trigger warnings for self-harm, suicide, and depression.

the way he smiles is almost inviting, and had he not known better, he would have said that he was happy to see him.

"take a seat" he says, and motions at the table, cards in hand.

The first time that Shintaro meets Kano, his smile is a bit too wide and his stance is a bit too loose for him to trust him. "Welcome to the Mekakushi Dan!" He says, arms spread out wide and head tilted to the side in a gesture that could be taken as either welcoming or mocking.

"Yeah." Shintaro replies in one word, hand held out stiffly. Kano grabs it and shakes it a little too hard.

"It's gonna be great to have you here. We've never had that many members, so we're lucky to get another."

"I'm grateful to have been accepted."

"i'm sure you're familiar with what tarot cards are?"

a hesitation and then a nod, but he sees through the lie easily.

"no worries, no worries! i can explain this to you easily before the game begins."

"What's Kano's eye power? He's never brought it up and I've never seen him use it."

He's talking to Seto as they watch Momo practice for some concert or other that's coming up, singing along to a karaoke game and moving her hips to the beat. Hibiya mutters something about how old ladies shouldn't be allowed to sing, but she simply smiles and laughs it off.

Seto starts. "Oh, you haven't realized it yet?" He scratches his head. "Kano uses his eye ability all the time, actually. He has the ability to deceive others."

Shintaro nods and wonders if Kano was using his eye power when they first talked with each other.

"well, you see, each card represents a different aspect of human nature." he picks up a stack of cards and lets them fall onto the ground, like snowflakes. "there are 22 main arcanas, or types, of tarot cards, so we'll just go off of them."

he lifts up a seemingly random card from the pile and flips it over so as to show it off.

"the first card is the fool. it's a bit self explanatory, but lets be a little clearer. when it's in the upright position, it represents beginnings, innocence, and a free spirit. turn it upside down, though…"

he flipped it so.

"and it represents foolishness and risk-taking."

"Do it, do it!" Kano snrks, motioning frantically with his hands at the pack of mentos and can of diet coke.

"I'm not sure this is the best idea…" Shintaro mutters, eyeing them precautiously. "I've heard that a guy died after doing this 'cause his stomach exploded. I don't know about you, but I'm not too keen on dying from something this...stupid."

"Stupid, smupid. C'mon, Shintaro. You've already agreed to this, and if you manage to die, I promised to give you 30,000 yen. That's 30,000 yen closer to a new Vocaloid. Or keyboard. Or more soda."

Shintaro eyes the yen that Kano dangles carelessly from his hand, and after hesitating one last time, downs half the can of soda and stuffs six mentos into his mouth.

He nearly chokes on the fizz as it bubbles out of his throat, and Kano is on the floor laughing at the spectacle. Kido comes in to see what the commotion is about and beats Kano up once she gets a good enough grasp of the situation.

Shintaro lies around moaning about his stomach all day, but in the morning when he wakes up there's 35,000 yen next to his bed as well as a note that reads "extra since you got sick ;P"

"next is the magician arcana. it represents power, skill, concentration and resourcefulness in the upright position."

"none of those are traits that you have."

he laughs, but the edge of his laughter is tinged with guilt. "reversed, it represents manipulation and poor planning."

his breath catches.

Shintaro knows he shouldn't let it get to him, and Kano probably isn't even thinking straight either, but the moment the name 'Ayano' spewed out of his mouth both of them knew it wasn't going to end simply like that.

The guilt that weighs him down is immeasurable as Kano calls him out on everything he's down, how Ayano loved him and all he's done is drive her to suicide, to taking her own life. Shintaro is the one who's killed Ayano, in essence, and it's his fault that she's dead.

Kano storms off after several minutes, eyes flashing red and leaving Shintaro curled in on himself. He's breathing fast and it takes him a little while to realize that he's hyperventilating.

He doesn't know when or how long it takes, but Kido finds him and starts to rub his back and comfort him. He tries to speak, but the only thing that can come out of his mouth is 'Ayano' and that's enough to make Kido stiffen a little.

"It's okay." She continues to say, and Shintaro wonders if she knows exactly how not okay it is.

The next morning Shintaro sees Kano at the kitchen table and for a moment he thinks he hears him crying, but when Kano turns around he has a grin plastered on his face and neither of them act like anything at all has happened.

"we'll skip some of them, we don't need to go over every single arcana. that would take much too long, and we need to begin the game at some point."

"so it hasn't begun already?"

"oh, no. why, did you assume that it did?"

Sometimes Shintaro wonders exactly what Kido's relationship with Kano is, but he knows better than to ask her outright in case she takes it the wrong way. They certainly seem close, that's a given, but Kido punches Kano to such an extent that he has to wonder if it's healthy for either of them.

Maybe it's one of those unhealthy abusive relationships that he's read so much about, that they're the type of people who love each other in a way that destroys themselves from the insides out.

He goes for a more tactful approach and simply asks Kido why she punches Kano so much.

She tucks her hands into her pockets, surprisingly not too bothered by the question. "That's easy," she says, "Kano's eye power is deactivated when he's in pain."

Shintaro stores that piece of information away for later.

"kido is a lot like the empress arcana."

"of course."

"then what of the others? do they represent other arcanas?"

"of course." he repeats "take the emperor arcana, for example. it's the structure. the solid foundation."

Seto looks startled when Shintaro offers to help with dinner, and asks him if something is wrong.

"Nothing. I just want to hang out a little, since we don't do that often." He supplies, and Seto smiles and shrugs and simply accepts his presence.

Shintaro isn't much help, however, and ends up cutting himself on the cutting board when he's slicing vegetables and swears nastily under his breath. Seto laughs nervously, and for a moment Shintaro wonders if Seto is using his eye power to check to see if he's really that hurt.

Dinner is served and Seto publicly thanks Shintaro for helping him make it, and he flushes uncomfortably. Kano whistles and leans forward.

"Wow, Shintaro helped with dinner? I never knew that he could even ingest anything other than soda!"

Kido throws a cup at him, but thankfully it's plastic and only hits him on the head without shattering. Kano laughs and eats dinner.

"momo is a lot like the lovers arcana, as well."

"are you calling her a-"

"hmm? oh, no no! no need to get so defensive. sure, the lovers arcana represents love, but also healthy relationships and valuable choices." he laughs "and even if it was only love, there are many different types of love. not everyone loves in sexual terms."

"and what if it's reversed?"

"well, then, it's disharmony. misalignment of values."

One day Shintaro asks Momo how she discovered the dan and surprisingly, she admits that Kano was the first one that she met.

"Kido was there too, actually," she adds, "but she had her eye power activated so Kano was the only one that I saw initially. He had a jaunty look about him, but I think my own eye power must have activated because everyone was starting to stare at me. He just kind of noticed my eyes, grabbed my arm, and-" She makes a wooshing noise and claps her hands together. "Away we went. Took me to a secluded area, pointed out how my eyes were red, and then offered me a spot in the Mekakushi Dan."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. Kido deactivated her eye power and I think I passed out because I was so surprised, but when we got to the base they explained it all in more detail." She giggles. "It's actually similar to how I met Hibiya, actually, which is funny cause-"

Shintaro stops listening and simply nods and smiles whenever it seems appropriate.

"its almost too convenient."

"oh?" he looks up in mild surprise.

"everyone in the dan has an arcana that almost perfectly describes their actions."

"ah, well, of course! you have one too."

"do you?"

"i'm in the dan, aren't i?"

When Kido comes home one day bruised up and stumbling through the doorway, and in an instant, everyone is upon her with questions and concerns.

"A-are you alright?" Marry stutters, clutching her dress with white knuckles. "What h-happened?"

"I'm fine." Kido says.

"Hey, Kido, I thought that lying was supposed to be my job." Kano jokes, but no one laughs. Kido half-heartedly aims a punch in his direction, but ends up losing her balance and Shintaro has to catch her so she doesn't fall over.

"I'm fine." She repeats, insists, but no one believes her.

"C'mon, Kido, we'll bandage up your wounds." Seto says and leads her off into the kitchen, and Shintaro helps him support her by the shoulders until they ease her off into a chair.

"What happened?" Shintaro asks as Seto begins to bandage up Kido's wounds. He rolls up her pants to reveal a huge cut running down her thigh and everyone visibly winces at its sight, but no one says anything.

"I ran into some...thugs." Kido's voice trails off and her eyes dart frantically from side to side. "I saw them harassing a girl a little while ago, and I don't know if they really meant it or not, but they threatened to...to do stuff to her." She inhales, trying to gather herself up, but Shintaro waits patiently. "I told them to screw off back then, and beat one of them up when they wouldn't leave, and today they ran into me and…" Her voice trails off, but everything else is heavily implied and taken for granted.

There's a sound outside the kitchen, and when Shintaro turns, he can see the fleeing corner of a black hoodie.

Kido scowls and mutters something about Kano.

"the strength arcana represents strength, though that's a given."

"does it represent anyone in the dan?"

"no, not in a whole."

"in a whole?"

he ignores the question. "in reverse, it represents self-doubt and weakness."

Shintaro's about to open Kano's door when, quite suddenly, he hears him talking to himself within.

"I could've protected her, couldn't I?" He says, and Shintaro freezes.

There's a pause, as Kano's listening to someone speak to him.

"You know how Ayano turned out." Kano's voice is quieter this time, meeker, and Shintaro wonders if he should open the door, interfere, tell the deceiver that it's all alright. But he'd just turn on his eye powers and act like nothing happened, so he opts not to.

"It wasn't my fault, alright?" His voice is more strained now, as if he's trying to convince himself as much as he's trying to convince whatever he's talking to. "I didn't kill her, it was you, wasn't it?"

Another pause, and then, "You're not me!"

Shintaro bits his lip, wondering if he should cross the line now, but Kano seems to be ahead of him. "Someone's at the-"

The door creaks open, and Kano's grinning up at him, acting as if nothing happened whatsoever. "Hmm? What is it Shintaro-chan?" His voice is playful and careless.

"Dinner's ready." Shintaro mutters and walks off, trying to erase the image of the blood that Kano probably forgot to erase on the floor.

Kano's eye power gets deactivated when he's hurt, he remembers.

"does the concept of 'justice' make much sense to you? in the broad sense, i mean."

"does it to you?"

"ah, no no, of course not."

"that's ironic, then."

"hmm?"

"nothing, nothing."

He considers confronting Kano about what he's heard, but he's not sure how badly it'll end in disaster if such a thing were to happen. He opts to simply stay on the sidelines instead, clenching his fists and trying not to point out to others that the way Kano holds himself doesn't look right and he just stumbled on the way outside and that bruise from this morning seems to have faded rather quickly, hasn't it?
Kido and Seto come up to him one day, her hands still wrapped in bandages and his lips pursed in worry, and ask him if they've noticed if something's wrong with Kano lately.

"No, I haven't. Why do you ask?" He lies, and it's surprising how easily it just slips out (maybe this is how Kano feels whenever he lies?).

They eye each other, as if conveying some sort of inside message, but Seto laughs it off and pats Shintaro on the back and tells him "not to worry about it" because "they've got things covered".

They walk off, and Shintaro wonders if the yelling in his room isn't something that Kano usually does on his own.

"they were ahead of you, y'know."

"i know."

"they just didn't know how to act."

"i know."

"they-"

"i know!"

"alright, you know." he lifts up the stack of cards. "we've been neglecting this, haven't we? let's get back to the cards."

"but what about the game?"

"don't you think it's begun already?"

he hesitates. he shrugs. wordlessly.

"i'm not so sure either, don't worry. no need to rush things."

a random card is pulled.

"the hanged man arcana represents sacrifice, letting go. in a negative sense, it represents delay and martyrdom."

Kano's on edge the whole day, fingers tapping at the seat of his chair as he glares out the window.

"Is something wrong?" Shintaro walks up to him and isn't sure if the mask is on or not - he can hardly tell these days.

"What is it?" Kano snaps, and Shintaro blinks in surprise.

"You look on edge." He states the obvious.

Kano leans back and massages the space in between his eyes. "I'm sorry." He mutters, and then looks up.

He's smiling, but it's obvious that they're one made while using his eyes. "I'd prefer if you didn't do that."

"Do what?"

"Don't act oblivious. We both know that you're not a-okay."

Kano sighs, and for a moment, the mask is dropped and Shintaro can see bags under his eyes. Just as quickly, though, it's doned once again and that horrible fake expression (it can hardly be called a smile at this point) is once again plastered onto his face.

"We can act like it, though. It's not that hard. I did it all the time before you came"

"Kido and Seto are worried."

"They're always worried. Kido tries, Seto does too probably. Look where I am."

"I'm looking."

Kano swears under his breath. "Y'know what, nevermind. I'm going to go to my room."

"And talk to yourself?"

Shintaro is sure that it's only from the power of his eyes that Kano doesn't act in any way surprised at all. "Mmm. Whatever."

"and now for death."

"thats depressing."

"oh, not really. it just sounds depressing, but its probably one of the least harmful cards of all."

"oh?"

"its endings, beginnings, transformations."

"and what of its negative representations?"

"ah, that isnt-" an intake of breath and a smile "that isnt important."

It's Marry who approaches him, hands clasped together earnestly and eyes practically glittering as she announces that "it's Kano's birthday tomorrow!"

Shintaro blinks in surprise. "Really? Tomorrow?"

"Yup!"

He curses and runs his fingers through his hair. "Marry, do you know what else is tomorrow?"

"No…?" Her voice trails off uncertainly, a tinge of shame in it, and Shintaro feels guilty for even bringing up the contradiction.

"It's Mother's Day tomorrow." He explains.

"Mother's Day?"

"Self-explanatory. It's a day to celebrate and honor your mom, basically."

"O-oh." Marry begins to tear up. "Th-that's-"

"It's fine! It doesn't have to be your own mom. It can be any mom." Shintaro tries to cover up his blunder before Marry went blubbering off to Seto. "Anyone's mom. It could be Kido, actually, cause she acts so mother-like around all of us."

"O-okay." Marry sniffles up her tears. "But, what about Kano? It's still his birthday tomorrow."

"Yeah, about that," Shintaro sighs and pulls at his face. "I promised my mom I would hang out with her tomorrow. Momo promised, as well."

"Even Momo-chan won't be able to come?" Marry pouts.

"Hey, do you think Kano would mind if we celebrated it the day aftertomorrow? Just one day later? I could definitely attend then."

"I kinda think he would mind."

Seto's voice resounds behind them, and Shintaro spins around to see the frog like boy leaning against the door frame. "How come?"

"Oh, come on Shintaro, don't act oblivious." Seto sighs. "You've heard him. Both Kido and I are aware."

"Heard what?" Marry questions and Shintaro bites his lip.

"He won't mind." He insists, and Seto sighs again.

"If that's what you're going to tell yourself then okay, that's fine. I'm not the one who's going to take the fall for your actions."

Seto turns on his heel and Shintaro curses just how convincing and stubborn he can be when he wants to, and faces Marry once again.

"What's he saying?" She asks, voice trembling with worry. "Is something wrong with Kano?"

"He's just a little upset over some things that have happened recently." Shintaro bluffs. "He's okay. Seto just really wants me to come and celebrate his birthday."

"I'm sure if you told your mom that you wanted to celebrate Kano's birthday, then I'm sure that she wouldn't mind if you celebrated her day the day after that. Moms are understanding like that. Kano might not be so understanding." Marry shrugs, and Shintaro wonders why her simplicity is so convincing and so frustrating. Maybe Seto's been rubbing off on her. Maybe it was vice versa in the first place.

Shintaro rubs her head half-heartedly and Marry squeaks in surprise. "I'll see what I can do." He says consolingly, and Marry grins up at him happily.

"Thanks, Shintaro-kun!" She chirps, and darts off before he can say anything in reply.

He does indeed end up staying for Kano's birthday party, much to Marry's delight. Kano is so surprised that he comes, however, that it scares him a little when the deceiver hugs him tightly around the waist with a generated smile.

"You came, Shintaro-chan!" He grins, and Shintaro can practically hear Seto's smile as he rounds the corner to greet him.

"Mmm, yeah, I sure did." He mutters, embarrassed, and produces a small plastic bag. "Here, this is for-"

Kano grabs it without a second thought, practically ripping it from Shintaro's hands and pulls the unwrapped gift out to light. "It's a Swiss Army Knife." He says, surprised as the rest of everyone around him is.

Ene grins nastily in Shintaro's direction through his phone.

"Yeah, well," Shintaro fumbles on his words, "you go out a lot at night, so I want you to have some sort of way to defend yourself."

Kano's grin wides and Shintaro wonders if his happiness is still an illusion or if he's genuinely happy at the gift that he's received. "Thanks, Shintaro-chan! I'll cherish it forever." He promises, and Shintaro flushes in embarrassment.

"..."

"you've grown awfully quiet all of a sudden."

he starts in surprise "oh, have i now?"

"mmm."

he laughs "moving on, we have the temperance arcana. in simplest terms, it represents balance, patience and purpose in the upright position while it represents imbalance and a lost of purpose in reverse."

He's surprised, to say the least, when he sees Kano actually using the Swiss Army Knife and not for the wrong reasons.

It's almost as if the boy is showing it off, taking it out of his coat pocket with a flourish for the simplest things, whether it be to open a can of preservatives or to brush his hair. "You don't even need to brush your hair, what with your eyes." Shintaro mutters once, but Kano simply grins and punches him playfully in the shoulder.

Shintaro starts to grow scared, however, that Kano might be using the knife for all the wrong reasons when it's his turn to do the laundry and there's red dying Kano's sheets.

He swallows painfully, considers telling Seto about the issue, but decides against it. He can fix Kano himself, he reckons. It'll be hard, but too many people involved in one matter will make for disputes and arguments and they'll just mess things up instead of fixing them.

At least, that's what he tells himself. But maybe he's just scared that Kido or Seto can do a better job of fixing the boy than he can.

"the tower arcana is unique, because even in its upright position it represents a negative effect."

"oh?"

"it represents disaster, upheaval, sudden change."

There's a point in time when Kano doesn't come home for two whole days and it's only late at night in the third day that Shintaro sees him again.

Kido immediately leaps upon him, scolding and yelling at him till she's on the verge of tears because damn, she was worried whether she wished to admit it or not. She throws a punch in Kano's direction but he swerves to the side and she misses. Shintaro raises an eyebrow, because he's never seen him avoid Kido's attacks.

He looks in Seto's direction and he's already on the case, stepping up to Kano and holding him firmly by the shoulders. "Kano," He begins, and the deceiver is already trying to squirm out of his grasp. "what were you doing out for so long?"

"Nothing important. Just went to see the sights." The lie, for once, is so see-through that Shintaro winces.

"Kano, I don't want to use my eyes on you." Seto says after a pause of silent prompting, "so I'm sorry."

Seto socks Kano directly in the stomach and Shintaro is certain that Seto didn't even use that much force, but Kano's frail body goes crashing against the wall and falls to the ground. His illusion flickers once before vanishing, and suddenly there's dried blood caking his hair and gathering it up in sticky clumps and there are way too many scars littering his arms and there's a Swiss Army Knife resting in the palm of his hand that's dripping with red.

But what's scariest of all is that Kano's grinning, his face a weird mess of muscles that once looked so natural but now look too forced, too awkward on him.

"Kido's safe now." He states simply, standing up shakily and wrapping his jacket tighter around himself and leaving the scene without another word.

None of them attempt to stop him, and even though they expected something like this, it's still too much of a shock for any of them to comprehend what they've just seen.

"He said I'm safe now." Kido murmurs. "Do you think that he…?"

"It's been months. I doubt it." Seto comforts.

A door is slammed down the hallway, and the rush of water is soon heard as Kano takes a shower.

The next morning, a special report is shown on tv - several young men, ranging from ages nineteen to twenty four, have been found hanging from telephone wires by their entrails. An investigation is currently underway, and any information pertaining to the murderer or the young men themselves would be greatly appreciated.

There's one witness, but they police doesn't seem to trust their word when they say that the perpetrator seemed to transform and switch through millions of faces right before their eyes.

Kido shuts off the tv. "Those were the guys who attacked me a while back." She mutters, though everyone has already realized it.

When Kano comes down to breakfast, everyone pointedly ignores how he continuously pats his pocket where the Swiss Army Knife is and glances at the door periodically, as if he's scared of someone suddenly bursting through it.

"the star arcana-"

"oh, screw this!"

he stands up, slamming his cards down onto the table and the other boy looks up in surprise.

"oh? is something the matter?"

"what the hell are all these arcanas for? what the hell do they even pertain to in the first place?"

the boy chuckles. "mmm, if you haven't realized that by now, that's a shame."

"excuse me?"

the boy picks up another card, a star imprinted upon it in bright yellow. "now as i was saying-"

It feels so fake, the way that they all have to pretend that nothing's wrong. Shintaro apparently doesn't too good of a job, however, because Ene has started actually acting concerned about him and asks him if anything's wrong.

Shintaro brushes it off, stating that "He's fine." because, compared to Kano, he is.

He talks with Seto and Kido daily now, trying to find some sort of comfort with them because they're probably the only ones who can even understand the situation as well as he can.

"What do we do? Do we just confront him about it?" Seto muses, fingers tangled up in his green suit.

"He knows that we know. It's not like he just suddenly forgot about you socking him in the stomach." Shintaro points out, and instantly regrets the last bit when Seto winces and pulls his hood down over his face a little.

"Should we tell the others? I mean, it might be the best idea to just let everyone know so they can all help. But on the other hand, Kano might feel almost betrayed, y'know." Kido strokes her chin.

"In what sense?"

She exchanges a glance with Seto and for a moment Shintaro is jealous of the brother-sister bond that they share, especially since he's lost it with Momo. "Kano is heavily reliant on those he trusts," Kido starts slowly, "and if he feels that they've betrayed his trust - as in, tell other people something deeply personal about himself, such as what we saw - he might completely lock himself out."

Shintaro curses and is glad that he's put his phone away in his room and that Ene said she was going to spend the whole day with Momo.

"Then, what are we supposed to do?"

Kido sighs. "I've started following him around when he goes outside the house, sometimes, to make sure that he's okay. But he doesn't do much - he just kind of walks around for long periods of time."

"I've been-" Seto bites his lip, and Shintaro stares at him pointedly. "sometimes, I look into Kano's mind."

"And?"

"He thinks about the snake and his mom a lot."

"Ayaka?" Kido asks.

"No, his real mom." Seto replies. "His biological one. The one he had before his eyes."

"you know, we only have four cards left!"

"..."

"what is it?"

"you seem a bit too eager to end this."

"oh, do i?" he chuckles. "ah, that's funny."

At some point, Kano goes out ("I'm going shopping!" he says, and Kido's already out doing something or other so she can't follow him) and doesn't return.

Ene is sent out, scouring for Kano's phone but returns just as quickly simply stating that "It's gone." None of them understand exactly what she means, but when they ask her for more detail, she shrugs and sighs. "It's gone. He's probably destroyed it, or something."

Kido swears and paces for hours and Seto has to rub circles into Marry's back as she cuddles up to him. "Kano's going to be okay, right?" She murmurs, and Seto smiles and nods, though it's obvious to even Marry that he's not certain himself.

They have little search parties, of course, Kido leading them and even using her eye power in case Kano should see them and escape before they can chase after them, but it's to no avail.

Shintaro, not for the first time, is scared of what might happen to Kano.

"y'know, let's backtrack for a moment." he leans back.

"pardon?"

"we're about to get to the grand finale. let's backtrack." he flips up another card. "the sun arcana represents fun, warmth, success."

The first time that Shintaro sees Kano use his eye power (like, really use it) is a couple days after he joins the dan.

He winks at Shintaro. "Watch this." He says, and as Shintaro blinks, suddenly there's a little kid in place of where Kano should be and he's crying, wobbling up to an ice cream truck parked not too far off.

The owner, a middle aged man, has absolutely no warning as Kano tugs at his shorts, yelling and wailing and crying.

There's an exchange of hushed words and condolences that Shintaro can't really understand, but soon enough, Kano's returning with two ice cream cones in his hands and a grin (a real one) planted firmly on his face.

"Bon appetit." He says, and hands the ice cream over to Shintaro.

Ene mutters something from his phone about not being able to eat ice cream, and Shintaro grins to himself as he takes a nice and long lick from the cone. "Thanks."

"hey, you still there?"

he doesn't respond, staring at a single card in his hand.

"hey, what the hell? i thought you were looking forward to the finale. don't dilly dally at the last moment."

silence.

"i'm gonna go over there and-"

he flips over the card in his hand, though whether its with laziness or something else he can't tell.

"the judgement arcana."

Ene practically screams into his ear for him to get up, get up, get up because someone's calling him and she has no idea who it is. Shintaro groans, his head ringing painfully, and picks up the phone after glancing at the 'Unknown Caller' tag. Hopefully it's not some telemarketing thing.

"Hello?"

There's silence on the other end but Shintaro knows that someone is there because there's the sound of breathing. He waits for a little bit, impatience growing by the second, before he speaks again.

"Alright, if you're just going to call me and not say anything, I'm just gonna hang-"

"Shintaro."

Kano's voice resounds on the other end of the line and Shintaro feels himself freeze. The voice is so dull, so dry that he almost doesn't recognize it (especially since there isn't a '-chan' added to the end of his name) so he asks them to repeat themself.

"Excuse me?"

"Shintaro. It's me."

Shintaro feels his eyes widen and he knows Ene is listening, so she better be recording this conversation. "Kano, quick, tell me where you are and don't move okay? We're coming to get you, and-"

The voice laughs, surprisingly open without Kano's eye power covering it up. "Hey, I'm right on top of the building next door, actually. The dan's base wasn't quite tall enough for what I had in mind, so-"

Shintaro's already dropping the phone, pulling on his red jacket (he's never understood why Ayano thought red was such a great color, he certainly hasn't had anything good from it recently) and sprinting outside, stumbling over his own feet as he gazes upwards. He sees Kano's silhouette on the building, right where he said he was going to be, and it waves at him.

He chokes on his own tongue, practically running up the fire escape and slipping a couple times. He's scared, though whether it's for Kano or of Kano he isn't exactly sure.

Kano still has the phone up to his ear when Shintaro gets up there, but drops it down the several stories only moments later.

"Hey."

"Hey? That's it?" Shintaro curses under his breath. "It's been weeks, Kano, weeks since anyone here has so much as heard a word from you. Everyone has been worried sick, y'know."

"I know." Kano shrugs. "I hid there as a spider at some point, but Kido tried to smash me and I didn't want my cover blown so I hung back for a while."

Shintaro runs his hands over his face. "Okay, you've had your fun, but it's time to go back now. We need to fix things."

Kano laughs, but even though he's using his eyes it sounds so awkward and fake that Shintaro winces. "I'm was planning to do that right now." Kano says, and takes a step closer to the edge.

Shintaro almost sprints over there and sweeps him right off his feet then, but Kano holds up a finger and he stops. "Uh-uh." He scolds. "I called you up here to talk, so I could tell someone some stuff before I-" Kano's voice catches and Shintaro wonders if, underneath his mask, he's crying, "but I don't need to tell anyone anything if you come any closer."

"I'm listening." Shintaro promises, begrudgingly hanging back a couple of feet.

"I killed them, y'know. Those guys who hurt Kido a while back." Kano twirls the Swiss Army Knife around his finger, and Shintaro stares at it's almost hypnotizing blade.

"We already gathered that." Shintaro murmurs, but Kano continus on regardless.

"I had my doubts about whether or not I should have gone through with it, but it convinced me." He taps his forehead. "That snake, you know. I can talk to it. It's quite a good companion, though it's a little strange at first. I don't think the others can talk to their snakes, or if they can, they're not very obvious about it." He shrugs.

"I've heard you talking with it." Shintaro admits. "A couple times, actually. Kido and Seto have too."

"I gathered." Kano shrugs. "The snake says a lot of wise things, y'know. I didn't agree with it at first." He laughs, but this one is even more forced than before. "But it's taught me of a lot of things. It's reminded me of a lot of things."

"Like your mother?"

Kano grows silent. "I think of Ayaka-san a lot."

"Your biological mother."

Kano inhales. Exhales. "My birthday is on Mother's Day, y'know." He says offhandedly. "She didn't like that, and neither did I. It should have been her day. She definitely deserved it more than I did."

"Did she, now?"

"I wasn't a very good son, you know." Kano's ramblings grow quicker, and he twirls the Swiss Army Knife around his finger even faster. "I'd drop the dishes all the time, and they'd shatter and we'd have to buy new ones."

"Kano…"

"She'd beat me up sometimes, and I hid in the bathroom. That was okay, though. She was upset, and deserved to be upset. I shouldn't have hid in the bathroom, actually, cause she should've had something to vent her anger out on. But I just hid, like the coward I am."

"Kano." Shintaro is scared, completely unsure of what to do.

"The snake is pretty wise," Kano continues, and Shintaro can hear the tears in his voice. "especially since, after I killed all those guys, it gave me good advice to run away. The police is sure to find me eventually, y'know, and if they find you guys then one way or another they're going to discover the eye powers and by then we're pretty much screwed."

"That doesn't mean you should run away." Shintaro feels like he's begging.

"I kind of deserve being set apart from you all, for murdering those guys. Ayano said that we were heroes when we were younger all the time, but look how things ended up. I'm the villain, now."

"No you're not."

"The snake managed to emphasize that, managed to help me realize that, and so I punished myself since no one else would." The illusion flickers and Kano's arm is shown for what it really is, scars criss-crossing over each other to create some sort of gruesome pattern. All of them seem to be fairly old, though, and Shintaro wonders when was the last time that Kano actually cut himself.

"You shouldn't be doing this." Shintaro insists, and has to hold himself back from taking another step forward. "C'mon, let's go home, Kano."

"I'm really really sorry, you know." Kano says, and the mask is useless because the ground at Kano's feet is already wet with tears and his voice is musky from crying. "I shouldn't have messed things up so badly, I shouldn't have interfered, but I did. I screwed up. I made life worse for everyone."

"Kano, you know that's not true."

"Can you do me a favor?" Kano says, and takes another step back, his arms held out to the side precariously. "I'm sorry for asking you to do yet another thing for me."

"Kano-"

"Please hide the mess I leave behind. It would really suck for Marry-chan or Hibiya-kun to see a lot of gore and guts outside in the morning. Especially one of someone they knew."

Kano's stepping backwards now and Shintaro knows that he isn't going to stop, so with some sort of spurt of adrenaline he runs faster than any two year lock-in should and body slams Kano onto the ground right as he's slipping off the edge.

Kano's mask is gone - maybe he was forced into honesty for once in his life by the snake - and is instead replaced by a sniveling blond that definitely doesn't feel the weight of how a sixteen year old boy should feel like.

"It's okay. It's okay. It's okay." Shintaro comforts, the mantra spilling from his mouth until it becomes senseless babbles because that's all he can do at this point.

hes trembling a little, now, and the other boy has to pick up the final card himself.

"the world," he murmurs, "represents completion."

Shintaro has to practically carry Kano down the ladder, not trusting himself to carry the boy but trusting the deceiver even less.

He's not even heavy and weighs next to nothing in Shintaro's arms, which he's not sure if it should be relieved or not.

He's trembling in Shintaro's arms, and when Shintaro opens the door and walks into the dan having breakfast, he visibly flinches at the loud sounds of surprise, joy, and shock.

Kido rushes over and, as she lifts up his arms, cries, asking why he did it and how he could have worried them so. Marry squeaked frantically, flailing around in an attempt to get a grasp of the situation. Momo and Hibiya stares in shock at their senpai, and for a second Shintaro wanted to laugh at the irony.

Seto's eyes flash red and he blinks in surprise, in shock, in anger, and finally in acceptance.

Kido rips Kano away from Shintaro's arms and dashes into Kano's room, where Shintaro knows that he'll be tended to, he'll be treated, because he knows Kido.

He's not going to delay this time, not with the snake at bay, he has to promise himself that.

Ene chirps about something, breaking the silence with "what happened" and Shintaro doesn't have the strength to answer.

"was the game pleasurable to you?"

shintaro looks up and he isn't sure if its the snake or kano whos speaking at this point.

"it wasnt."

it laughs. "i expected that. but, you ended up saving me. thats unfortunate."

"pardon?"

"i - kano - was supposed to die. the timeline was supposed to restart." it flips through the tarot cards before throwing them down, letting them explode against the surface of the table. "but you stopped it."

"well, isn't that good, then? everyone will end up happy in the end."

"do you think kano was happy?"

"i think he will be."

the snake chuckles.

Happy Birthday, Kano! This wasn't as much of a 'birthday' fic as I would have liked it to been but I like to think I tried. :3c

Just a little shout out to TheDeceivingMaiden for inspiring me with their own amazing KidoKano fanfictions to write this! Check out their profile if you haven't already.

It would mean a lot to me if you dropped a review on this fic! I spent a long time on this, so just a little 'good job' would really mean the world to me. 3