Author's Ramble: Listen to "Perfect" by One Direction but the cover made by GAC and KHS. It sets the feel of the story. Don't even read it if you aren't going to listen to it.
Kid knew from the second his eyes met Kudou Shinichi's, he had been found out.
But before he could even move, hide, and flee, Kudou has made her way to his side.
And before he speaks, runs or thinks, her lips are on his and something flares and burns and scorches inside, painful and sweet and everything he had ever dreamed it would be but never imagined would have and he is leaning into her, desperate and needing and eager to please and he ignores the startled guests and the fact he had drawn attention to himself and the knowledge he should probably stop right now but his world has gone to ashes in her fire and all he can think of is how cute she is fumbling loose the knot of his black tie and the silken feel of her red dress.
The heist tonight could go to hell for all he cared when her gloved fingers curl into his.
And when she leads them out of the darkened museum filled with police officers, hidden snipers, beautiful, disappointing gems and jewels and prosperous, pretentious pricks in their suits and gowns who don't nearly excite or fascinate a fraction as much as the slight, deceptively delicate detective leading him outside into the moonlit night, he lets go and succumbs to madness.
Just once, he thinks when her fingers thread through his hair and for once he does not feel naked without the top hat.
Just once, he thinks when she finally loosens the knot of his damn tie.
Just once, he thinks when he dives into her, drowning and falling and not caring.
Just once.
At least, that's what he told himself.
He walks the empty halls and bits and pieces of conversation reach him from the classrooms he passes by.
They still haven't stopped talking about it.
"I still can't believe Kid didn't show up!"
"I know. They waited for three hours after the time in the note before they called the heist off."
"Could it have been a fake?"
"Nope. That detective told them it was genuine."
"Who?"
"The one who just came back from that big case last year."
"Oh! You mean Kudou Shinichi!"
Kaito winces as if he is in actual physical pain, though perhaps those were the scratch marks on his back.
And arms.
And neck.
He makes his way to the nearly empty schoolyard and she is there.
He forces himself not to run, to pretend and ignore.
Poker Face.
But fingers, soft and calloused and gentle, catch his wrist and curl into the spaces between his fingers and he knows she knows and he just can't bring himself to pull away.
She leads him to a bookstore.
He raises an eyebrow at her and feels the onset of chuckles but then it dawns on him he hasn't said a word the entire time and somehow that is more unsettling than the fact she knows who he is and where he lives.
The little bell dings and Kaito continues to follow her eventhough she has already let him go and continues their unspoken vow of silence as if he felt if either of them spoke, the mystique of their meeting would dissipate and her along with it.
It surprises him how much he doesn't want her to go yet.
She smiles at the young lady at the counter, who gestures effervescently to her then for some reason towards Kaito.
She waves her hands dismissively and makes hand gestures of her own before the lady brightens with what appears to be understanding and bounces off into a door behind the cashier.
Kaito realizes after the fact that they were using sign language.
The young lady (Aoi, by the looks of her nametag) reappears and hands Shinichi a rectangular package wrapped in brown paper.
Aoi waves and she waves back and Kaito waves too.
The bells are behind them and she turns and puts the package in his hand.
For a moment, she stands there with the waning sun's light behind her and the wind tossing her raven hair in all directions as she places one hand to her head to flatten her flailing locks and the other hand clutches her blue school skirt to keep it from flying.
"Read it and meet me back here." She walks away.
Kaito's little, momentary superstition proves true. He doesn't go after her.
When Class 4-B comes in the next morning and finds Kuroba Kaito already there at six o'clock A.M. with a book, a Bible, in hand, quiet and still save for the occasional muttering about "Eve" and "forbiddden fruit", they believe he is plotting the end of the world.
It has been-
He doesn't know how long it has been.
He doesn't admit his days go by the reports on the news.
Murders and who solves them, killers and who catches them.
It is pathetic and demeaning and Kaito questions what is happening to him.
He paces the entirety of his unlit home once again, for- he doesn't know how many times he's gone this route but knows he'll fall asleep before he reaches the end of this corridor.
They made no promises.
A fling. An experiment. Curiosity.
Nothing more.
That was the promise.
And it would seem she was keeping hers.
After all, it was never meant to happen.
But something aches and needs and wants inside of him, a void he never noticed before and only recently, perhaps due to the occurrence of certain events, the change in a particular set of circumstances, the shift of what was perceived as a comfortable, livable dynamic that has now been shattered, broken and now possibilities existed, possibilities he considered but forced into the deepest regions of the darkest portions of his mind, possibilities he kept on the highest, most unreachable shelf in his heart because these were what would shatter and break him.
But now they have been yanked out of the pits and the box has toppled and tumbled off that shelf and spilled into his mind, heart and being, submerging him, drowning him and suffocating him in possibilities and-
He falls but it is not out of eventual exhaustion.
A body follows his descent onto the cold, hard floor but the body is warm and soft and something else warm and soft peppers his neck.
He forces the tip of her heart-shaped face upwards with one swift motion of his hand and he returns her surprising softness with rough, harsh, demanding payback.
For the first time since that last time, he feels whole.
This is where possibilities lead to.
Expectations.
He expects her to stay the night. Here, underneath his sheets, dressed in one of the white button-ups of his old uniform sets that don't fit him anymore but manage to completely dwarf her, bundled up in his arms while the bedside lamp gives her tired, beautiful face a golden orange glow.
And when she doesn't and untangles herself from the sheets and his embrace and leaves, he expects her to call the next morning so he keeps his phone on his person, fully-charged.
And when she doesn't yet he waits, all day and into the night for a call, a sign, an acknowledgement that never comes, he feels played with and toyed, the devastating wave of uncertainty and doubt that has threatened the core of whatever the hell he and she has begun crashes into him and he expects her to go cold on him again, for her disappear like a gust of wind, come and gone, that will demolish any and all of his fragile illusions and leave him glaring, into the clear air and past ruined mirrors, the truth.
His phone rings.
Kaito marvels at how late the subways are open and thanks the diligent and persevering people of the trains' graveyard shift that has helped him reach Beika at three A.M.
He approaches her hou- mansion. It is foreboding, dark and cold and he feels as though it is an omen of some kind but isn't sure of what.
The gate is unlocked and so are the doors. He creeps through the halls, searching for a sign of life.
He notices he has been spending a lot of time in dark, lonely places because of her.
Unlike the rest, there is an open doorway ahead and he begins and ends his search there.
She is still wearing his shirt but he never saw a drop of blood on it the night before.
"I couldn't save him."
Books have been dropped open all over the place, papers scattered as if they were once part of the tornado that tore the library up.
She sits on the floor beside the overturned sofa and he knows she was the force of nature that was the cause of the room's destruction.
"I promised I would never let it happen again."
And she was soon about to be the cause of his own.
But it doesn't deter him from pulling her into his lap, rocking her against his chest as Shinichi- yes, Shinichi, Kaito bulls since after everything she has put him through in both the whole time they have known each other and the short period she has been throwing him for a loop, he at least deserves to call her by her first name, even if only in his mind- remains silent and still, indifferent to his coos and comfort.
She stands, her fingers knotted with his, and makes her way through the pitch-black darkness with him in tow.
There is something to be said about a woman who is not afraid of the dark. And in fact, walks through it as if she is in sunshine.
He tightens his hold on her hand as if it had ever stopped her from leaving before.
She swivels on one heel to face him, blue eyes glowing in the shadows like the very hottest and brightest of stars burning in the infinite realms of the void of outer space.
Light appears and he shuts his own eyes instinctively at the glare.
When his sight adjusts to include the artificial brightness along with her blue eyes' radiance, he sees a midnight blue sportscar.
A Ferrari.
Keys jingle-jangled in Shinichi's hand.
"You up for a drive?" She smiles and he knows that he would take her anywhere, go with her anywhere as long as she smiled at him, for him, like that.
"Sure." He catches the keys as she flings them into the air and gets into the driver's seat.
He laces his fingers with hers like she's done countless of times before.
He bumps the tip of his nose to the tip of hers, which was pink from the cold.
He couldn't pop the bubbles of laughter that burst from him.
"Kaito?" The way she says his name, velveteen and hoarse, does horrifying things to his dignity, pride and self-control. He nuzzles his nose against hers.
"You know, Meitantei-chan? I never thought you would do something like this." He pulls away from her before she carries on with her on words, hugging her from behind as they watched the sun begin to rise, the city lights slowly dwindling, the cold morning air failing to chill her.
"What made you do it?" He asks before she can continue because he has now learned that she can say one thing and mean the other, that she can hurt and sting also steal, break and mend with that tongue and wit of hers and he must, absolutely must know before she says something could devastate him.
She turns into his embrace.
"Don't ask. Just live." And he for that moment, he does.
"Kaito?"
He hums into her soft, raven-feathers hair.
"I hold on tight, and let go fast. I hope you're sure of what you're getting yourself into."
He detaches himself from her and ignores the momentary pang in his chest at being separated again to look her straight in the eye.
Bright, blue eyes, hot like fire and cold like ice.
"Shinichi… My Eve." And he presses himself again to her, aligning nearly every part of her to every part of his.
Kaito is late the next day and Aoko just won't let up.
She scolds and reprimands better than any mother, nags and snipes like an old wife but Kaito just sits and bears it.
Finally, Aoko calms down and finally the class and their teacher relax after debating who to fear more, the seething, rampaging Aoko or the silent, sullen Kaito before deciding Aoko is the more immediate threat.
Aoko plops into her chair and fixes a look on Kaito that meant she is waiting for whatever explanation of excuse he has to offer.
Kaito doesn't oblige.
And then Aoko notices the very vague shadows beneath Kaito's usually bright, lively blue-violet eyes, the sallowness of his typically rosy, cherubic cheeks and the flatness of his customarily spiky, messy brown hair.
He is either apathetic to her perusal and Aoko knows something is horribly wrong.
"Kaito…"
He blows a gasket.
"WHAT?!"
The class turns back to the childhood friends, Aoko shocked and hurt, Kaito fuming and irritated.
Kaito takes a visible breath and mutters an apology, slumping back into his chair.
When everyone else's attention is back on the lesson, Aoko feels a slip of paper slide into the underside of her palm.
Sorry.
"What's wrong?" Aoko asks in real-life, soft and caring.
Kaito stares at his textbook for a long time.
This is insane and crazy and completely undignified. Aoko will either laugh her butt off or scream her head off at him for what he is about to reveal.
Because I let myself get swept up in everything.
I just thought… that maybe… that she, maybe…
How do I ask Aoko if a girl is serious about you or if she's just playing?
How do I tell Aoko that I might be in love with the worst possible person to be in love with for someone like me?
That I look for her when she's gone and that it hurts when she leaves?
That I love it when she seeks me out but despise her for finding me?
That I hate it when she needs me but I just can't refuse her?
That I need something more from her but I'm afraid- afraid to ask because I might ask too much and she'd run again?
That I don't know if she's giving me a chance or making me her toy?
And that I know I'd let her if it meant I could get a little closer…
I hate what she's done to me, what she's doing to me…
… and that it's like she either doesn't know or doesn't care…
How do I tell Aoko that I'm in some stupid, shitty "love" affair even I don't understand with Kudou Shinichi?
And that I like it even if it's killing me?
"Aoko?"
"Yes, Kaito?"
"Nevermind."
Author's Ramble: Wow… That was… a very emotionally and psychologically abusive relationship.
I am so sorry, just wrote this at the spur of the moment because of a song I heard in the early A.M.
Kid was disguised in the first scene if it wasn't obvious.
About why Shinichi calls Kaito, it's because she "couldn't save" a murderer during her case which she vowed to "never let happen again".
Also about Kaito calling Shinichi "Eve". She is the bearer of his greatest temptation. Her love. Her reciprocation.
Honestly, I believe Kaito really is the type that would do anything for the girl he loves... Even if it hurts him.
At least, until he reaches his own breaking point. *winkity wink* *hums noncommitantly*
Review?
Man… I will make this up to you all.
By announcing… "Hate" will have a second chapter.
Or a sequel, if I'll be posting it as a separate fic.
But it will come. Around next year.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS~