as if they had many other options.

It wasn’t just the two of them there. Rio and her Healer, Kotori, had also managed to bring in a couple of duel disks – thankfully ones that weren’t frosted over – and those rested to one side, having also been deprived of their self-destruct capabilities. One of their duel disks rested next to it, also taken apart, ready for a point by point comparison.

Rio played with a string of ice between her fingers. “Are you going to need us for anything else or can I go find out what my idiot brother has been doing? I got a message from him – something about having found some defectors or something.” Her nose wrinkled. “Which I sort of doubt. He wouldn't know a defector if one walked up and defected at him.”

Durbe managed not to smile, but it was an effort. He’d known the twins for as long as he could remember and while they sniped at each other constantly, the moment someone dared to snipe at them, he had to deal with the wrath of a Frostflame and the fury of the First Healer of Heartland City. Most people didn’t want to do that.

He’d wondered at some point if he and Ryouga would bond. He wouldn’t have objected, but Ryouga ended up bonding with Thomas Arclight. Durbe certainly wasn’t going to complain – it led to him meeting Chris and finding not just his own Healer but the love of his life.

“Go ahead if you want to,” Chris said with a quick wave of one hand. “Bring them back here if there are any real defectors. Maybe we can get some help working this out.”

Durbe didn’t know if that were possible – any defectors being able to help or any defectors existing in the first place. But he nodded his agreement and focused on the work at hand. His lips pressed together as he stared at what he knew was the part of the duel disk that created the holograms. He couldn't figure out how they made the holograms real though.

“They did something to add mass to them,” Chris said, still staring at the software. “But I can’t figure out how. I don’t understand this code.”

Durbe took a look at it. He didn’t expect to understand it at first glance and he wasn’t surprised when he didn’t. But he regarded it thoughtfully, checking for anything that might make a smidge of sense.

“Do we have anyone else who might be able to decipher this?” Durbe wondered. He didn’t have an accurate list on everyone who’d survived so far. Someone should probably make one of those.

Chris leaned back and closed his eyes, rubbing at the side of his face. “I can ask Kaito. But he’s been very busy lately.”

Durbe nodded. Kaito hadn’t had a single moment of happiness since this began. His father and brother – no one had ever heard a word about his mother – hadn’t survived the first wave of attacks. Kaito hadn’t lost any time ambushing a Fusion soldier and stealing his Duel Disk. Exactly how many people he’d carded by now Durbe didn’t have any idea. Only that Kaito didn’t care about sharing the tech, just about exacting revenge.

“Let’s take a break,” Durbe suggested. “Where did Mizael go?” Almost as soon as they’d made it back to camp, Mizael vanished. Probably going back to bed, since he’d never been much of a tech person. As long as they remembered him once they had the code cracked – and preferably some way worked out to undo carding – he wasn’t going to get in the way.

Chris stifled a yawn. “You might be right. We won’t make any progress if we don’t.”

Durbe stood up and stretched before heading over to where he kept the tea supplies. He’d managed to save some of those during the invasion’s chaos. One of the smaller gardens had been turned into a tea preserve, with at least three Healers taking the duty in tern to watch over it, along with their Firestarters. Durbe approved.

I wonder if there really are defectors. He held himself back from the temptation to try and contact Ryouga or Thomas. Communications had been very thin since the invasion and he didn’t want to distract them if they had four possibly fractious people to take care.

Michael helped the young Healer along – well, perhaps not that young. He thought they weren’t too far apart in age, though he wasn’t going to ask for an identification card right now. They had too much else to do, mostly involving getting back to camp and making sure that these four could be trusted.

And if they can’t be? What then? Truth to tell, Thomas would probably strip them of their duel disks and render them to ash. Or try – it might be a little difficult when one of them was a Frostflame. Even if he didn’t look as if he were capable of fighting back. The two young women carried him along, though clearly they weren’t having the easiest time of it.

He glanced over to his own companion. “Why did you defect?” He asked quietly. They did need to get some information, after all.

“Because the Professor let Yuuri hurt my brother,” Shou said quietly, his eyes shifting over to the taller young man. “And I found out about what’s really going on from Kei.”

Kei, the Healer Cat. Michael had heard of him; Chris had passed the first warnings of the invasion on to him and mentioned he’d learned of it from a Cat. He wondered if it was the same one.

“And – if I’d stayed behind ” Shou glanced away for a moment. “If my big brother left and I didn’t, I probably would have been carded. Or worse.”

Michael’s free hand clenched. “Why would they do that? You didn’t do anything wrong!”

Shou blinked up at him. “What’s that got to do with it? I’m his brother. They would have either sent me to get him – and risk that I’d never come back – or card me – or turn me over to Yuuri to be turned into mulch.”

Michael’s throat closed. Just the simple way he said it, as if Michael should have known that, as if anyone would have known it – it sickened him. He shook his head.

“We don’t do things like that here. If you want to help us, we can always use help in the Gardens. Or you could duel – my brother will probably want to take a look at your duel disk. We’re trying to figure out how those work.” He knew that Chris and Durbe had gone searching for stray Fusion soldiers earlier that day. They’d probably found some by now; it was getting closer and closer to the afternoon so they’d had lots of time.

Shou blinked. “It’s not that hard. We have classes on it.”

Michael didn’t hold back his grin. “You and my brother are going to want to talk. A lot.”

The Night Garden’s guards allowed them through – mostly because they were in the company of Michael, Ryouga, and Thomas – and they made their way through the lanes to where the tents had been set up. The Garden looked a lot different from before the invasion; it could hardly be recognized as the same place.

“What are you going to do with my brother?” Shou asked, nervous. Ryouga turned towards him.

“He’ll be fine. My sister’s a Frostflame. She can help him.”

“Whoa. You really did find some defectors.” A female voice spoke up without warning and the new arrival turned towards them. She stood there, one hand on her hip, her hair a long cascade of blue-white, and a very curious expression on her face as she strolled towards them.

“How were things with Durbe and Chris?” Michael asked. Rio glanced over.

“They’re over there,” she said with a nod towards a larger area. “They’ve got a few of those duel disks and are working on them now.”

Michael tugged at Shou’s sleeve. “Let me introduce you to my brother Chris. You said that you knew about who those duel disks work, right?”

“Well, sort of,” Shou murmured, a faint tinge to his cheeks. “But my brother-” He cast his attention back towards Ryou, being taken elsewhere by four young women now.

“You can see him later,” Rio said, raising her head and favoring him with a tiny smile. “But he’ll be fine. He’s coming through the change very well.”

Kei nudged Shou for a second. “I’ll stay with him. Go ahead. Help where you can.”

Shou nodded, and Michael guided him through the lines of tents to where Durbe and Chris would be. The farther they went, the more he could see Shou staring at everything around him. He shuddered a few times.

“The plants – they’re so angry,” Shou murmured. “They don’t like people from Fusion.”

Micheal patted him. “Don’t worry about it. They’ll get to know you and they’ll like you too.”

Shou didn’t say anything, just kept on going. When they got to the right tent, Michael poked his head between the flaps. “Hi, guys!”

Durbe and Chris looked up from their cups of tea. Michael could see duel disks and parts spread out on the table before them. He waved, then stepped inside with Shou.

“Ryouga, Thomas, and I found some defectors from Fusion,” he told them, gesturing to Shou. “This is Marufuji Shou.” Now that he thought about it, hadn’t they mentioned Mizael knowing Shou’s brother? He hadn’t really remembered before.

Both of them came to their feet. “Marufuji?” Chris asked. “I presume that you have a brother?”

“Yeah. He’s – over there.” Shou waved one hand a little vaguely.

“He’s a Frostflame now,” Michael reported. “Rio’s taking care of him. Has anyone told Mizael yet?”

“Considering you just told us, probably not.” Chris pointed out with a hint of amusement. “You’d better have someone do that. But I’m sure that you didn’t bring your new friend here just to say hi.”

Michael hated blushing. He didn’t do it often but with the way Chris eyed them and with Shou there – he couldn’t help but feel a little flushed.

“No. He knows about those things.” Michael nodded towards the duel disks. “He can help.”

Both of them turned to look at Shou, whose shoulders tensed briefly before he swallowed and stepped forward. “I don’t know how they work,” he said. “But we were given basic classes in what the parts are and how to repair them if they were damaged and we couldn’t bring it in. That wasn’t supposed to happen a lot, but we were taught anyway.”

“So you know how they put the mass into the holograms?” Durbe asked. Shou nodded and moved closer, looking over the stretch of parts on the table. Michael watched as the three of them fell into some sort of technical talk. Shou didn’t seem as versed in it as they were but they still understood each other.

Michael settled down, made himself a cup of tea, and enjoyed what was left of the afternoon. Perhaps things might just be getting a little better.

Rio, Kotori, Asuka, and Akane settled Ryou down on a cot. Kotori and another Healer started to look him over, while Rio and Asuka stepped back, Akane with them.

“How did he frost over?” Rio wanted to know. Asuka shook her head.

“I’m not entirely sure. It had already started before I got there. But I’m very sure that Yuuri was involved. He’s a Healer – a very twisted one. I’ve heard more stories than I ever care to about him.”

Rio nodded slowly. “Is he likely to come looking for revenge?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. But not nearly any time soon.” Asuka’s grin was a quick flash of fire across her lips. “Ryou frosted over inside of his garden. And he wasn’t very happy when he did it.”

Rio didn’t even try to muffle a snicker at that. “So let me guess – it’s covered in ice?”

“Covered in ice,” Asuka agreed. “It probably won’t melt for days. Maybe even longer. It is a tropical island, but Frostflame ice doesn’t melt easily.”

“No one knows that better than me.” Rio nodded before she looked back to the other Frostflame. “All we can do right now is let him rest. How is he doing, Kotori?”

Her Healer looked up, pushing hair out of her eyes. “He’s going to be all right as far as I can tell. I can sense the presence of two proto-bonds, though.” She nodded towards Kei, who sat there with his tail neatly coiled around his paws watching. “One for you, Kei.”

“Of course. It’s begun to sit in since we cleared the drugs out of his system.” Kei replied with the typical smugness of a Cat. “The other would possibly be to Mizael. Who should know that we’re here as soon as possible. They have a lot to deal with.”

Rio nodded thoughtfully. “Are you all going to need some bonding time?”

“I know that he and I will.” Kei flicked his tail slowly back and forth. “But you’re going to have to ask him and Mizael about them.”

Rio nodded again before she gestured for them to leave. “We can find you two a place to rest and wait for him to wake up.” She cast a quick glance to Asuka. “Are you – looking for a Healer? I know a few who aren’t bonded right now.”

“Not right now,” Asuka said with a shake of her head. “I’ll let you know if that changes, though.

Rio let out a laugh. “I should introduce you to Kurosaki Ruri. She’s a Firestarter too and she hasn’t met her Healer yet. Just don't burn down things if you two do meet.”

“I haven’t burned down anything since I was seven years old,” Asuka told her. “At least not without meaning to.”

Rio tilted her head. “That sounds interesting. What happened?”

“You could say it was all my brother’s fault.” Asuka began to tell the tale as they headed out of the tent, leaving Kei to guard Ryou, who slept on and on.

Mizael thought when they got back that he would just return to his tent and finish up that nap. But halfway there, he realized that he was far too restless now. He wouldn’t be able to close his eyes at all.

So he took a walk through some of the lesser Gardens, offering them his energy, and chatting with a couple of the other Healers he crossed paths with there. One point came up fairly fast – no one had seen Vector in a while.

I should probably not care about that. Vector had asked him out once or twice while they were in high school but Mizael hadn’t been interested. He’d been too busy dueling and developing his talent, and then he’d gotten interested in Kaito.

But he always remained aware of Vector’s presence in the city. It was hard to avoid knowing when he did something, since his antics were the talk of the Gardens for weeks. To have him vanish without warning – Mizael couldn’t help but wonder if he’d somehow ended up carded. He wasn’t sure of how likely it was – Vector was an amazing duelist as well as a powerful Healer. But if someone struck him down from behind, it wasn’t impossible.

Mizael settled himself on a pile of rubble that hadn’t been cleaned up yet and probably wouldn’t be – it was becoming home to a very attractive species of vine – and watched the Night Garden. Something felt off and he had no idea of what it was. He didn’t even know if ‘off’ was the right word. Something made him antsy and aware.

Is he ever going to come back? Could I trust him if he did? There were too many answers that he didn’t have and he wasn’t sure of where to get them except from Marufuji Ryou himself. The question of trust hung there no matter what.

A thin thread of cold ran up his back and Mizael shivered. It wasn’t winter – if anything it was late summer. So why was getting cold? Was Rio in the area? Frostflames brought down the temperature wherever they were as a matter of courses.

He could see the main entrance to the Night Garden from where he sat. Coming through it just then was a small group. He peered closer; was that Kei with them? It was a Cat at the least, and two members of the group carried a third. He didn’t recognize some of the others, though the longer he stared, the more he recognized Michael and Chris Arclight. Their hair colors were rather distinctive, after all. But the others…

Mizael frowned. He couldn’t see who they were very clearly. They were too far away. But – but – he wanted to believe. There was something about the shape of the carried one that told him – he – it could be -

Only one way to find out. He leaped down from his perch and headed for the Night Garden. It might not be Marufuji – but if it was, then Mizael had a lot of questions.

To Be Continued

Notes: I can’t believe we’re so close to the end. Ryou and Mizael need a long talk. And I’m sure you want to know what’s going on with Vector and Yuuri. (I would have made Vector a Firestarter but him and Yuuri bonded would do nothing for Yuuri’s sanity. I know who will help with that but that won’t be for a while to come. Definitely not in this story.)

[lilitia]

Title: After Arc V Info: Short scenes of the counterparts after the disaster they went through. Note: This is my farewell to Arc V. Kind of last minute, so not too much, but enough for me to have something done. Kind of shippy. 

Predatorshipping (kind of not really)

After their return to their own dimension, the fusion dimension, Yuri continued to duel with the students at Academia. He enjoyed winning against each one of them, but the urge to card them disappeared. Remnants of his old personality to win remained, but that dangerous and malicious part of Zarc that he carried was taken away the moment his evil soul was removed from his body.

“Ha! Another win for me,” Yuri said, turning off his duel disk. “Jacket!” Sora handed his blue jacket, breaking his lollipop between his teeth. Yuri grinned squeezing the jacket.

Academia was having their very first tournament. Every single student on the premises had to participate and the winner of each duel had to take the student’s jacket. The ones who lost had to move to a specific dorm and stay there until the end of the tournament.

Sora walked away, throwing the stick of the lollipop behind him.

Yuri sat down instead of looking for challengers, he waited for them to show up. Soon enough, a female duelist with blue hair came into view, but he didn’t move. Her eyes landed on him and he watched with intensity.

“Not yet,” Yuri said. “Serena. I want you to be the last.”

Appleshipping

“Come on! Come on!” Yugo said, trying to get the d-wheel to start.

“We should take a break,” Rin suggested. “We’ve been trying-”

“No, I’m going to make our d-wheel work,” Yugo said, determined. He wiped off sweat from the top of his forehead.

The d-wheel wasn’t close to being as functional as it used to be. The vehicle couldn’t even activate the duel disk. Yugo leaned his head against the bike, looking at Rin. She gave him a stern look and he knew better. He stood up and left the d-wheel behind for today.

Yugo grabbed something to eat before heading to bed since he didn’t eat all day. His mind was on the bike as lied in bed. Even though Rin broke what they worked hard on, he could never blame her and wanted to fix it for her. For them.

Rin tiptoed toward Yugo’s room. She sneaked a peek of him and caught him sleeping. “Yes,” she whispered to herself. Her footsteps couldn’t be heard as she made her way toward their bike. Rin began to work on it by itself, hoping to get it fixed for Yugo after what had happened. She worked hard all night for him. For them.

“Rin!” Yugo shouted when he saw her sleeping against their d-wheel.

“Yugo.” She slowly opened up, rubbing her eyes. When Rin realized where she was, she grabbed Yugo’s arm. “Try it!” she said, excited.

For a moment, Yugo was confused then figured she meant their bike. She let go of his arm and moved away, clapping her hands together. The first thing Yugo did was activate the duel disk, which finally turned on. He glanced over at Rin, who couldn’t contain her happiness.

Before Yugo could try to start it, Rin sat in the back, grabbing her helmet. “But Rin…”

“Just go, Yugo!” And soon after they were off on the streets again with their d-wheel.

Fallenangelshipping

“Yuto,” Ruri whispered, grabbing his arm. He stood still, waiting for her to continue. “Stay for a second.”

“I can’t. We have to stay on schedule,” he replied.

“Okay, at least let me help.”

Ruri, Yuto, Shun, and Kaito were helping rebuild parts of Heartland along with other XYZ duelists. Shun wasn’t letting Ruri help with the building and repairing part. She was running around handing the group items they needed.

“You are helping.” Yuto kissed her forehead, “I’ll see you later for our date.”

As Yuto moved away from her to continue working a scream escaped Shun. Everyone turned in his direction. He was holding his hand, angry and in pain.

Ruri ran to him quickly with an ice pack. “Are you okay?! You should be more careful, brother.”

“Mhm,” Kaito mumbled, walking away while drinking from his water bottle. He tried to keep his composure, acting like it wasn’t his fault.

Shun couldn’t answer, holding the ice pack against his wounded hand. Ruri could hear Yuto and Kaito chuckling behind them. “Maybe you should be trying to finish up,” she said, mostly to Yuto.

After repairing some damages, Yuto grabbed Ruri’s hand. “I’m all yours,” he said. They stopped in front of the ice scream shop. Luckily, some places only had minor repairs and were up and running fast.

Yuto and Ruri bought one big sundae for the both of them. They sat down and started eating, glad they were able to spend some time together after the disaster they went through. Every moment they were together meant so much. Ruri smiled as she watched Yuto enjoy the sundae.

Fruitshipping

He felt the breeze against his skin as he sat on the grass, watching the water below. His mind would linger to the events that almost destroyed the world, but he learned to accept that he was Zarc. He knew that no matter what, he wasn’t as evil as it seemed. But he couldn’t forget.

His eyes traveled to his pendulum, grabbing it, and bringing it in front of his face. He stared at it, wondering how his counterparts were holding up. Now that there were portals, he could easily visit them. Visit any one of his friends from any dimension.

“Yuya!” Yuzu shouted from atop. “There you are!”

Yuya was swinging the pendulum and Yuzu grabbed it, waiting for him to look at her. Just as she hoped, he did, smiling when he saw her. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

Yuzu let go of his pendant and sat next to him. She watched as Yuya lied down on the grass and followed. He placed his hand on top of hers and smiled. Yuya was glad that he had Yuzu and always will. She meant so much to him.

“Thank you for always being there for me, Yuzu.”

He looked up at the sky and saw something sparkle, before it completed faded. Yuya believed it to be hope for everyone’s future.  

Zarcray

“Zarc, it’s time,” Ray said from above.

He didn’t turn to look at her yet, he wanted to enjoy this. Each of his fragments were living a happy life and he needed time to absorb every moment of it. Zarc may not have had the life he truly wanted, but he was glad that there was a second chance for all of him.

“Don’t you want to watch?” Zarc asked Ray.

Ray flew down lower, floating next to Zarc. She could not deny that watching their fragments and seeing them smile meant everything to her. A few more minutes couldn’t hurt.

They watched Zarc’s main fragment talk to Ray’s standard fragment. First she seemed angry at the boy, but after he spoke to her, she couldn’t help but smile at him. They relaxed and started to talk and laugh, enjoying each other’s company.

Zarc and Ray looked at each and smiled. “Okay, now I’m ready.” He took Ray’s hand and she guided him up toward the clouds. He could feel warmth falling upon him, making him smile and accept peace. Both of them started glowing a golden color.

They saw a flash of all their counterparts living their lives. Then their original dimension appeared before their eyes. Every single moment that brought joy to Zarc was shown to him.

Then came only peace.

Now let the healing start.

[dark-angel-of-muses]

Happy New Year

Pendulumshipping on New Year’s Eve

Word Count: 2606

  “Sorry we’re late Yuya, Masumi wanted to take me to dinner first,” Yuzu apologized, blushing from a mix of embarrassment and the cold air. Masumi had her arm linked in Yuzu’s and from their mussed-up hair and smudged lipstick, Yuya could tell dinner wasn’t the only thing Yuzu and Masumi did before coming here. He laughed good-naturedly.

               “It’s no trouble at all ladies, come on in, the party’s just getting started!” Yuya stepped aside and gestured towards the living room. “Happy New Year’s Eve!”

               “You too,” Yuzu chirped back, leading Masumi into the Sakaki house. Inside, the party was loud and a bit crowded. Yuya had hooked up speakers to his laptop and was playing club music. Remnants of Christmas decorations still covered the house. On the walls there was garland that was never taken down, red bows decorated counters and some tables, and stray ornaments still hung from the hooks on the wall. A mix of sodas and alcohols were lined up on the kitchen counter like a bar, and the dining room table was covered in snacks.

Yuya was very pleased with the turnout, he could guess that well over 50 people had come. As he looked around the room, he spotted his close friends among the strangers and acquaintances. Sora was nursing the sweets, picking at the bowls of candy laid out on the corner. Yuto and Ruri were sitting next to each other on the couch, almost close enough to cuddle but by the way Yuto kept warily glancing over to Shun, it looked like that wasn’t happening any time soon. Shun, Kaito, Yuuri, and Dennis seemed to be engaged in some sort of drinking game, each with a set of cards in their hand and shot glasses right next to them. Dennis threw down two aces, and Shun groaned as he poured more whiskey into his glass.

               Yugo, Rin, Sawatari, and Gongenzaka were engaged in a game of twister. For his large size and stocky build, Gongenzaka was surprisingly flexible. Rin was currently practically laying on top of Yugo, and Shingo seemed to be taking enormous pleasure in forcing Yugo and Rin to twist their bodies around one another.

               Serena was standing awkwardly in the corner, chugging a red solo cup and attempting to avoid eye contact with anyone else. Shinji, Crow, and Jack were sprawled out on the couches in front of the TV watching reruns of the Miami Championship. Jack seemed to be criticizing every move the duelists made, complaining about their poor performance and how they could have played their hand differently. Crow would intermittently tell him to shut up and just enjoy the duels, which would only quiet Jack for a few minutes before he started running his mouth again.

               Allen and Sayaka tag dueling against Hokuto and Yaiba without disks, setting out their decks on a mat. Allen was constantly checking Yaiba’s cards, making sure he understood Synchro summoning correctly and rechecking the effects for the umpteenth time. Sayaka was doing fairly well, setting up Allen for an XYZ summon by giving him Fairy Cheer Girl’s effect twice over and allowing him to special summon a Rank 10 Railway almost immediately, putting Hokuto on the defensive.

               The Tyler twins were mingling with some of the guests. It was mostly Grace leading her sister through the crowded room and starting conversations with random partygoers while Gloria crossed her arms and silently glared. Grace was laughing a lot, flitting from person to person with her sister’s wrist in hand.

               “That should be everyone… alright!” Yuya giggled a little, the buzz from having all his loved ones so close making him giddy. It was wonderful, he-

*DING DONG*

               Huh? The doorbell? Who had he forgotten? Yuya tried to run over the list of invitees in his head, but he couldn’t think of anyone who had been left out. Maybe there was someone who had invited along their friend without telling him? Yuya rushed to open the door, putting on a big smile for his new guest. However, when he opened the door, he lost face for a second as he realized who it was.

               “R-Reiji?!” Yuya gasped, “I thought you were too busy to come, and wasn’t there some sort of party at LDS you had to go to…?

               “I decided my time was spent better elsewhere. I assure you, I won’t be missing anything. I apologize for turning down your invitation then showing up unannounced, I hope it’s not too much of a bother,” Reiji said as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Yuya blushed, of all people he didn’t expect Reiji Akaba to be the surprise guest. Not that he was ungrateful, he was very glad to have one of his closest friends show up, he was just taken aback.

               “Not a whole lot of fun at Leo, huh?” Yuya tried to return his entertainer smile and go back to talking casually, but for some reason, his heart was beating a little too fast.

               “…You could say that,” Reiji answered after a moment of hesitation.

               “Hey, come in, it’s cold outside,” Yuya said suddenly, not sure why his heart was thrumming against his chest all of a sudden.

               “Thank you very much, Yuya.” Reiji nodded gratefully, walking into the warmth of the Sakaki household. Yuya led Reiji to the wall near where the firepole to the second floor was.

               “So did something happen at LDS or…?” Yuya trailed off, looking expectantly at Reiji.

               “Somewhat. Don’t worry about it,” Reiji said, a little too curtly for Yuya’s liking. Yuya put his hand on Reiji’s shoulder, and he crooked his head to look Reiji in the eyes.

               “Hey, are you ok?” Yuya asked, concerned.

               “I’ll be fine.”

               Yuya didn’t like that answer. “Hey, if something’s bothering you, you know you can tell me. I’d much rather know what’s going on, Reiji.” When Reiji turned his head to meet Yuya’s gaze head-on, Yuya felt his heart quicken pace, and somehow a shiver rolled down his spine. He tried to hide it best he could, meeting Reiji’s gaze as evenly as his jump heart would allow.

               “I… the press is always asking questions about what happened when the dimensions fused. I’m used to dealing with idiotic reporters, but these ones in particular were relentless. They keep-” Reiji stopped to take a deep breath, attempting to keep his composure. “They keep attempting to demonize you, which I do not take kindly to.”

               “Oh, Reiji…” Yuya said softly. “I’m so sorry, that’s awful.”

               “You have nothing to be sorry for, it’s not your fault,” Reiji sighed, ‘I’d rather talk about something else, if you wouldn’t mind.”

               “Not at all!” Yuya quickly changed topics. “So, uh, can I get you anything to drink?”  

               “Rum and coke, if you would,” Reiji readjusted his glasses.

               “Alright, I’ll be right back!” Yuya quickly scrambled to grab the large pitcher that he had mixed the soda and alcohol in. Reiji nodded gratefully when Yuya returned with a red cup in hand, offering it to Reiji.

               “Ah, thank you. I’m sorry for dropping in on you like this. I didn’t intend the night to go as badly as it did,” Reiji apologized before taking a short sip of his drink.

               “No, no, I’m really glad you came! It’s a really nice surprise, I was disappointed when you said you couldn’t come at first…” Yuya laughed nervously.

               “Thank you, Yuya.” Reiji took another sip of his drink. “So, where is your mother and father? I haven’t seen them in this crowd.”

               “Oh, they’re out with Yuzu’s dad. Said they had some catching up to do,” Yuya said, and his heart jumped again when Reiji gave him a small smile.

               “Hm,” Reiji hummed before taking another drink. “They trust you to have a party alone with alcohol?”

               “My mom’s the one who bought the whiskey. She told me that my dad made the worst decisions of his life while completely sober, so being drunk obviously isn’t the issue.” Yuya shrugged, and to the detriment of his already unstable heart, Reiji snorted a little in an adorable stifled giggle.

               “Well, you can’t disagree with her. I’ve been far more idiotic when I was of clear mind than any given time I’ve been under the influence,” Reiji quipped, taking another sip.

               “True. Though, you decided to come here while sober, so maybe we should see what you wanna do after you’ve had a few more of those.” Yuya pushed his finger to Reiji’s cup playfully, and Reiji stifled another tiny laugh, which made a grin play its way across Yuya’s lips.

               “Would you like to join me in the land of insobriety?” Reiji teased.

               “You know, that sounds lovely.” Yuya grabbed a cup and the closest bottle of alcohol to him, which happened to be the same rum and coke he poured for Reiji.

               “Cheers.” Reiji held up his cup, and Yuya clinked his own against the plastic rim. The two took a long gulp of their drinks. Yuya started to feel dizzy, and even though the rational side of him knew why, the part of him in denial blamed it on the alcohol.

               “How have you been doing Yuya? We’ve hardly seen each other since the championships last month,” Reiji noted.

               “I, uhm, I’ve been doing good. Er, well. Christmas was a little hectic but I managed to pull through all right. Lord knows my wallet took a hit though.” Yuya laughed, but Reiji’s mouth set itself in an odd frown.

               “You know Yuya, if you were in need of money, all you need to do is ask. I have plenty to spare-“ Reiji was interrupted by Yuya shaking his head.

               “Reiji, it’s fine. I don’t want to just use your money and not work for my own. You earned your keep, I need to work to earn mine.” Yuya brought the cup to his lips, though he didn’t drink from it.

               “Really Yuya, it’s no big deal,” Reiji said, a bit of an exasperated look on his face.

               “It is to me. I don’t know how’d I ever pay you back, and I always HAVE to pay you back. I feel like I’m cheating someone if I don’t do something in return,” Yuya admitted. He dared to stare at Reiji’s royal violet eyes and make his chest flutter and panic once more.

               “I owe so much to you Yuya, I am in your debt in a thousand ways. You don’t need to repay me for doing anything,” Reiji tried to argue. Yuya sighed.

               “Well I feel like I would. Besides, being in my debt for what happened in the other dimensions doesn’t really count.” Yuya shifted uncomfortably.

               “How the hell does it not count?” Reiji asked, probably a little louder than he intended. However, the music and the buzz of people around them drowned him out. Yuya blinked, he never heard Reiji swear, even in such a minor way, before.

               “Because, if we’re counting the other dimensions… then you have to count Zarc,” Yuya argued. Reiji looked taken aback before he sighed.

               “You aren’t Zarc. That wasn’t your fault.” Reiji’s eyes narrowed as he tried to meet Yuya’s gaze, but Yuya’s heart jumped to his throat when Reiji stared at him intensely like that.

               “Y-yeah, I know. I’m probably just being stupid,” Yuya said hurriedly. God, why did Reiji’s eyes have to practically glow in the low light when he stared at him? It did not help his shuddering heart.

               “You’re not stupid, Yuya. If you feel guilty about it, then tell me. I’ll tell you once, twice, a thousand times. However many you need, but it wasn’t your fault,” Reiji said softly, placing his hand on Yuya’s shoulder. It was a friendly gesture, very standard, but Reiji’s touch and the alcohol buzzing in the pit of his stomach made him giddy.

               “T-thanks Reiji.” God why was it so warm in here all of a sudden?

               “Maybe you should have some water before you go for another drink, your face is rather red already,” Reiji observed. Yuya felt the little bubble of excitement in his stomach swirl around.

               “Y-yeah, I think I’m feeling a little light-headed. Do you mind if we step out for a minute?” Yuya stuttered out.

               “Not at all, lead the way.” Yuya nodded gratefully, and he led Reiji out the back of his house, into the courtyard out back. The cold air was relentless on his skin, but he was glad that he had more reason to shiver than just his pounding chest.

               “It’s 11:57. 3 minutes.” Reiji observed, glancing at his watch. “Are you feeling alright Yuya? It’s cold out here, perhaps we should find somewhere else inside?”

               “No, I’ll be fine, give me a minute. I think I drank too much too fast, I’m kind of a lightweight,” Yuya said quickly. God, why was this bugging him so much now? It wasn’t like this before.

               “What’s that?” Reiji was looking upward, and when Yuya followed his gaze, he gulped. Looks like the garland and ribbons weren’t the only leftover Christmas decorations. Mistletoe.

               “Uhhhh, I’m sorry, I’ll take that down.” Yuya hurried to move, but Reiji grabbed his wrist and stopped him dead in place. His heart ran faster.

               “No, I-“ Reiji stopped himself short. “Don’t you think it’s proper to honor tradition?” Yuya blinked twice in confusion before it sank in. Oh. OH. It occurred to Yuya that Reiji had already had enough alcohol to render him legally drunk, and he wasn’t sure that if Reiji was talking to him or the rum was. Reiji stepped back after Yuya hesitated, apologizing, “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what possessed me to say that, I-“

               “I… think we should too,” Yuya said nervously. Reiji’s eyes widened as he met Yuya’s gaze.

               “Are you… sure?” Reiji asked hesitantly, and Yuya knew he must’ve been drunk from how his voice wavered in a mixture of fear and excitement.

               “I hope so,” Yuya replied. Yuya’s heart felt like it was going 60 miles a minute, and as Reiji leaned in, he could smell the alcohol on his breath, but Yuya knew he must have been just as bad. Reiji hesitated in front of Yuya’s face for a moment and they stared into each other’s eyes, searching the other’s face for the sign to move ahead.

               Yuya pushed himself forward, and his lips crashed onto Reiji’s. They were chapped, and the taste of alcohol lingered on his lips, but god Yuya was kissing REIJI AKABA. He pushed his shoulders forward, leaning into the kiss, but to his surprise Reiji pushed back, seemingly intent on pinning Yuya against a wall.

               They broke apart for a brief second, and Yuya let out a breathy “Reiji” before Reiji pushed back into him, resuming the kiss. No, this was no longer just a kiss. This was a make out session. Yuya let his hand slide up the back of Reiji’s neck, curling into his silver hair and holding onto him for dear life. God, this was intoxicating. If it wasn’t for his lungs burning reminder that he needed to breathe, Yuya would never have wanted to break away. Yuya let the hand not wrapped in Reiji’s hair snake around his back and pulled him closer in. It was way too much, and Yuya broke apart from Reiji one more time to get a breath of fresh air.

               Just then, a large crack like thunder exploded through the air, and the cheers inside the house grew deafening. “HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

               “Happy new year,” Reiji whispered, before crashing back in for another kiss.

[flyswhumpcenter]

Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me I give myself self-indulgent requests according to this marvelous card!

47-Survivor AU DR stuff in 2019?? More likely than I’ve ever thought. For those who never heard from it before, it’s an AU of mine (originally co-created with someone, though) where everyone but Junko survived out of the DR casts for DR1, 2 and V3, whom after escape Hope’s Peak began working for the Future Foundation as the 14th Branch (directed by Hajime). This fic takes place during their FF days and is, like my first prompt fill for this bingo Corrupted Flower, Maki-centric. (I dunno why, I really wanted to write about Maki. I still want to lmao).

Also, phew, can you believe we’re more than halfway done through this card? It’s weird to mostly have filled spots lmao.

Crimson Eyes

Summary: Trapped in an ambush by Despair supporters, what is a former hirewoman going to do to protect her life and the integrity of her companion?

Fandom: Danganronpa (Almost Everyone Lives AU - V3 cast-centric) Characters: Maki, Shuichi (background), Kaede (background)

Wordcount: 1.1K words

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo

AO3 version available here.

“Squad Alpha, HQ here! Do you copy?!”

Maki could have recognized this voice among a thousand others: Kaede, panicked and screaming into her microphone. Usually, she’d have minded: she hated irritated, agitated voices when she was supposed to be investigating on the field. There was nothing more aggravating than trying to be stealthy and have someone scream at you with no concern for how discredited they made you to sneak on people.

As it stood, she was closer to being reassured than pissed about Kaede contacting them with that high-pitched, urgency-filled, yelling voice of hers.

 “Squad Alpha here,” she said into her ear microphone, hidden behind her hair and her helmet over it.

“Ah, Maki, I’m relieved to hear you! (Kaede lacked professionalism, when she was concerned). How many are you, down here? Who’s with you?”

“We’re two. We split with Mukuro before that happened. Shuichi’s with me.”

Maki glanced over her shoulder, making sure the bear-masked psychos didn’t start attacking them while she was seemingly looking away. Sure enough, Shuichi was still there, hands trembling from fear but trying to maintain his composure in the face of danger.

“Yeah, Mukuro contacted us back, she told us about the situation. Be careful, we’re sending backup asap!”

 Yeah, that was good and all, but they were still trapped among the crazies. Shuichi had no training, as he had tagged along for an investigation in what they thought was a Despair-controlled research facility having long been abandoned. They had been wrong or, more exactly, she had seen it coming: Despairs weren’t the kind to simply flee away from any place they had partially destroyed and inhabited, relishing in the desperation to have destroyed one’s last home and staying there with a bunch of other junkies of the sort.

There was only disgust and contempt in her to seeing it all, the glass shards on the floor, the dried puddles of blood, the browned splashes on the walls, the Monokuma masks torn apart and hung from the ceiling, the beheaded Monokub plushies and those who had had their heads swapped out. It was like looking right into the eyes of a mass-disaster that had claimed the lives of thousands; which was the case, because they were right inside a physical representation of humanity’s worst.

To that, Maki only wanted to spit her hatred and want to destroy them all back, but she had to keep quiet and stay sharp.

 She lifter her eyes to make them understand she knew they were all gathered around here, in the shadows, as she forced Shuichi to hold onto her arm. It wasn’t a sign of affection, at least not more than platonically for them: it was just her way to tell he was there, by her side, unharmed and alive. Only living people with uninjured limbs could do that, that was a thing she had been taught about in case she ever had to escort threatened figures to some places while avoiding as much as possible to see everything go up in flames and finish in a flow of blood.

There was nothing weird to make sure a friend was alive, after all.

 While most of them had generic masks, one of them had this golden Monokuma head in lieu of their face, a sure sign she was directly facing their leader. It was a battle of stares, to see whom would attack the other first and who’d survive the fight. Maki and Shuichi were a measly force compared to the dozen of Enoshima followers circled around them from the broken parts remaining of other floors above. In any other situation, she’d have sneaked her way out of it and found another way out of the delicate situation to get her bounty from shitty people.

However, she had to do with what she had. She had military-level training in killing and spying, but Shuichi didn’t, having mostly detective experience and very little physical skills in. She couldn’t just give up on him despite the desperate situation, now when she was still convincing herself she was deserving redemption like Kaito was always insisting on (what an idiot…). A new plan, quick, quick…

 Perhaps because of all the rotten surprises she had had in her previous years of life, Maki always had some urgency weapons on her. As she watched the followers glare at them with appetized, swirly eyes filled with a will to kill and pulverize anything going their way, yet strangely relishing in the idea that they could be busted and die on the spot from a well-targeted pull of a trigger, she put her fingers on some leftover kunai from an old, old mission. Truth be told, she had never given them back and the blood of the guilty must have still been on some of them, drier than the puddles serving as this wretched place’s décor.

Keen-eyed, trained to murder on sight and on orders, Maki gave herself her own orders now. Kaede had stopped talking, Shuichi’s breath kept hitching behind her shoulder. She was going to go to end up in Hell anyway, so better keep herself and an innocent soul out of a bloodbath and throw her weapons to escape the predicament they had gotten themselves trapped inside of. Calculating a way for six of them to eat the entire pack wasn’t difficult, more like a task she had already had to complete in more stressful conditions.

 Reflexes were engrained inside her brain. First, check for their weapons: metal bats. Lethal if used violently against the skull to cast death by blunt force trauma. Second, check for their stances: all crouched and looking upon them. Unpractical to move and run away fast, exposes the back of the neck for some of them and throat for all the pack. Third, check for expressions: the masks hid everything away apart from their thirst to kill, visible in their uncovered eyes.

In all, it was a safe situation to be throwing kunai around, as long as she steadied her aim and knew exactly what to do. All that was left, once she had planned her course of action, was to make sure she wouldn’t hurt Shuichi in the process. Murder the rotten, spare the good: her humanity had survived by repeating herself that motto. She maybe believed sometimes you could save the Despairs, bring them back to normalcy, but there was no way around the issue without killing someone and getting killed if you didn’t act first. A shame, really.

 “Shuichi, crouch down.”

“H-huh?”

“I said, crouch down!”

 She threw the first kunai.

[flyswhumpcenter]

Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me I give myself self-indulgent requests according to this marvelous card!

Jesus, I sure am sappy for someone who is known for his angst stuff. I couldn’t find anything dark to tell about the common cold though, so have a fluffy, if not downright cheesy sickfic about a rarepair of mine!

(also if someone from the elusive Gonta/Kirumi server passes by: hi, I want in)

A Spider Web on the Heart

Summary: It's not because she's the Ultimate Maid that Kirumi knows exactly how relationships or feelings work, as proven by an urge in overprotectiveness.

Fandom: Danganronpa V3 (Non-Despair AU) Ships: Gonta/Kirumi (what even is the official name for that)

Wordcount: 1.8K words

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo

AO3 version available here.

Kirumi had always had a sharp eye for tiny details which could betray someone’s condition through the simplest things. Having been raised as the ultimate maid, the perfect servant for royalty and bourgeoisie alike, she was no stranger to having to take care of the sick and wounded inside prestigious manors and battlefields where the grass had turned red. Nothing would stop her from her assigned missions: protect the people she served, no matter the cost to her or to the rest of the world.

The Earth never stopped, for Kirumi. Never was her glaze not looking around, careful to her surroundings, studying every bit of the people around her and around her masters. No hitman nor robber could pass through her unless they attempted something on her life. An iron defence to the enemy, a warm force for her masters and allies. She served good, she served what she thought was right, she had no question to ask herself about the morality or consequences of her actions as long as she was doing what she was told and what she knew she had to do.

 Well, that was how she used to see herself as: a multi-functional weapon, ranging from a vacuum cleaner to the sharpest of knives slitting an enemy’s throat. However, even since she had joined Hope’s Peak Academy as the Ultimate Maid, her perspective on the world and the people around her had joined. There no longer were masters: her last family had freed her so she could continue her studies as normally as possible after she had become their maid during her middle school years. Without a person to obey, she felt lost for the first time in her life, until her classmates approached her and befriended her.

They were of a colourful diversity: from the piano prodigy and class representative Kaede to the shy but always polite Shuichi, not to forget the loud and unforgettable “Luminary of the Stars” Kaito or his almost-girlfriend Maki, everyone was memorable and mostly friendly to her (even Ryoma, once she had brought up the fact he had cat hair on his clothes, and that brought on a sweet conversation on cats). However, she had her views (or so that was what she thought the other girls her age said about that kind of feelings) on someone in particular for the first time of her life.

 She didn’t remember the first conversation she had had with Gonta. It was probably about bugs or gentleman-related affairs, knowing him. Most likely the second, considering that was their very first common interest: he wanted to learn how to be a gentleman, she wanted to share with someone her knowledge of grand families without seeming like she was trying to paint herself as one of them or even as prestigious as her former employers. They simply ended up benefiting from each other intellectually, at first.

After a couple weeks, she found herself talking with him more and more, about various topics. If something she thought could interest him came to her mind, she’d tell him, and the conversation would then continue from there. It was that way that she had discovered some of his hidden centres of interest like botany and that she told someone for the first time or so about her own likings lurking in the shadows such as collecting stamps and looking into learning other languages than Japanese and English (she wasn’t half-bad at Russian and French, due to having worked for nobility before).

In definition, they were close, very close. Most of her time in school was spent with him or near him, they’d always have a little thing to tell each other, a little thing to be excited about before or between classes. She had simply not realized it very early on and probably that he didn’t either: they were too entangled into their own feelings and wanting to spend time with the other to realize what had apparently become obvious to everyone around them.

 Maybe that was why everyone thought she was excessive when she saw her closest friend fall sick.

 To be frank with them, it was just a small cold. It’d just show up in their conversations, Gonta would sniff out, apologize and lightly blow his nose like she had taught him. It was spring, sure, but he didn’t have hay fever. She still, at first, tried not to think much of it: sometimes people just sneezed, and it was all fine. A previous employer’s daughter had told her that years ago and, since then, she hadn’t forgotten like everything she had ever been told by the persons she had worked for and under.

Like the overly polite man he was, he’d always apologize for every single symptom that’d slip into their discussions, to the point that Kirumi had to one day act upon it and do something to protect him from the mean forces of nature’s worst aspects. It was always about small things, small beginning, but it’d usually get far worse than that; so she’d prevent it.

 As a gentleman, he didn’t dare tell her no when she forcefully took his hand and brought him to his room. “You’re sick, you’re supposed to rest,” was an explanation enough, right? She felt like she was perhaps a bit too forceful and obstinate, but remembering the face of the gravely sick would have almost made her stop dead in her tracks. She simply… didn’t want this to happen to him, never, ever, as long as she could do something about it. She wasn’t the Ultimate Maid for nothing, she hadn’t served all these people to see her closest companion fall ill.

“Ki… Kirumi, please, can… Can I know why I need to stay here?” he asked her right as she closed the door between them.

“It is for your own good, I am afraid. The sick must rest before their conditions inevitably worsen from exposure to other pathogens.”

She sighed in a rare moment of vulnerability.

“I simply do not want to see this happen to you.”

 Gonta seemed moved, rather than upset or frustrated like an outdoor-loving person like him would have given her the feeling to be prone to doing.

“Ah… I see! Would you make that easier on you if I stayed here until I (he coughed in his elbow instead of the cotton handkerchief she had given him for his birthday, the one she had insisted on him to use, something he had until then systematically refused to do despite her insistence…) am full recovered? Even if it’s something so small, I mean…”

So he had listened to her suggestions? Ah… She felt flustered now.

“It is for you, not for me, but if it can get you to rest… Then it’s fine. Very much so, in fact.”

She looked away, face heating up, hiding her profile shot behind the back of her hand as if that was going to help with anything. She needed to pull herself together…

“Okay then! (He sneezed again. The loud noise would have otherwise perhaps made her skin crawl from the bacteria that must have sent flying across the room, but she didn’t mind). Let’s do that…”

 Kirumi didn’t know where to stand or what to say, now. She had managed to accomplish her goals and make her orders a success, sure, but her heart was about to explode against her ribcage, her legs felt floppy for lack of a better term and her hands were trembling, palms getting damped against the fabric of her trusty gloves.

“I’m… going to make you some tea, it’ll make your throat and nose feel easier. I’ll… be right back,” she slipped almost in a whisper as she left the room, a spare of the key in her pocket (to be fair, Gonta did allow her to use it).

 She made her way out of the room and onto the kitchen, just as she had said, even if the beating of her heart didn’t stop there. Making the water boil, she thought of all the little things she needed to take care of: not have the water too hot. Fruit tea, not black tea, to make it easier to swallow and more effective. Perhaps a touch of honey? Ah, she must have had one of his jars on her, she had only allowed herself to use the honey from his beehives ever since he had introduced her to his yellow-and-black friends…

(She was a firm believer that this honey was better than anything HPA could provide them with anyway. It had passion, devotion and love put into it, the perfect side ingredients to any good product. She knew that: she had applied this for years.)

 Once the water was done heating up and that the cup had been poured (she made sure to leave the water there in case someone wanted to drink their own cup of tea: as far as she knew, Ryoma, Shuichi and Kaede all often enjoyed sipping on some, it felt only natural to not throw it away if someone else could have needed it), the maid waited. Waited for what, she wasn’t exactly sure: the water to cool down or her heart to slow down? She couldn’t present herself to him like that, not when she was this flustered and untranquil with herself.

Even with this in mind, a question raised in her head: would Gonta really care about that? He cared about his own appearance as a gentleman, of course, but he had never judged anyone based on appearance. He had made sure not to, in fact, as he deemed it unworthy of a gentleman like he strived to be. It was more for herself, she thought. People want to look their best in front of the person who matters the most to them, right?

Oh God, there was something starting to sound very weird and wrong with her. Maybe she was coming down with something too.

 Before her mind trapped itself in its own streams, Kirumi pulled herself together, picked up her tray after making sure the water wasn’t too hot (it was a bit warm to her taste, but it’d probably get better as she went to his room). Despite the raging beating taking place in her chest, she still knocked with one hand and excused herself before entering (for a moment, she wondered if she shouldn’t have asked permission or waited for him to give it to her before doing so, but the deed was done).

Once she set foot into the bedroom, she was downright surprised to see that he was already asleep, having had the time to change back into some more comfortable clothes it seemed. Afraid to disturb the serenity suddenly possessing the room, a slight smile on her face as she saw him sleep so peacefully, she put the tray on the nightstand, topping it with the saucer, and left like a ghost.

 The perfect maid knew how to make herself visible or invisible upon command or depending on the situation, but this time was different. Back against the wall of the room, she was still confused, but her feelings would have to wait.

If she had no master to serve, she still had partners to help.