Magic Kaitou: Point of View (1/2)

[what_we_dream]

Title: Point of View (1/2)
Series: Magic Kaitou
Pairing: Kaito/Aoko
Rating: PG

Summary: It's not so much that she hates him, as that he makes her furious. Which is probably why she doesn't see it coming, until it's already there.

 

You were wrong, I was right;
You said goodbye, I said goodnight – Barenaked Ladies It's All Been Done

It's not so much that she hates the Kid – she does, but it's a shallow prickly hate, and she doesn't like to examine it too closely; it's necessary, but not cathartic. And anyway, it's not so much that she hates him as that he makes her furious. Spitting, hissing, right up the wall furious. It would be easily bad enough if he could confine himself to simply outwitting the police. But no. He has to make a show of running rings around them every time.

He's out there tonight, putting on his usual performance for his fans – they're lining the streets below the balcony he's perched on – ruby necklace dangling carelessly from his fingers.

Aoko is watching from the balcony above, wondering whether she could drop something on him, and if so what. It's quieter up here: there are cops on the ground, and the roof, and on Kid's floor, but they ignored this one because he can't very well get out of the building from the fourth floor.

They think.

She's just considering dragging over the security guard's abandoned chair to toss down onto the thief when, for no reason she can see, he looks straight up at her. The spotlights hit his monocle and flash into her eyes, half-blinding her, but she still catches the twitch in his face. It looks irritatingly like pleased surprise.

She blinks, and he's already moving, pulling that ridiculous gun of his out of his pocket. For an internationally wanted criminal he's got some childish tastes. And then he's raising it straight at her and she throws herself backwards, tripping on the door frame that separates the balcony from the museum's interior, and landing hard. She sits up, brushing her hair out of her face with a tense hand, and sees Kid.

He's perched on the balcony's rail like an overgrown dove, white suit practically shining in the spotlights, a loose wire retracting into the gun hanging from his left hand.

"Kid," she snarls, scrambling to her feet. Kid grins.

"Nice to see you taking a family interest, Nakamori-san," says the thief, silkily.

"I'll show you taking an interest!" She throws herself forward, and is amazed to see Kid stand and then step backwards, right off the rail into thin air. Where he completely fails to fall. She stares, mouth open.

Below, she can hear the crowd reacting to the stunt, as well as the Squad trying to implement a plan, any plan.

"As much as I would love to stay and chat, I believe I should be going." Kid glances down with complete nonchalance. He looks back to Aoko, and gives her a 1,000 kilowatt smile calculated to stun female hearts.

Its only effect on her is to cause her to realise that, hate him as she might, he does have nice teeth.

"Goodnight, Nakamori-san," says the thief with a bow and, turning in mid-air, he proceeds to walk across the courtyard between the wings of the museum as easily as he were walking on the cement four storeys below. This is, she discovers when he's halfway to the empty wing, because he's strung a pair of wires between the buildings, and is effectively tight-rope walking with ease.

She could, of course, cute the wires. But while she can't stand the man, she doesn't want him dead. Or any of the relatively innocent – being a fan of Kid automatically confers some level of guilt in Aoko's mind – people he might fall on.

The other thing that drives her insane about Kid is the way he treats every woman – herself included – as a potential conquest.

"It's goodbye, you bastard!" she shouts after him, and then remembering her father on the floor below, regrets it.

She watches him make his getaway, and promises herself that next time she'll cut the wires.

Next time he flirts with her – also the night janitor, also Officer Matsujima who is probably already regretting joining the new Squad – she doesn't cut the wire, but only because she's on the ground and he's hanging upside-down two storeys above her from a rope attached to some sort of harness. He's in the centre of a circular gallery with an open centre which all five floors look down onto, and which the moonlight is now streaming into from the glass dome above.

The retracting mechanism on his rope has failed for some reason, but not before the Squad took the smoke bomb and his disappearance from the floor to mean he'd left the area and hared off after ghosts. So now he's hanging there, helpless, and there's nothing she can do but be on the receiving end of his horrible suaveness (mostly horrible because all she can think about is how much she wants to punch him in the face).

"It's charming," he says, revolving slowly in the gentle breeze of the gallery's air conditioning, "how you accompany your father on his job. A wonderful sense of filial devotion."

"If I had a ladder and a pair of scissors right now, you wouldn't think so," she returns scathingly.

"Oh, I'm sure I would be equally charmed," the thief assures her, trying to shift his weight and ending up spinning like a top.

"I'm glad you can hang there and joke while you make peoples' lives a misery." She folds her arms and sets her shoulders, and gets ready to shoot down his next flippancy.

Kid freezes for a moment, and then continues trying to pull himself up far enough to catch the rope. "Whose lives would that be?" His voice has just a slight catch of effort.

"Well, how about all the people whose treasures you steal?"

"If they've come by them legitimately, they'll get them back eventually. If not, then they don't have the right to cry about it." He's twisting for the rope, now, trying to crawl up on himself to grab hold of it.

Aoko's surprised he's actually bothering to answer her with something close to thoughtful, for him. But she's not about to let that stop her; Kid's always polite, all the more so if it sets up a bigger fall down the road.

"What about the galleries you ruin then, making a joke of their security?"

"No gallery big enough to host something I'm after will go under from losing a piece they'll get back anyway. Besides, it motivates them to improve security to stop members of my profession who aren't as generous as I am." He's got his back twisted up like a cat now, and reaching with one white-gloved hand so taut it's trembling, catches hold of the rope and pulls himself to rights. Looks down, as if to give her one last chance.

She can't say it. Not to him. Not now. Because there's an answer to that, too, and she doesn't want to hear it. Can't hear it.

"What about you?" she throws out instead, cold and desperate as knives. "Ruining your life, spending all your time, energy, money doing something that can only end in jail or a retirement with absolutely no recognition for anything you've done? That can only stifle and smother you?"

Kid hangs there in the air, like some school-play angel gone horribly wrong, and stares down at her with icy eyes.

"As for me," he says with only a hint of his usual nonchalance, "I have my reasons." And then, in a sharper tone with absolutely no disguises and a look that seems to slip under her skin, "Would you like to know them, Nakamori-san?"

Kid's an amazing actor. She knows that, but it still takes everything she has not to look away, to remind herself that she's not actually standing there naked under his eyes because that is exactly what it feels like. Like he's staring straight into her soul and seeing everything that's there, and one word from her will show him everything ugly about her. It's devastating.

"And make me complicitous?" it's the best she can do, and she knows it's not good enough even before she sees the hint of shadow cross his face.

"Of course not," says Kid, and he's back to his usual chivalrous self. The moment is gone. As if to herald the fact, she can hear whispers from the corridor behind her which mean the Squad is returning. If she can stall him for another minute…

But of course, Kid's heard as well. He reaches up with his free hand, and tips his hat to her.

"Goodnight, then, Nakamori-san. Until next time."

"The only next time there'll be will be inside a cell!" she shouts after his rising form, but as usual he ignores her.

By the time her father and the other officers file in, Kid's disappeared into the darkness of the upper floor.

It would have been wonderful and amazing and sweetly ironic if the next time they met, Kid was in a cell.

He's not.

Instead, he's on the ground today, his target having been part of some eccentric millionaire's garden fountain. Now he's got the gem – a mermaid's mirror – and the Squad has got him. Hopefully.

He's surrounded, and there's no way he can use the glider from the ground, but that's never stopped him wriggling out of their hands before. Aoko stands under a towering ginko tree, watching with bright eyes. It's stupid and pointless and painful, but she just can't stop getting her hopes up.

An instant later and all hell breaks loose, as it always does. Kid gives a twirl of his cape and disappears in a cloud of smoke. The Squad dives in, but it's already hopeless. As soon as you take your eyes off the Kid, he's as good as gone.

"Nice to see you again, Nakamori-san," says a smooth voice quite close to her ear out of a cloud of smoke – green, tonight. She lunches, but finds nothing except the tough trunk of the ginko. The only thing that stops her screaming for him to get back here is that her father is already doing so.

By the time the smoke dies down, the garden is empty except for her, the Squad, and one furious millionaire.

Plenty of times, there is no time for him to goad her. No time, and no opportunity with her watching from the middle of the crowd of stupid sheep that call themselves his fans.

She's sure it's just arrogance, arrogance and that tiny piece of traitorous pride at being complimented by the world-famous moonlit thief which she can't quite stamp out, that makes her think no matter the size of it, Kid still catches sight of her in the crowd.

Pretty sure.

Just another bullet on her list of things that annoy her about Kid is the fact that he's good at everything.

This is not, of course, actually true. More accurately, Kid's good at everything he's likely to encounter in his line of work. Aoko, conversely, while good at many things, is not good at many which are helpful to a nocturnal criminal. It's not really surprising how seldom calculus or piano-playing or cookie-making comes up on heists.

This is why, when she chases after the Kid on the roof of a cruise ship out in Tokyo harbour, the thief's pocket heavy with his loot and the Squad still searching for him down on the amusement decks, she is the one that loses her footing on the slick surface and falls.

It's a rainy night, sky dark with clouds, and what she sees as she falls isn't the stars up in the sky but the bright lights of Tokyo in the distance. They fade abruptly into a dull greyness as she hits the railings of the lower decks, tumbling outwards before plunging into the choppy water.

It's entirely her instincts which save her, hundreds of thousands of years of evolution focused unceasingly one point: stay alive. They swim for her while she is still processing the realisation that it's suddenly very cold. Then she's gasping for breath in the warm summer night air and trying desperately to stay afloat in the wake of the huge ship, all the while a vague sort of awareness starting to flood back in on the wings of panic.

Aoko's a good swimmer, but the water is rough and her thoughts are muddled and on top of that her back and right side are aching and stiff from striking the side of the ship and won't move properly. She can't swim, can barely paddle to keep her head above the water. She doesn't have enough breath to make a sound.

And it's dark. The lights of Tokyo are an eternity away from down here in the water and even if they weren't she doesn't have the attention to spare to notice them; all she knows is the cold and the dark and the fear. She can't keep above water, she can't keep going, she's being pulled under –

Something hits her chest and drags her backwards and she strikes out desperately, futilely, cracking an elbow around to slam into something behind her.

"Stop that, it's me, it's me!" shouts a voice in her ear. "Nakamori-san, it's me! Calm down!"

It takes a minute for the words to sink into her still-fuzzy mind, and she continues to struggle weakly in the tight grasp for a while before she realises she doesn't have to. That she can lean back and rest against the confident body behind her and keep her head out of the water that way.

"Nakamori-san, are you alright? Nakamori-san? Aoko?"

She knows the voice, it's familiar. Just beyond the reach of her fingertips.

"Don't wanna drown," she gasps through mouthfuls of the salty water, kicking weakly.

"You're not going to drown. Dammit, where's that radio…" There's a pause and a shift behind her, and then the voice again, further from her ear this time, and a blare of static. "At least the thing's waterproof… Nakamori, come in. Inspector Nakamori."

Another hiss of static, and then a voice she knows, even now. A voice she'll always know. Her father's voice, gruff and irritated. "Kid, what the hell are you doing on our –"

"Your daughter's fallen overboard; we're out in the bay approximately 100 metres behind the ship and increasing. Turn the thing around and get someone out here right now." His voice is sharp and snapping, demanding instant obedience and Aoko, somewhere in the misty confusion between unconsciousness and full awareness, reacts to the tone and stiffens in his grasp.

"Aoko? Is she –" Her father cuts himself off, and she can hear him shouting orders right and left as he does when he's flustered. And then a shift in tone and he's speaking to them again. "Where are you – can you send up a flare or something?"

The voice in her ear curses quietly, and then, "It's a bit wet for flares. I'll do what I can. Currently 130 metres behind the ship, drifting south." A click, and the humming of the radio cuts out. "Get your asses out here," hisses the voice to itself, and then there's another shift, the arm supporting her loosening briefly and then tightening again. "Just a bit longer, Aoko."

She stares straight up at the clouds as they drift in the waves, cold water washing up over her face every now and then, the strong legs behind her kicking to keep them above the worst of it. The rain is falling lightly now, almost a mist hanging over the bay, and with the thick smog of light pollution it glows faintly. In other circumstances, it might be pretty.

The water is at its warmest this time of year, but it's still cold enough that she's beginning to go numb, and although her head's slowly clearing the cold is draining her thoughts away again. Aoko has always been independent, but right now all she wants is to lean back and rely on the strong presence behind her, and she does. In the distance, she can hear a faint buzzing hum, like the fading whine of the cicadas populating the shores.

Her eyelids are suddenly so very heavy.

"Hey – Aoko! Aoko, stay awake. C'mon, you can't sleep now. Wake up, c'mon…" She's being jogged, bounced and rocked from behind. It sets off shivering pricks of pain along her side, stabbing in thin and uncomfortable through the numbness and chasing away some of the sleepiness. She tries to turn over to see who's behind her doing the talking and the shaking, and rolls them both under the waves.

The sudden panic wakes her the rest of the way, slices clean through the fogginess of her head wound in the way nothing but primordial fear can and leaves her bright and aware and terrified. It's cold and pitch black, and she has no idea which way is up, and someone is weight her down from behind, and she has no breath left in her lungs and –

The arms around her ribs tighten to a nearly crushing grip, hauling her determinedly in a single direction. They break the surface with a pair of gasps that are almost lost beneath the waves and the roar of a powerboat's engine. The salt water stings like citrus juice in her eyes and even as she sucks air in desperately there's water coming with it. The taste of it in her mouth, running down her throat, is sickening, and she coughs blindly hoping she can fight down the cramping in her stomach before it turns to retching.

"Inspector! Inspector Nakamori!" shouts the gruff voice from over her shoulder, and the cold cramping in her stomach nearly doubles her over as she realises who it is that's behind her. Who dove into the bay after her.

Gods, why did it have to be him?

"Kid?" Her father is close, together with the raspy groan of the powerboat, and then there's a blinding light in her eyes, burning up her retinas. She can't see anything but white, can't hear anything but the motors. Coughs again as a wave she didn't see coming hits them face-on, like a cold slap. She almost thinks she hears Kid curse.

The lights stay on, blinding her, but the engine cuts out abruptly and suddenly she can hear again. Can hear her dad calling her, and squints in vain into the lights. Then Kid's grip around her changes, arms slipping away to be replaced by hands on her waist, just catching the bottom of her ribcage, and she's being lifted partially out of the water. Strong hands catch her arms from somewhere above, and she's hauled right out of the water like a fish on a line.

Aoko's a soaking, coughing, numb mess when she lands on the hard floorboards of the emergency boat. Most of her thoughts are taken up entirely with her situation, and the fact that in the harbour's night breeze she's now ten times colder than she was in the water. Then there's something heavy being wrapped around her shoulders, and her father kneeling at her side pulling her close and chafing her arms under it.

"Are you alright? What the – what happened? Are you hurt?" His words come quick and gruff, and even through the shock settling over her like a heavy cold blanket she can recognise the fear there. She nods jerkily, through a fit of shivers. He pulls her closer, chafes harder, and she realises he's draped his coat around her.

"Oogawa – where's Kid?"

She looks up at this, or tries to – the angle's awkward and cold as she is her neck almost immediately begins to get a crick. But she thinks she sees a look pass between the lieutenant and her father, ending in a glance towards the back of the boat.

"Don't know, sir," says Oogawa dully.

"Damn," says Dad, not very vehemently. "Radio the harbour patrol again and tell them there's still someone out here, and get the cruise ship to send out the rest of its emergency boats with Squad members. Aoko needs medical attention, we're going back to shore."

"Right, sir." Oogawa salutes and vanishes.

"Don't worry," says her father, gruffly, turning back to her. "It's alright. You're alright."

"K-k-kid saved me," she tells him, pulling the coat tighter with blue-tinged fingers. "Where is he?"

Her father looks out to the bay, at the lights passing by slowly on the other side. "He's … I'm sure he's safe," he says, eventually.

"B-but…"

"He can take care of himself."

It's only later that she looks back on it and realises Kid wasn't the only one taking care of the thief. And wishes she could hate him for being there on the ship, for running away, for jumping after her. For the fact that her father had to let him go, because of her.

She stays away from the next three heists.

It's the end of August, summer vacation coming to an overly-fast end, and Aoko's waiting for Kaito.

This weekend is the Koenji Awaodori, one of her favourite summer festivals barring the Tokyo Bay Fireworks display, which she didn't attend this year – she's had quite enough of the Bay to last for the next several years. It's not like Aoko asked Kaito to go with her or anything; she just vaguely hinted that she was planning to go and maybe he'd want to go to as well since this morning the weather forecast looked good and with all the big school events coming up in the fall it's not like they're going to have many more opportunities for fun outside the school walls. She definitely didn't put her yukata on with extreme care, and do her hair and a touch of makeup for him. And she's certainly not angry he's not here. Just…mildly irritated.

They were supposed to meet up in front of the station at 7 to walk over to the main festival streets together since with the crowds they'd never find each other otherwise. Aoko's been waiting for half an hour, tapping her foot for the past fifteen minutes, wooden geta clattering on the tile underneath.

It's almost quarter to eight now, and they've already missed some of the good dances. He's not answering his phone, which is typical of him when he gets in one of his tizzies and has to run off somewhere. Aoko puts hers on high volume and sets off to see what she can on her own – his loss. She'll give him more than an earful when she sees him at school next week.

She walks out to the main road by the station and works her way along through the thick crowd, lamppost-mounted speakers blaring out the music as colourful dance groups sashay their way down the cordoned-off street. Lanterns hang from wires strung between streetlights and buildings, along with bright ribbons and streamers. Fuming as she is, it takes several minutes and more than a block of forcing her way through groups and couples joking and laughing before the atmosphere begins to sink in and she starts to enjoy herself.

Aoko slows down, moving at a trailing walk now rather than her determined forward march, and begins to watch the performances. The hundreds, thousands of people moving simultaneously in the same routine. Some carry banners, or streamers, or fans, many dance with empty hands for better expression. The groups move by like bright schools of fish, each in its own designs and colours; some wear jimbei with crests on the back or accessories on their arms and legs, some yukata with complementing obi, some various combinations of traditional and more western clothes. It's always amazing to see so many people moving in unison, to step back and see an entire street full of people swaying like exotic flowers in the wind.

Aoko keeps walking, moving with the crowd in a thoughtless way, drifting onwards rather than staying in one place; she has nothing to keep her still. Even in the dark it's hot and terribly humid, and with the yukata covering her from neck to wrists to heels she can feel the sweat beginning to soak through the thin cotton underlayer where it's pressed tight against her ribs and back by the obi.

The parade route turns left to follow the main street up ahead, but she slips out of the sticky crowd and heads on straight, glad of the air. The road here hits a gentle incline and the people thin out rapidly, unwilling to climb it in the heat and anyway preferring to watch the dancing. Aoko keeps on straight, watching for a vending machine selling water. She finds one a block away, and stops to buy her water, takes a long thirsty drink. A little further on there's a pedestrian overpass crossing the road, with a few people standing on the top. Aoko caps her water and climbs up to join them, hitching the yukata up as she goes.

From the top of the dull metal overpass, she can see the whole of the festival. See the thick crowds lining both sides of the street creating a human valley; see the fiery red and white lanterns hanging from lines all down the road, and the streamers and banners floating alongside them; see the thousands of dancers twisting and turning and cheering with symmetry that's fascinating. She rests her arms on the rails of the overpass and leans over to watch, captivated.

She doesn't notice when the few others fade off back down the stairs. She also doesn't notice the white glider that swoops down slowly from over the rooftops behind her.

"How beautiful," says Kid from behind her.

Aoko swivels so quickly she nearly trips, the clattering of her geta echoing on the metal. Kid reaches out a hand to steady her, pulls it away when she catches her own balance and glares. He glances over her shoulder at the festival behind her.

"Of course, the dancing is lovely too," he adds with a blank face which shifts to a grin when he looks back to her. She flushes in embarrassment, then with anger, and then embarrassment again.

"What are you doing here?" she demands, only slightly incoherently. "On your way to steal something?"

"Just returning, actually. I would have loved to see the beginning of the festival, but even I can't predict everything. Your father is stepping up his game."

She ignores the compliment. "So you just dropped in to see the dancing," she says, coldly.

"Even thieves can enjoy a good festival, Nakamori-san."

She gives him an unimpressed look.

"And it turns out I have been doubly lucky in coming, to catch you looking unusually lovely." His eyes flicker down over her figure and back up again to her eyes, and it's not so much the fact that dear gods Kaitou Kid is checking her out as the fact thatshe thinks she sees sincerity behind the laughter in his eyes, that leaves her with absolutely nothing to say.

Surely that's just her imagination, though. Even if the man is a complete lady's man and she wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole, it would be flattering to think he was attracted to her of all people.

Aoko has a good opinion of her intellect, but she's never thought of herself as much more than plain in the looks department. Something Kaito's never helped with much with his constant cool shower of jokes. Still no chest – you're sure you're a girl, Aoko? Well, apparently Kaitou Kid thinks she is, and that's something.

"I suppose," she says after a minute, coughing slightly, "I mean, I guess… I have to thank you. For before. With the harbour, and everything." She wishes she didn't, but there's no way to escape the fact that the entire thing was her fault. She could have gotten him killed, and she could have gotten her father fired. Dad won't listen to her apologies, wouldn't even on the night. But there's no reason for Kid not to accept them.

Kid blinks and moves slightly so that for a minute a light from down the street catches in the glass of the monocle and gives his face an odd kind of dissymmetry, throwing off her ability to read its expressions. Then he stiffens, standing straighter, and looks out at the parade behind her again.

"There's no need for that. It was my fault you fell in, it was my responsibility to fish you out again."

He sounds cold and uncaring now, watching the dancers with a kind of bland disinterest.

"I slipped all on my own, thanks," she says tartly.

"Nevertheless, I wish… it would be better if you didn't try to catch me."

"So you have an easier time getting away?" she challenges, heatedly.

"So you don't get hurt," he returns sharply, eyes falling on her like stars, burning with harsh angry intensity. He pauses, and then looks away. The tension drops out of him, a sail that's suddenly lost the wind, and he straightens the lapels of his jacket perfunctorily. "I'm sorry," he says in a quieter tone with none of his former forcefulness, looking down in the direction of the vending machine. "I don't have the right to tell you what not to do."

"I –" begins Aoko. To her left, footsteps begin to mount the stairs with a loud echoing rattle, accompanied by fierce giggling.

Kid's head whips around, his eyes narrow. And then, to her intense shock, he actually says "Damn," and sounds like he means it. He turns back to her with an apologetic grin, but the pair of girls are already halfway up the stairs, and all he has time for is to produce a smoke bomb from nowhere and drop it. His voice floats out soft and still-apologetic from the blue smoke, "Goodnight, Nakamori-san." He is, of course, gone before it dissipates. She doesn't bother saying goodbye.

Aoko walks back to the station slowly, forgetting her water on the bridge, trying to make sense of what's going on. No matter how she twists it, though, she can't think of a solution that both makes sense and that she can believe.

School starts up again. She gives Kaito that earful, but it's half hearted because she's still pondering the conversation on the bridge. It's ridiculous to linger over it – what's the point? Kaitou Kid needs to be caught. And, even if he didn't, he has to be about her father's age. There's no point … no point thinking about anything other than catching him.

Sports Day comes and goes, their class coming in second in their grade. It's mostly Kaito's speed and dexterity that raises them that high, but it's also due to the fact that he's been tired and not quite right lately that they don't make first. Aoko doesn't know what's wrong with him, and he won't tell her. His grades aren't suffering – even off his game he's still head and shoulders above most everyone else except for her – but he isn't as lively as he should be, and he spends less time studying with her. When she points this out, he tells her it's just the pressure of their final year finally making itself known. She doesn't believe him.

On top of this, Dad's been cranky lately, because Kid's been more active. No one's sure what, if any, his aims are apart from the immediate, but if he has larger plans he's certainly stepped on the gas and that's causing major headaches in the Squad.

With her increased homework load working up to final exams in the spring, and the Cultural Festival coming up next month, Aoko doesn't have time to show up at every heist. She goes when she can, sneaks into the building if possible, looking for Kid. Sometimes she sees him, from afar. Thinks, maybe, that he sees her. But with each heist he becomes more popular, and he stays less and less time, and she can't find the opportunity to corner him.

Aoko knows she wants to see him. She's just not entirely 100% sure exactly why. She wants him caught, of course, but… she wants to talk to him, too. First. Briefly.

The next heist is the day before the Cultural Festival. She shouldn't go. Her class is doing a haunted house, and she should be painting things black and red and glow-in-the-dark green. She goes anyway, because this one hasn't been publicised.

It's due to take place at a small shrine near Shimbashi, where the streets are narrow and the shrine itself is too small to allow many visitors. They pack it full of police, the Squad and borrowed Tokyo Metropolitan cops filling the shrine itself, the gardens, the streets and the buildings surrounding it. Aoko manages to find herself a spot in the shadow of one of the outhouses which gives a good view of the back door of the shrine.

No one notices Kid show up until he's got what he came for in the disguise of one of the Metropolitan fill-ins. He strolls out through the back to ostensibly check the gardens, at which point someone comes running in to report that Kobashi was just found unconscious in the next building and so what is he doing here?

There's no chance to talk, not even to say anything. But she sees his gaze catch her, notices his eyes widen slightly at the sight of her there in the shadows before he frog-hops over two diving officers, trips up Sawara like the pro he is, and drop a smoke bomb. Aoko goes home feeling disappointed, and trying to tell herself it's because they didn't catch him.

She's sitting at her desk painting glowing skeletal feet on a box with a hole cut in the top to allow hands to stick in and feel something gloopy and disgusting, thinking about nothing much when someone knocks on her window. Her window on the second floor of the house. Aoko drops the box and nearly screams before her mind registers what her eyes have told her: that Kaitou Kid is squatting on the narrow tile outcropping below her window with one gloved hand outstretched to knock. She almost falls out of her chair.

He could be smiling like an idiot, but in fact he only watches with a trace of a grin on his lips as she scrambles to her feet and splatters neon green paint on herself. Fortunately it's only her indoor clothes – fortunately for him.

Aoko hurries over to the window and slams it open. "What are you doing here?" She should call her father. Should lean out to grab him. Should do something other than just standing here talking to him.

But she doesn't.

"I didn't have a chance to talk to you today," says Kid, as if that were an explanation.

"Yes, because you were too busy stealing something."

He shrugs lithely, and the fact that he can do so and show absolutely no signs of losing his balance is irritating.

"Unfortunate but true."

"What do you want?" It's stupid, she's been waiting, been wanting, to talk to him for so long, and now she's practically chasing him off. But he just makes her furious.

"To talk to you."

"You are infuriating," she tells him plainly. He grins. "See that, right there? That's infuriating," she adds.

"I apologize." He doesn't mean it. She glares at him.

"How would you like it if I called Dad?"

"I'd rather if you didn't."

"Then stop trying to make me angry, and tell me why you're here."

Kid shifts his weight like some kind of huge bird, and his expression calms. "In all seriousness, I did come to talk."

"What about?" She lets some of the tension out of her shoulders; they're beginning to cramp.

"Before, on the bridge, at Awaodori, I told you you shouldn't chase me."

"I remember," she says, narrowing her eyes. "And I told you: I'm not going to let you get away that easily."

"Nakamori-san, if it weren't – if I didn't have to – the truth is: right now I am a very dangerous person to be around." He looks straight at her as he speaks, and uses all his considerable acting abilities to drive his sincerity home, to make her feel the intensity of his words. She only just resists falling for it.

"I'm not afraid of you."

"I wasn't referring to myself. I'm afraid your father and his colleagues aren't the only ones after me. I've made an enemy of some particularly …" he pauses, and she can tell he's trying to decide how seriously to put this to her. "Some particularly unscrupulous people. People who are not above killing to achieve their ends."

She resists the shiver that tries to work its way up her spine, but feels the hairs on the back of her neck rise regardless.

"They see things in terms of black and white, Nakamori-san. If they notice you are associated with me, if they even suspect that I may take any notice of you, they would not hesitate to use you against me. To hurt you to get to me."

"But there's no tie between us. I want to see you in jail!" She has to change her shout to a hiss halfway through so that her father doesn't hear.

And then she runs her words and her actions back through her mind and realises all of a sudden, like falling down a well: oh no.

Kid must see it on her face; his eyes flash with something bright and then shade over heavily so fast she can't identify it. "It doesn't matter whether a tie exists or not. If they suspect one, they will kill you without any scruples just for the chance of tripping me up."

"But – "

"For your safety, for your life, Nakamori-san, you have to stop coming to the heists. Stop chasing me. Wipe me out of your life."

Aoko stands there, staring at the man in the white suit kneeling outside her window. She can feel the blank expression of shock on her face even while inside her thoughts twist and turn and roil in turmoil. And then, as anger wins the day as always:

"How can you say that? Just order me to drop out for my own good? I've been chasing you for my whole life. My father's been chasing you for most of his! All I've ever wanted was to see you caught, and now you're telling me what to do for my own good? Why should you care? If you cared about me – if you actually cared –" she can feel the tears welling up, thick and choking, in her throat. Tears of rage, of years and years of pent-up anger and blame and guilt.

"I would have stopped stealing?" he provides, gently.

"Yes! You wouldn't have stolen my father from me!" She hisses it through her teeth, slings it hard, sharper than any stone, and she sees Kid wince. Watches her words hurt him, and feels nothing but pain in her own chest.

"You're right," says Kid, looking down so that the brim of his hat hides his eyes from her. "You're right. I knew – I could guess how you felt, and I went on anyway. Of all people, I have no right to tell you how to keep safe. No right to ask anything of you at all. Except…"

"Except?" she says, harshly, still angry with him but even more so with herself. And afraid, so afraid, that he'll sling right back at her the one stone she can't deflect. The one that can break everything she has.

He looks up, a flicker of white as the silk hat raises, and then his bright cat eyes. "I have my own reasons for not wanting to see you hurt," he says in a gritty voice that's so unlike his own she wouldn't have recognised it if she hadn't been watching him. "Please, Nakamori-san. Will you stay away?"

Aoko doesn't know what to say. She simply has no words. She only expected him to say one thing, and that wasn't it. Was so far from it…

It's stupid to feel like this. He's old enough to be her father. He's a professional lady's man, conman, heart-breaker. And she has Kaito, quick, witty, sweet-somewhere-deep-down, Kaito.

Kaito, who's never looked at her like this. Never talked to her like this. Like he feels something for her beyond friendship. Like he sees her as an adult, as an equal, as a woman.

There are three things that have defined her life. Her father, her friendship with Kaito, and Kaitou Kid. How can she just cut one out? It would be like chopping off a limb.

"I can't…" she mutters, looking down. "I can't."

"Ao – Nakamori-san."

Aoko's head snaps up, sharp as a shot. "Say it," she says. "You've known me longer than anyone other than my father and Kaito. Say it."

"Aoko-san," says Kid, very carefully. "I know you feel strongly about this –"

"Strongly," she huffs indignantly, but he goes on.

"But it's not forever. When things blow over, you can go back to chasing me, to rooting for your father. I just – couldn't you just be careful for a while? It shouldn't even be difficult for you, you must be busy with school." His eyes flicker to her desk, covered with the preparations for the Festival.

"So I should just take things easy, while people are trying to kill you?"

Kid does smile now, faintly. "Not to offend you, Na – Aoko-san, but we really are not connected. My affairs aren't yours."

"You can risk your life, but I can't?"

"I chose this, I can protect myself –"

"And I can't?"

"Dammit Aoko," bursts out Kid angrily, and then stops, wide-eyed. Then he makes to stand, glancing behind him. She steps sharply right up to the window sill, leans out, and grabs his arm.

"What is this about?" she says, low and gruff. What she really, more than anything, wants to ask is: who are you? But she knows he won't answer that.

"I need to leave." Kid tries to pull away, and finds that he'll pull her right out of the window before she lets go.

"What is this about?"

Kid looks around, as if searching for an answer or an escape, and it's the first time she's ever seen him flustered. She always thought she'd love to see it, but now it's just making something in her stomach tense coldly.

"Kid!"

He looks back down at her, and for a split-second Aoko can read everything in his eyes. Read the fear, and the uncertainty, and the desperation. And knows that none of it is on his own behalf.

Kid stills, and gets a hold of himself almost immediately, but his skin is pale and she knows he's badly shaken.

"Aoko-san," he says, and she can hear the cracks in the forced normalcy of his tone. And then, slowly, carefully, he reaches out with his free hand to run it down the side of her face. She freezes so fast her spine twinges. The cotton is soft on her skin, but she can feel the heat of his fingers even through it.

Behind her, her door opens.

"Aoko?" says her father. Aoko jumps, and lets go of Kid's hand to swivel around. Behind her there's a light thump as Kid falls off the outcropping. Her father stares, and then dashes downstairs, Aoko close on her heels. By the time they get outside, the back yard is empty.

"What the hell was he here for? What did he want? Did he hurt you? Gods, when I get my hands on that –"

"He came to warn me," breaks in Aoko, wrapping her arms around herself and staring out into the empty yard. "He said he's in danger. He said being associated with him could be dangerous."

"Thousands of people are associated with him," growls Dad. "He has damn fans who camp out over night just to see him! Why isn't he going around warning them?" He doesn't address the comment to her particularly, and she can see any possible ideas of other associations with Kid have gone by completely unnoticed.

She doesn't answer.