Mikau: Hey there guys. This is for the Poirot Café forum's Super Short Contest 10. Please check out the other three entries and vote by Saturday April 9, 2016! Anyway, I hope you enjoy the HeiKai…and all of the interesting background pairings alluded to in this fic. ^.^;

Disclaimer: If I owned it, the pairings would be so much more fun than everyone having a childhood friend.

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Unrepentant Deceit

Mistake number one: holding a heist in Nara.

Mistake number two: letting Hattori Heiji find out about it, not from Kaito himself, but from the media.

"What's this I hear about the Kaitou Kid coming all the way out t' Kansai t' have a heist in Nara?" Heiji growled into the phone receiver at three in the morning.

"Surprise?" Kaito responded feebly through his grogginess. "Why are you calling me about this at…" Kaito pulled the phone away to squint at the readout. "…three twenty?"

Heiji shrugged, switching the phone to his other ear as he fished for his house keys. "I just finished up at th' station, an' some of th' guys were talkin' about it. They showed me th' article in yesterday's paper an' everything, and what I want t' know is why did two perfect strangers know ya were comin' out west when I didn't?"

Kaito was silent for a minute as he searched the corners of his brain for a reason. That failing, he tried to cobble together an excuse.

There were little reasons like Heiji would ask him to stay at his house, and Kaito would be subjected to good old Osakan hospitality (which tended to be a little overbearing for someone like Kaito who had had to fend for himself in a much too big, much too empty house while his father was pretending to be dead and his mother shirked her duties to traipse around the world). It was awkward and made Kaito feel lonely because his own family wasn't stable like Heiji's. There was also the fact that Kaito would have to go through the customary tour of The Great and Magnificent Osaka yet again, and he just didn't feel like having Heiji talk his ear off about that particular subject…yet again.

Those were all part of it, but that wasn't why Kaito had ultimately decided to schedule the heist and hope Heiji didn't find out.

"Oi. Kai," Heiji called through the phone line without a shred of respect for the sanctity of that time of the morning. "Ya didn't fall asleep, didja?"

"No," Kaito sighed, sitting up in bed, making the comforter rustle. "I just…didn't want to see you," he mumbled a little too honestly.

Heiji stopped with the key in the lock. "The hell?" he snorted indignantly, voice still too loud in the pre-dawn quiet.

"But there's a jewel I need to check, so—" Kaito fumbled, now regretting that he hadn't come up with some clever cover story.

"—Why wouldn't ya wanna see me?" Heiji demanded, cutting off Kaito's flustered attempts at an excuse.

"…Because the wedding is my fault," Kaito replied in a small voice, wishing they weren't having this conversation. "I feel guilty about it, and I just can't face you."

Heiji blinked, deciding that Kaito was completely incoherent when awoken from a deep slumber. He made a mental note to try to sort things out when the magician was more awake. But for now: "Kai, how in th' world is it yer fault that Kazuha is marryin' that Hakuba jerk?"

Kaito winced. "Because I introduced them."

"Meetin' at a Kid heist hardly counts as you introducin' 'em." Heiji rolled his eyes and quietly let himself into his house, switching his phone back to the other ear. "We good now?"

There was a long pause before Kaito whispered, "No", his brow furrowing into the gravest of frowns.

Heiji sighed. "An' why not?"

Because, unbeknownst to Heiji, Kaito had not only introduced Hakuba and Kazuha, he had strongly encouraged things between the two. He'd even gone so far as to make Osaka a regular stop on Kid's roster so that the two could see a healthy amount of each other…and so that Kaito himself could see Heiji, but…

"Because on top of starting things off between Hakuba and Kazuha-chan, I made Kudo break up with you," Kaito confessed. He still felt like a bad person, but finally fessing up to his misdeeds did alleviate some of the self-loathing.

Heiji frowned. "How ya figure? Shin—Kudo's got a mind of his own, an' he's not easily influenced, even by you, oh master manipulator. There's no way ya coulda made him break up with me, Kai."

"But I'm the one who introduced him to Aoko," Kaito whispered.

And while Heiji was off in Osaka, trying to make a long distance relationship work, Kaito was in Tokyo, pushing Shinichi and Aoko together until the thought that maybe there could be love after Ran finally penetrated Shinichi's mind. Kaito'd arranged parties and heists and karaoke (at which he made sure that Kudo didn't sing) until cheating on Heiji didn't seem quite so unforgivable to Shinichi as it once had.

And Kaito wasn't sorry.

Because he was a bad, evil, selfish person when it really came down to it.

Heiji sighed and shook his head. "Kai, ya may have introduced 'em, but Kazuha is th' one that eventually decided t' quit waiting fer me an' go with Hakuba, and Kudo's the one that decided he wanted Nakamori-han instead of me. Even if ya were the reason they met, and even if ya were the reason they kept runnin' int' each other, they're the ones that made the decision t' walk away from me. I don't blame you fer that. I'm not angry at you, Kaito. It's not your fault…so will ya come stay at my house fer the heist?"

Kaito sat there flabbergasted for a full minute before he whimpered, "N-No. I can't."

Heiji wanted to put his head through a wall, but he was afraid the sound would wake his mother…and she would kill him for the property damage. "Why the hell not?"

Kaito gulped. "Now that you're single…I'm afraid…I might do something we'll both regret if I'm alone with you." He held his breath and screwed his eyes shut, dreading his crush's answer.

Heiji's eyes widened in shock at first, but a slow smirk gradually spread across his face, and he chuckled, "Come anyway. I swear you won't regret it."

Kaito forced himself to breathe as his mind reeled. He was sure this was a huge mistake, but… "…Okay."

The

End