Fic: Falling For You
Dec. 24th, 2010 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Title: Falling For You
Series: Magic Kaitou
Pairing: Kaito/Aoko
Rating: G
Notes: Christmas fic for
ningen_demonai. Look at me using a pun! It is amazing how this filled none of the prompts. EPIC FAIL.
Summary: Looking back on it, Kaito realises this was just the beginning in a long saga of falling for Aoko.
In the whistling wind, Kid can’t hear whatever it is Nakamori’s shouting at him from the centre of the semi-circle made up of Squad cops. They’re all here tonight, the whole squad standing hidden in the spotlights’ blinding beams, and that’s fitting. Fitting that tonight, with the goddamn blood red diamond shattered, they’ve finally cornered him. Fitting that tonight, with Kid’s work finished, they will catch him. Well, fitting, and also cause and effect. Kid is perfect, is undefeatable, is always the winner. But the man under the monocle isn’t, and in the end beating his enemy meant leaving an opportunity for the cops. A sacrifice is always necessary to achieve victory, and tonight the sacrifice is him.
Here, standing on a railing with his back to thin air and the black river far, far below, there is no escape. In the monsoon winds he would be crushed against a building the instant he popped the glider, would be thrown right off a zip line. Here there is only white ahead or black behind, and neither of them are the choice he wants.
On the far corner of the roof out of the pure white beam of the lights, a single figure stands alone and out of place. Aoko’s hair is twisting around and into her face even with both of her hands tangled in it to keep it away, thick and dark. Still, he can see her eyes staring at him from across the distance, wide and uncertain.
The one thing Aoko has always said she has wanted is Kaitou Kid caught. But the one thing he knows she doesn’t want is for her father to arrest Kuroba Kaito on several life sentences’ worth of charges.
Kid smiles, gives an elaborate sweeping and tips the brim of his hat to the roof in general while watching Aoko alone. Then, before Nakamori can take more than two running steps forward, he topples back over the edge of the building into the open air.
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Two weeks after Aoko’s mother’s funeral, the little girl still hasn’t smiled once. Sometimes she cries at nothing, but usually she just sits quietly with a little wobbly frown and doesn’t speak. It’s like ice under his skin, like the sting of disinfectant on scraped knees, like the guilt of breaking a whole cupboard’s worth of glasses. Kaito can’t stand it.
For two weeks he does nothing, because nothing is all he can do. But finally, desperate and unhappy, he shoves a bunch of flowers into his jacket so that the stems stick down his sleeve and marches to school ignoring the slowly-spreading wet stain at his cuff and the petals floating gentle as snowflakes in his wake. He runs up to Aoko as soon as he sees her, sticks his hand up his sleeve, and pulls elaborately.
Years later, looking back on himself sitting on his ass on the pavement holding a handful of naked flower stalks while Aoko laughed above him, Kaito realised two things. First, always practice before performing. Second, that was just the beginning of a very long saga of his falling for Aoko.
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On their first day of high school classes, the moral guidance teacher sets them to do trust exercises.
“What’s the point in doing trust exercises with people we don’t know? Why would we trust them? This isn’t trust, it’s confidence in punishment. We all know what’ll happen to anyone who doesn’t catch their partner.” Kaito leans over towards Aoko from his place against the back of the gymnasium wall, paying only slight attention to the example pair of students standing in front of them with the beaming teacher.
Aoko glares back. “Shut up and listen – it’s about building trust, not already having it.”
“You don’t build trust by falling on people.”
“Oh, you think we should build it by looking up peoples’ skirts?” She cracks her knuckles; he ignores it.
“It’s important to get to know our classmates.” Kaito ducks Aoko’s smack without even looking. The movement catches the teacher’s eye, and he singles them out. “You two – come up here.”
Aoko gives him a pinch as he walks by, but follows him up to the front. The two students already there slip gratefully back to the herd, leaving them alone and exposed.
“You saw the demonstration. You – Kuroba. Stand here.” He indicates a random spot on the well-polished floor, Kaito slouches forward onto it. “And you – Nakamori. Here.” He points to one behind Kaito, who turns and gives an over-elaborate double-take.
“Hey – don’t make her catch me – she’ll drop me for sure! You can’t trust her, sensei. She’d drop a guy as soon as look at him!” He’s joking, but that’s never pacified Aoko in the past – it’s amazing how easy it is to get under her skin.
“I would not,” hisses Aoko, red-faced. The teacher drops a hand on Kaito’s shoulder and swivels him around.
“Right, right,” he says, meaninglessly. “Now, when I count to three, I want you to tip backwards. Nakamori, you push him back before he can get very far. You don’t need to actually catch him, just stop him from falling too far back. Got it?”
“Yes,” says Aoko, very close behind him. “Yeah,” echoes Kaito, less assured.
“One.” Of course she won’t drop him. He’s known her for years, longer than he can really remember. He doesn’t really think she will. But he’s played a lot of tricks on her over the years – just last week he set up a hidden fan to blow her skirt up – and she hasn’t gotten him back for all of them. “Two.” And besides, he’s a lot heavier than her, what if she just can’t catch him, doesn’t even really mean to drop him, but… “Three.”
Kaito closes his eyes, and overbalances backwards with one single mantra ringing like a bell in his mind: she’s not going to do it she’s not going to do it she’s not going to do it. It’s not a long fall; it shouldn’t matter. Objectively he knows that. But from the way his nerves are humming like electrified wire, it seems that he’s falling 50 feet.
Unaccountably nervous as he is, it seems to him that he falls for hours, tipped back beyond the point of recovery and completely unable to catch himself.
It’s actually only a second before Aoko reaches out and catches him with strong, sure hands. Steps forward to push him back up onto his balance as easily as she would open a door.
It is of course not at all surprising that she caught him. What is surprising, though, so surprising he has to drop behind the mask of his poker face to keep it off his face, is just how strong the relief he feels is.
“Trust me now?” she whispers in his ear. He can hear the smile in her voice.
“’Course not,” he replies, recovering to spin smoothly on his heels and while plastering a cocky grin on his face. Aoko rolls her eyes and tries to trip him on the way back to the back of the group.
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The first time Kid sees Aoko staring up at him with wide, shocked eyes and rage written across her face so clear it’s like it’s been burned into her features, he’s flying on the glider.
It’s just as well; if he’d still been on the roof he probably would have fallen off it.
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“That new skating rink just opened up across from the park,” says Aoko at lunch. Kaito, in the middle of swallowing his tea, nearly chokes. She gives him a look. “It’s not that bad. Come on, it’ll be fun.”
“I still have the bruises from last time. Look!” He makes to lift his leg up to show her his knee, and she smacks him with the lid from her bento.
“No one wants to see your ugly legs.”
“Wow, you sound just like me.”
“I THOUGHT we could go this weekend,” Aoko continues, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Admission’s half price to celebrate the opening. And it will be really crowded, so if you fall you’ll probably just hit other people rather than the ice,” she adds, as if that makes it better.
“Gee Aoko, you’re really pitching an attractive offer here, but you know I was thinking maybe I’d just stay at home and bang my head into the wall instead. Same number of bruises for cheaper.”
“You’re getting much better! You made it all the way across the ice on your own last time, remember?”
“Yeah, that little kindergartener applauded,” says Kaito sourly.
“Oh come on. I’ll pay for half of it. You’ll have fun.” The irritating thing is, she really wants to. Aoko loves skating – and while she does enjoy seeing him struggle so much with something she’s excellent at, he knows that really she goes because she loves skating, not because she loves seeing him make a fool of himself. Considering that these days he spends his free time doing something she despises, he sure as hell has no moral high ground here.
Kaito sighs, and drops his head onto the desk. “Fine. But you’re making me a chocolate for every time I fall down.”
“That’s not fair – you can fall on purpose.”
“Aoko, no one chooses to fall in front of a crowd of strangers.”
This is untrue: it’s exactly what he’s just signed up for.
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The snow is falling all around them, the sounds of the city muted. Below him, the plaza is strangely empty except for police officers and one man in black. And Aoko, right beside the bastard with his glinting gun to her head.
Kid takes hold of the wire – it’s too slick, too thin, but he needs to be down there now – and steps off the top of the pole. He burns his palm on the way down and nearly breaks his kneecaps on the landing, but that doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except Aoko, staring at him in desperate, trembling fear.
“I came down,” he says. “Let the girl go.”
He follows orders, slips off his hat, his cape, his jacket. Turns around. He might as well put the gun to his own head.
“Since you’re going to get what you want, you might as well –” he tries, voice cool and calm: you don’t have to do this, it can be okay, just trust me –
“Shut up about the fucking girl already!”
Kid doesn’t have to be facing him to see his finger tightening on the trigger. He acts faster than there is time for his brain to draw a line of thought, to make priorities. He simply spins around and uses his last weapon.
As the monocle flies through the air, shining like a comet, he hears the gun bark and feels the impact in his chest. Falls backwards, and knows there’s no one behind him to catch him this time.
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“Kuroba Kaito! Get off the floor right this minute before I kick you in the head!”
“Ah! They’re blue today!”
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Aoko is wet and trembling in his arms, the rain pouring down on them so hard it’s difficult to breathe. Standing caught in the flashlight’s beam, all Kaito can think about is the should haves. I should have been faster – I should have been stronger – I should have protected her – I should have been more to her.
I should have told her.
Kaito has only two big secrets in this world, and they are both for her. One she’ll love him for, and the other she’ll hate him for. He has promised himself that he’ll never be enough of a bastard to tell her the one without the other.
Above them, the sky splits open and lightning pours down like fluid electricity. Kaito, knowing an extension when he sees it, steps off the roof with Aoko held tightly in his arms.
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Their class does a haunted house for their school festival in their final year. Kaito’s mostly just glad they’re not doing another stupid Kid play, and happily agrees to be the final apparition – the headless man. It’s an easy costume except for the eyeholes and the gushing blood from the severed neck.
Getting the powdered blood right takes longer than he expects, and he ends up rushing in late to change in the boys bathroom beside their class. By the time he’s ready everyone else is already in place, hidden speakers playing creepy noises – trees creaking and bones rattling and bats flying. The room is dark, the overhead lights out and windows blocked and only red-tinted lamps providing light. He hurries around the path made out of desks, past the corn field and the cemetery and the torture chamber. The final scene before his execution-block is a mansion exterior with a well. He glances at it as he hurries by, lit from above by a red moon.
From inside the well, one dirty hand emerges to grasp the outside in a spasmodic grip. Another rises slowly, white skin tinted red in the weird light. In the background, teeth clatter. A mess of dark hair, tangled and pulled, rises gradually. Wide, red-rimmed eyes stare at him and a blue mouth opens to reveal black rotten teeth. On the speakers, a door bangs shut. Kaito stumbles backwards, trips against a desk leg, and falls flat on his ass.
Aoko snorts, and then bursts out laughing.
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Aoko’s been saving up for New Year’s. Kaito’s not sure why, buy he knows she has because sometime in the fall she stops suggesting they go out for meals or to anywhere with an admission, or making him any of the snacks whose ingredients she usually buys with her allowance. He doesn’t ask, but he does take her out to the movies and the pool and yes, even the dreaded ice rink, on his own dollar as supposed penance for his pranks.
He is therefore not surprised when she starts hinting that she wants to go to the big prefectural festival. It still takes him nearly a week to nerve up to admitting that if she goes, he supposes he might too.
It’s a weekend and Kid hasn’t put out any notices, so Nakamori’s got the night off. The inspector is consequently at home when Kaito shows up in his best slacks, a dark sweater, a well-cut wool coat and the scarlet scarf Aoko knitted for him for Christmas. Aoko’s not ready yet, so Nakamori invites him in for a soda.
It’s not the first year Kaito’s gone out with her for late-night events, but it is the first one they haven’t gone with a group of friends. The first that, even if neither of them is calling it a date, still feels like one. And despite the fact that Nakamori’s known him his whole life, it’s clear the inspector feels something needs to be said about that.
“You’ll be back by 1,” he says, looking hard if not exactly glaring. “Keep your phones on. You’ve got a brain, use it.”
“Yes, sir,” answers Kaito sincerely.
“Nothing stupid.”
“No, sir.”
Nakamori sighs, and sits down. “It’s not about you. You’re a good boy – a good man, Kaito. Your father would be proud of you. You ever have kids of your own – which I would not look on positively anytime in the near future – you’ll know you never stop worrying about them.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Nakamori sighs again. “And, hell. Better you than the rest of the idiots in your class.” Nakamori pauses, takes a sip of his beer. “I didn’t just say that.”
Kaito smiles. “No, sir.”
“Just look after her – I don’t just mean tonight. If – if that’s what she wants.”
“Is it?” Kaito’s voice nearly breaks, and he flushes. Nakamori gives him an old look, and smiles.
“You’ll have to ask her that.” He stands, shouts up the stairs for Aoko to get a move on, and walks off into the kitchen.
It’s just as well Nakamori’s not there when his daughter comes down. He probably wouldn’t have let her out of the house.
Aoko’s always been pretty – good features, well-proportioned, nice hair and eyes. But she’s never bothered to dress to show it, never bothered to accent it at all. Tonight, she has. And Gods, she’s absolutely beautiful.
Aoko’s slicked her hair down so that it’s no longer bushy and fly-away but pulled tight to her head, sophisticated and lustrous. She’s twisted it into complex loops in the back, and pinned it up with little blue shining beads. Rather than a traditional kimono she’s chosen a western-style dress in shades of blue, light periwinkle at the neck-line and dark midnight at the bottom hem. It’s a made of sleek-looking silk, cut in a moderately low V at the neck and closely fitted in the torso and then gathering at the waist to fall in looser waves to her ankles. Aoko’s wearing a necklace of light blue stones around her neck – fake, his professional eye tells him, but well-chosen all the same, and matching her dangling earrings. Her make-up isn’t heavy, but as an expert he can see that it’s been carefully applied and is extremely well done. It accentuates her dark eyes and full lips, bringing extra colour into her cheeks and ensuring the uniform creamy colour of her skin.
The clothes Aoko usually wears don’t exactly show off her figure, leaving him to make assumptions. The silk dress fits it like a glove, though, showing up all his miscalculations and leaving him speechless.
“Uh,” he says, eloquently.
She smiles, and he blinks to stop from staring at her red lips. “You look nice – uh, I mean, great.”
Aoko raises a teasing eyebrow. “Just great?”
It’s enough to break the shock. Kaito mimes pulling a hat from his head, and topples onto the floor. “Aoko-sama, your beauty and elegance stun me, they are as water to a man dying of thirst in the desert. I am scarcely worthy to look upon such divine splendour.”
“Oh get going already before I’m sick,” grumbles Nakamori, from the other room. Aoko flushes; Kaito smiles and stands. Reaches out and hands her down off the step towards the door.
“After you.”
“Be back by one or I’m coming out there after you,” calls Nakamori after them as they go.
It’s a good festival – great fireworks, food and games. Kaito wins her the prizes she wants, carries the food and finds them a good spot by the river to watch the fireworks.
He’s aware the whole time, as she sits beside him looking more beautiful than he could have ever imagined – so beautiful that it’s all he can do to keep himself from staring and wondering how he didn’t see it all along, that she’s waiting for something. She nerves herself up to say it several times, and he, coward that he is, interrupts with something else.
She wants him to tell her how he feels. To tell her what he knows is true, what he’s always felt and known is true and feels more strongly now than ever before. To tell her what he felt when he came down into the snow for her, when he climbed an abandoned school building in the middle of a monsoon for her.
To tell her that he’s in love with her.
Gods, he wants to. She feels it too – he knows that. She would fall into his arms now if he told her, would kiss him with those red lips, would pull him close until he could feel the warmth of her even on this cold night.
But that would be an even greater betrayal than the one he’s already committed. And he can’t countenance that, no matter how much he wants it, not for anything.
She wanted this night to be perfect; she doesn’t have to tell him for him to know. She saved all her money, shopped for who knows how long, prepared for hours. And he can’t tell her anything other than that she looked nice. He takes her home – on time, as promised – and tries not to let the brittle disappointment in her face cut too deeply.
It’s a lost cause from the beginning.
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Kid ditches his hat, jacket and cape in the river, crawls up the cement bank in just his shirt and pants. It’s early spring, and the wind slices right through the thin silk to freeze his bones. He’s panting hard from the swim, but he’s already so numb he can hardly feel the motion of his ribs.
By some miracle he’s come ashore relatively near his house – only a couple of kilometres away. He heads the wrong way for two blocks anyway, stumbling over kerbs and uneven paving stones, until he stops dripping.
The streets are quiet this time of night, but not dead. Kid avoids as much traffic as he can, ducks into alleys and behind recycling cans and post boxes. He walks with his head down, too tired to feign nonchalance.
By the time he gets home, he’s warmed up somewhat. Enough to not be mistaken for a drunken student staggering home after a late party, at least.
Enough to know that it’s over now, even if he can’t think what that means.
The house is dark when he gets back; his mother is away on one of her never-ending trips abroad. He finds the key he never carries as Kid, lets himself in and locks it behind him before slumping down against the solid door.
“Welcome home,” says a low, shaky voice in the darkness. There’s a click, and the light comes on.
Aoko’s standing in front of a chair in the entranceway, arms wrapped tight around her stomach. Her eyes are red from crying, and her hair’s windswept and tangled. Kaito leaps up, but his exhausted muscles give out and he crashes into the wall. Aoko catches him as he reels and he stands there holding her shoulders for support, panting to catch his breath and staring at her in shock. He can’t imagine how ridiculous the pair of them must look standing in the entranceway holding onto each other as if dancing, him soaked and covered in mud and Aoko red-faced with a bird’s nest hair style.
“What’re doing here?”
“Waiting for you,” she says, almost steadily.
“But – but – how –”
“Don’t be an idiot. I’ve always known it was you. Even if it took a long – took too long for me to accept it. That doesn’t mean,” she adds, a sudden glint in her eye, “that I’m letting you off the hook. You’d better have a damn good reason for this.”
Kaito lets out a shaky breath. “I thought – I was so afraid to tell you,” he whispers, dropping his head.
Aoko gives him a little shake, fingers tightening against his shoulders. “You should have trusted me. The number of times I’ve seen you fall, you don’t think I know how to catch you?”
He looks up sharply. Aoko gives him a watery smile. “You’re going to shower and change, and then explain yourself, Kuroba Kaito. But don’t think I’m going to let you go.” She leans closer, cheeks flushed, and presses her mouth hesitantly against his. It’s a short, chaste kiss, but it sends fire through his veins all the same. “Never think that,” she whispers.
Kaito nods, slowly. “I always wanted – I mean – during New Year’s, I wanted to –” He takes a deep breath, ignoring the tight burning in his throat. “I’ve been keeping secrets from you for all this time. One I never wanted to tell you, and one that… I never stopped wanting to tell you.”
“And now?”
“Now you know one – knew it all along.” He pulls of Kid’s dirty gloves, drops them on the floor.
“And the other?” she asks, in a hushed voice.
“I swore I’d never tell you until I told you about Kid. I am Kaitou Kid, Aoko. And – I’m in love with you.”
Aoko’s smile spreads slow and sweet as honey. “Sometimes I’m not sure whether you’re a genius or a moron,” she answers. “But I love you anyway, so I guess it doesn’t really matter.”
Heart pounding so hard it aches, Kaito leans in and kisses her again.
Series: Magic Kaitou
Pairing: Kaito/Aoko
Rating: G
Notes: Christmas fic for
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Summary: Looking back on it, Kaito realises this was just the beginning in a long saga of falling for Aoko.
In the whistling wind, Kid can’t hear whatever it is Nakamori’s shouting at him from the centre of the semi-circle made up of Squad cops. They’re all here tonight, the whole squad standing hidden in the spotlights’ blinding beams, and that’s fitting. Fitting that tonight, with the goddamn blood red diamond shattered, they’ve finally cornered him. Fitting that tonight, with Kid’s work finished, they will catch him. Well, fitting, and also cause and effect. Kid is perfect, is undefeatable, is always the winner. But the man under the monocle isn’t, and in the end beating his enemy meant leaving an opportunity for the cops. A sacrifice is always necessary to achieve victory, and tonight the sacrifice is him.
Here, standing on a railing with his back to thin air and the black river far, far below, there is no escape. In the monsoon winds he would be crushed against a building the instant he popped the glider, would be thrown right off a zip line. Here there is only white ahead or black behind, and neither of them are the choice he wants.
On the far corner of the roof out of the pure white beam of the lights, a single figure stands alone and out of place. Aoko’s hair is twisting around and into her face even with both of her hands tangled in it to keep it away, thick and dark. Still, he can see her eyes staring at him from across the distance, wide and uncertain.
The one thing Aoko has always said she has wanted is Kaitou Kid caught. But the one thing he knows she doesn’t want is for her father to arrest Kuroba Kaito on several life sentences’ worth of charges.
Kid smiles, gives an elaborate sweeping and tips the brim of his hat to the roof in general while watching Aoko alone. Then, before Nakamori can take more than two running steps forward, he topples back over the edge of the building into the open air.
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Two weeks after Aoko’s mother’s funeral, the little girl still hasn’t smiled once. Sometimes she cries at nothing, but usually she just sits quietly with a little wobbly frown and doesn’t speak. It’s like ice under his skin, like the sting of disinfectant on scraped knees, like the guilt of breaking a whole cupboard’s worth of glasses. Kaito can’t stand it.
For two weeks he does nothing, because nothing is all he can do. But finally, desperate and unhappy, he shoves a bunch of flowers into his jacket so that the stems stick down his sleeve and marches to school ignoring the slowly-spreading wet stain at his cuff and the petals floating gentle as snowflakes in his wake. He runs up to Aoko as soon as he sees her, sticks his hand up his sleeve, and pulls elaborately.
Years later, looking back on himself sitting on his ass on the pavement holding a handful of naked flower stalks while Aoko laughed above him, Kaito realised two things. First, always practice before performing. Second, that was just the beginning of a very long saga of his falling for Aoko.
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On their first day of high school classes, the moral guidance teacher sets them to do trust exercises.
“What’s the point in doing trust exercises with people we don’t know? Why would we trust them? This isn’t trust, it’s confidence in punishment. We all know what’ll happen to anyone who doesn’t catch their partner.” Kaito leans over towards Aoko from his place against the back of the gymnasium wall, paying only slight attention to the example pair of students standing in front of them with the beaming teacher.
Aoko glares back. “Shut up and listen – it’s about building trust, not already having it.”
“You don’t build trust by falling on people.”
“Oh, you think we should build it by looking up peoples’ skirts?” She cracks her knuckles; he ignores it.
“It’s important to get to know our classmates.” Kaito ducks Aoko’s smack without even looking. The movement catches the teacher’s eye, and he singles them out. “You two – come up here.”
Aoko gives him a pinch as he walks by, but follows him up to the front. The two students already there slip gratefully back to the herd, leaving them alone and exposed.
“You saw the demonstration. You – Kuroba. Stand here.” He indicates a random spot on the well-polished floor, Kaito slouches forward onto it. “And you – Nakamori. Here.” He points to one behind Kaito, who turns and gives an over-elaborate double-take.
“Hey – don’t make her catch me – she’ll drop me for sure! You can’t trust her, sensei. She’d drop a guy as soon as look at him!” He’s joking, but that’s never pacified Aoko in the past – it’s amazing how easy it is to get under her skin.
“I would not,” hisses Aoko, red-faced. The teacher drops a hand on Kaito’s shoulder and swivels him around.
“Right, right,” he says, meaninglessly. “Now, when I count to three, I want you to tip backwards. Nakamori, you push him back before he can get very far. You don’t need to actually catch him, just stop him from falling too far back. Got it?”
“Yes,” says Aoko, very close behind him. “Yeah,” echoes Kaito, less assured.
“One.” Of course she won’t drop him. He’s known her for years, longer than he can really remember. He doesn’t really think she will. But he’s played a lot of tricks on her over the years – just last week he set up a hidden fan to blow her skirt up – and she hasn’t gotten him back for all of them. “Two.” And besides, he’s a lot heavier than her, what if she just can’t catch him, doesn’t even really mean to drop him, but… “Three.”
Kaito closes his eyes, and overbalances backwards with one single mantra ringing like a bell in his mind: she’s not going to do it she’s not going to do it she’s not going to do it. It’s not a long fall; it shouldn’t matter. Objectively he knows that. But from the way his nerves are humming like electrified wire, it seems that he’s falling 50 feet.
Unaccountably nervous as he is, it seems to him that he falls for hours, tipped back beyond the point of recovery and completely unable to catch himself.
It’s actually only a second before Aoko reaches out and catches him with strong, sure hands. Steps forward to push him back up onto his balance as easily as she would open a door.
It is of course not at all surprising that she caught him. What is surprising, though, so surprising he has to drop behind the mask of his poker face to keep it off his face, is just how strong the relief he feels is.
“Trust me now?” she whispers in his ear. He can hear the smile in her voice.
“’Course not,” he replies, recovering to spin smoothly on his heels and while plastering a cocky grin on his face. Aoko rolls her eyes and tries to trip him on the way back to the back of the group.
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The first time Kid sees Aoko staring up at him with wide, shocked eyes and rage written across her face so clear it’s like it’s been burned into her features, he’s flying on the glider.
It’s just as well; if he’d still been on the roof he probably would have fallen off it.
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“That new skating rink just opened up across from the park,” says Aoko at lunch. Kaito, in the middle of swallowing his tea, nearly chokes. She gives him a look. “It’s not that bad. Come on, it’ll be fun.”
“I still have the bruises from last time. Look!” He makes to lift his leg up to show her his knee, and she smacks him with the lid from her bento.
“No one wants to see your ugly legs.”
“Wow, you sound just like me.”
“I THOUGHT we could go this weekend,” Aoko continues, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Admission’s half price to celebrate the opening. And it will be really crowded, so if you fall you’ll probably just hit other people rather than the ice,” she adds, as if that makes it better.
“Gee Aoko, you’re really pitching an attractive offer here, but you know I was thinking maybe I’d just stay at home and bang my head into the wall instead. Same number of bruises for cheaper.”
“You’re getting much better! You made it all the way across the ice on your own last time, remember?”
“Yeah, that little kindergartener applauded,” says Kaito sourly.
“Oh come on. I’ll pay for half of it. You’ll have fun.” The irritating thing is, she really wants to. Aoko loves skating – and while she does enjoy seeing him struggle so much with something she’s excellent at, he knows that really she goes because she loves skating, not because she loves seeing him make a fool of himself. Considering that these days he spends his free time doing something she despises, he sure as hell has no moral high ground here.
Kaito sighs, and drops his head onto the desk. “Fine. But you’re making me a chocolate for every time I fall down.”
“That’s not fair – you can fall on purpose.”
“Aoko, no one chooses to fall in front of a crowd of strangers.”
This is untrue: it’s exactly what he’s just signed up for.
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The snow is falling all around them, the sounds of the city muted. Below him, the plaza is strangely empty except for police officers and one man in black. And Aoko, right beside the bastard with his glinting gun to her head.
Kid takes hold of the wire – it’s too slick, too thin, but he needs to be down there now – and steps off the top of the pole. He burns his palm on the way down and nearly breaks his kneecaps on the landing, but that doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except Aoko, staring at him in desperate, trembling fear.
“I came down,” he says. “Let the girl go.”
He follows orders, slips off his hat, his cape, his jacket. Turns around. He might as well put the gun to his own head.
“Since you’re going to get what you want, you might as well –” he tries, voice cool and calm: you don’t have to do this, it can be okay, just trust me –
“Shut up about the fucking girl already!”
Kid doesn’t have to be facing him to see his finger tightening on the trigger. He acts faster than there is time for his brain to draw a line of thought, to make priorities. He simply spins around and uses his last weapon.
As the monocle flies through the air, shining like a comet, he hears the gun bark and feels the impact in his chest. Falls backwards, and knows there’s no one behind him to catch him this time.
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“Kuroba Kaito! Get off the floor right this minute before I kick you in the head!”
“Ah! They’re blue today!”
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Aoko is wet and trembling in his arms, the rain pouring down on them so hard it’s difficult to breathe. Standing caught in the flashlight’s beam, all Kaito can think about is the should haves. I should have been faster – I should have been stronger – I should have protected her – I should have been more to her.
I should have told her.
Kaito has only two big secrets in this world, and they are both for her. One she’ll love him for, and the other she’ll hate him for. He has promised himself that he’ll never be enough of a bastard to tell her the one without the other.
Above them, the sky splits open and lightning pours down like fluid electricity. Kaito, knowing an extension when he sees it, steps off the roof with Aoko held tightly in his arms.
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Their class does a haunted house for their school festival in their final year. Kaito’s mostly just glad they’re not doing another stupid Kid play, and happily agrees to be the final apparition – the headless man. It’s an easy costume except for the eyeholes and the gushing blood from the severed neck.
Getting the powdered blood right takes longer than he expects, and he ends up rushing in late to change in the boys bathroom beside their class. By the time he’s ready everyone else is already in place, hidden speakers playing creepy noises – trees creaking and bones rattling and bats flying. The room is dark, the overhead lights out and windows blocked and only red-tinted lamps providing light. He hurries around the path made out of desks, past the corn field and the cemetery and the torture chamber. The final scene before his execution-block is a mansion exterior with a well. He glances at it as he hurries by, lit from above by a red moon.
From inside the well, one dirty hand emerges to grasp the outside in a spasmodic grip. Another rises slowly, white skin tinted red in the weird light. In the background, teeth clatter. A mess of dark hair, tangled and pulled, rises gradually. Wide, red-rimmed eyes stare at him and a blue mouth opens to reveal black rotten teeth. On the speakers, a door bangs shut. Kaito stumbles backwards, trips against a desk leg, and falls flat on his ass.
Aoko snorts, and then bursts out laughing.
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Aoko’s been saving up for New Year’s. Kaito’s not sure why, buy he knows she has because sometime in the fall she stops suggesting they go out for meals or to anywhere with an admission, or making him any of the snacks whose ingredients she usually buys with her allowance. He doesn’t ask, but he does take her out to the movies and the pool and yes, even the dreaded ice rink, on his own dollar as supposed penance for his pranks.
He is therefore not surprised when she starts hinting that she wants to go to the big prefectural festival. It still takes him nearly a week to nerve up to admitting that if she goes, he supposes he might too.
It’s a weekend and Kid hasn’t put out any notices, so Nakamori’s got the night off. The inspector is consequently at home when Kaito shows up in his best slacks, a dark sweater, a well-cut wool coat and the scarlet scarf Aoko knitted for him for Christmas. Aoko’s not ready yet, so Nakamori invites him in for a soda.
It’s not the first year Kaito’s gone out with her for late-night events, but it is the first one they haven’t gone with a group of friends. The first that, even if neither of them is calling it a date, still feels like one. And despite the fact that Nakamori’s known him his whole life, it’s clear the inspector feels something needs to be said about that.
“You’ll be back by 1,” he says, looking hard if not exactly glaring. “Keep your phones on. You’ve got a brain, use it.”
“Yes, sir,” answers Kaito sincerely.
“Nothing stupid.”
“No, sir.”
Nakamori sighs, and sits down. “It’s not about you. You’re a good boy – a good man, Kaito. Your father would be proud of you. You ever have kids of your own – which I would not look on positively anytime in the near future – you’ll know you never stop worrying about them.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Nakamori sighs again. “And, hell. Better you than the rest of the idiots in your class.” Nakamori pauses, takes a sip of his beer. “I didn’t just say that.”
Kaito smiles. “No, sir.”
“Just look after her – I don’t just mean tonight. If – if that’s what she wants.”
“Is it?” Kaito’s voice nearly breaks, and he flushes. Nakamori gives him an old look, and smiles.
“You’ll have to ask her that.” He stands, shouts up the stairs for Aoko to get a move on, and walks off into the kitchen.
It’s just as well Nakamori’s not there when his daughter comes down. He probably wouldn’t have let her out of the house.
Aoko’s always been pretty – good features, well-proportioned, nice hair and eyes. But she’s never bothered to dress to show it, never bothered to accent it at all. Tonight, she has. And Gods, she’s absolutely beautiful.
Aoko’s slicked her hair down so that it’s no longer bushy and fly-away but pulled tight to her head, sophisticated and lustrous. She’s twisted it into complex loops in the back, and pinned it up with little blue shining beads. Rather than a traditional kimono she’s chosen a western-style dress in shades of blue, light periwinkle at the neck-line and dark midnight at the bottom hem. It’s a made of sleek-looking silk, cut in a moderately low V at the neck and closely fitted in the torso and then gathering at the waist to fall in looser waves to her ankles. Aoko’s wearing a necklace of light blue stones around her neck – fake, his professional eye tells him, but well-chosen all the same, and matching her dangling earrings. Her make-up isn’t heavy, but as an expert he can see that it’s been carefully applied and is extremely well done. It accentuates her dark eyes and full lips, bringing extra colour into her cheeks and ensuring the uniform creamy colour of her skin.
The clothes Aoko usually wears don’t exactly show off her figure, leaving him to make assumptions. The silk dress fits it like a glove, though, showing up all his miscalculations and leaving him speechless.
“Uh,” he says, eloquently.
She smiles, and he blinks to stop from staring at her red lips. “You look nice – uh, I mean, great.”
Aoko raises a teasing eyebrow. “Just great?”
It’s enough to break the shock. Kaito mimes pulling a hat from his head, and topples onto the floor. “Aoko-sama, your beauty and elegance stun me, they are as water to a man dying of thirst in the desert. I am scarcely worthy to look upon such divine splendour.”
“Oh get going already before I’m sick,” grumbles Nakamori, from the other room. Aoko flushes; Kaito smiles and stands. Reaches out and hands her down off the step towards the door.
“After you.”
“Be back by one or I’m coming out there after you,” calls Nakamori after them as they go.
It’s a good festival – great fireworks, food and games. Kaito wins her the prizes she wants, carries the food and finds them a good spot by the river to watch the fireworks.
He’s aware the whole time, as she sits beside him looking more beautiful than he could have ever imagined – so beautiful that it’s all he can do to keep himself from staring and wondering how he didn’t see it all along, that she’s waiting for something. She nerves herself up to say it several times, and he, coward that he is, interrupts with something else.
She wants him to tell her how he feels. To tell her what he knows is true, what he’s always felt and known is true and feels more strongly now than ever before. To tell her what he felt when he came down into the snow for her, when he climbed an abandoned school building in the middle of a monsoon for her.
To tell her that he’s in love with her.
Gods, he wants to. She feels it too – he knows that. She would fall into his arms now if he told her, would kiss him with those red lips, would pull him close until he could feel the warmth of her even on this cold night.
But that would be an even greater betrayal than the one he’s already committed. And he can’t countenance that, no matter how much he wants it, not for anything.
She wanted this night to be perfect; she doesn’t have to tell him for him to know. She saved all her money, shopped for who knows how long, prepared for hours. And he can’t tell her anything other than that she looked nice. He takes her home – on time, as promised – and tries not to let the brittle disappointment in her face cut too deeply.
It’s a lost cause from the beginning.
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Kid ditches his hat, jacket and cape in the river, crawls up the cement bank in just his shirt and pants. It’s early spring, and the wind slices right through the thin silk to freeze his bones. He’s panting hard from the swim, but he’s already so numb he can hardly feel the motion of his ribs.
By some miracle he’s come ashore relatively near his house – only a couple of kilometres away. He heads the wrong way for two blocks anyway, stumbling over kerbs and uneven paving stones, until he stops dripping.
The streets are quiet this time of night, but not dead. Kid avoids as much traffic as he can, ducks into alleys and behind recycling cans and post boxes. He walks with his head down, too tired to feign nonchalance.
By the time he gets home, he’s warmed up somewhat. Enough to not be mistaken for a drunken student staggering home after a late party, at least.
Enough to know that it’s over now, even if he can’t think what that means.
The house is dark when he gets back; his mother is away on one of her never-ending trips abroad. He finds the key he never carries as Kid, lets himself in and locks it behind him before slumping down against the solid door.
“Welcome home,” says a low, shaky voice in the darkness. There’s a click, and the light comes on.
Aoko’s standing in front of a chair in the entranceway, arms wrapped tight around her stomach. Her eyes are red from crying, and her hair’s windswept and tangled. Kaito leaps up, but his exhausted muscles give out and he crashes into the wall. Aoko catches him as he reels and he stands there holding her shoulders for support, panting to catch his breath and staring at her in shock. He can’t imagine how ridiculous the pair of them must look standing in the entranceway holding onto each other as if dancing, him soaked and covered in mud and Aoko red-faced with a bird’s nest hair style.
“What’re doing here?”
“Waiting for you,” she says, almost steadily.
“But – but – how –”
“Don’t be an idiot. I’ve always known it was you. Even if it took a long – took too long for me to accept it. That doesn’t mean,” she adds, a sudden glint in her eye, “that I’m letting you off the hook. You’d better have a damn good reason for this.”
Kaito lets out a shaky breath. “I thought – I was so afraid to tell you,” he whispers, dropping his head.
Aoko gives him a little shake, fingers tightening against his shoulders. “You should have trusted me. The number of times I’ve seen you fall, you don’t think I know how to catch you?”
He looks up sharply. Aoko gives him a watery smile. “You’re going to shower and change, and then explain yourself, Kuroba Kaito. But don’t think I’m going to let you go.” She leans closer, cheeks flushed, and presses her mouth hesitantly against his. It’s a short, chaste kiss, but it sends fire through his veins all the same. “Never think that,” she whispers.
Kaito nods, slowly. “I always wanted – I mean – during New Year’s, I wanted to –” He takes a deep breath, ignoring the tight burning in his throat. “I’ve been keeping secrets from you for all this time. One I never wanted to tell you, and one that… I never stopped wanting to tell you.”
“And now?”
“Now you know one – knew it all along.” He pulls of Kid’s dirty gloves, drops them on the floor.
“And the other?” she asks, in a hushed voice.
“I swore I’d never tell you until I told you about Kid. I am Kaitou Kid, Aoko. And – I’m in love with you.”
Aoko’s smile spreads slow and sweet as honey. “Sometimes I’m not sure whether you’re a genius or a moron,” she answers. “But I love you anyway, so I guess it doesn’t really matter.”
Heart pounding so hard it aches, Kaito leans in and kisses her again.
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Date: 2010-12-25 07:24 am (UTC)And adsflkjh this fic. *_______* I can't even cite a part I love best cuz I love the collective whole with all of my heart. And it's tied into the Heavy Silences verse! Yesss, you are amazing.
He's faaaalling for her cuz she's amazing and so damn important to him and it is impossible not to love her. And she loves him cuz he's her idiot friend with an ice cream heart. And Ginzo is unsure what to feel about it all (I love him so much).
Ffft, that ending. SHE ALWAYS KNEW AND NOW HE CAN TELL HER. Eeeee~ ♥ x Infinity
Some corrections (I always feel guilty doing these D: SORRY)
Kaito’s not sure why, buy he knows she has
but he knows
It’s a made of sleek-looking silk
It's made
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Date: 2010-12-27 07:07 am (UTC)Man, Ginzo. I love him. HIS LIFE, IT IS TOO RIDICULOUS.
I don't think I've ever written anything without typos, if not more major issues. Corrections are my only way of life~ XD
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Date: 2010-12-28 05:36 am (UTC)He's just so excitable and all the more fun for it.
o/
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Date: 2010-12-25 08:13 pm (UTC)I enjoyed the format, with the little scenes, it felt like a kaleidoscope of their love story, all back and forth and glittery and quickly gone. Very nice effect.
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Date: 2010-12-27 07:08 am (UTC)Reordering time = always a fun way to go. Thanks!
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Date: 2011-01-06 10:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-10 05:01 am (UTC)