“What are you even doing in the middle of the night? It’s a curfew.” Hakuba can’t believe his luck, he somehow spotted his former classmate along the empty streets of Koi. It’s almost like a ghost town when cops and watch teams are patrolling throughout the city. He even volunteered, slightly for a bit. Still skeptical however, he knew Kuroba is a bit of a lazy dimwit to begin with. ( I’m so sorry Kaito ).
Despite that, Hakuba crossed his arms in amusement. This time he didn’t accuse him as the thief.“Unless you’re playing detective Kuroba, I expect you to look professional. The culprits can be tricky to catch even. You better start talking.”
“Does it matter? I could be asking you the same thing.”
He had almost managed a vacation away from annoying detectives, yet here they were. In retrospect, though, he should have expected it; murders attracted detectives after all- or was it the other way around?
“Anyways, for your information, I just so happen to be on my way home.”
It was a blatant lie, and he didn’t even care if Hakuba realized it.
"You know I don’t care about your stupid detective games, so you don’t have to worry. I’m not a threat to your reputation. This time.”
He wasn’t even referring to KID this time, as Hakuba had so kindly evaded the topic as well. Maybe someday, Kaito would solve a mystery before him, just to spite the poor bastard. That was a thought.
she crosses her arms while furrowing her eyebrows – faking irritation as easily as he fakes being insulted as, just like kaito, the grin on her lips betrays her. however, when kaito makes a rose appear being sticking into her hair, kazuha can’t help but blush.
still, despite her blush ( and the slight quickening of her heart – she doesn’t usually like to show it when she’s flattered, but it should be okay once in a while, right ? ), she raises an eyebrow at kaito’s comment. ‘ if so, does that mean ya’ll be usin’ the FRONT door from now on, since now i should expect ya to come visit me through the balcony ? ’
He’s smug at her blush; even if she doesn’t say it out loud, he knows she’s pleased, and that just strokes his ego all the more.
(Not that he’ll ever admit it, but is also assuages his fears- he wants to make her happy, even when it’s hard to admit that much without hiding it behind a wall of teasing like he had always done with Aoko, and sometimes it’s hard.)
“Nope, because now you expect me to use the front door since I showed you my logic. I can’t use the balcony door though, either, so maybe I should find some other place. Do you have any recommendations? The roof, perhaps?”
kazuha had BLINKED upon seeing the call from kaito, but she answered it before putting it to her own ear. her eyebrows furrow in confusion, however, upon hearing kaito’s request to open her door, but she nods ( even though kaito can’t see her ) as she states, ‘ yeah, i got ya. ’ walking to the front of her apartment, kazuha opens the door with one hand only to blink ( yet again ) when she notices no one there.
‘ err – kaito – ’she starts before realising her folly ( would kaito really go through the front door ? well, he DID sometimes, but… ) ‘ ya need ta tell me if yer at the front door or the balcony door ‘cause if ya just say “door” i dun’o what you mean, ’ she complains as she walks from the front door to her apartment to her balcony, opening the curtains and the door. she hung up the phone once she’d opened the curtains and put it back in her pocket. still, despite her complaints, she GRINS when she sees kaito. ‘ ya couldn’t’ve used the front door like a normal person, idiot ? ’
“I thought you knew me better than that, Kazuha! Did you really expect me to use the front door, like a normal person?”
He’s only teasing despite the hurt leaking into his voice, and his grin is proof enough. Kazuha knows he’s not exactly a ‘normal person’, and frankly, he’s more offended that she would clump him in with the common rabble.
“I only use the front door for people I don’t like. It makes them confused and scared.”
He slides past Kazuha and through the doorway, but not before producing a rose the same color as her bow and sticking it in her hair.
“You know, that’s a magician thing. When you do a trick too much, people start to expect the trick, so you have to change it up and do something else.”
There weren’t many people on the street, which made sense considering Kaito was loitering around a fairly residential part of Osaka, and that made it even easier to look at ease where he currently was, perched on a certain balcony with his phone to his ear. He couldn’t see Kazuha through the door, but he sure hoped she was at least at home; if she wasn’t, it would make his entire trip pointless.
“Random question for no important reason at all, but can you open your door?”
It was harder avoiding detection than he thought, and frankly, Kaito was starting to get a little hungry from the effort. Usually, he wouldn’t steal for the sake of keeping the stolen goods - thievery was a KID thing that he tried to limit to jewels, and he couldn’t exactly return food if he ate it - but desperate times called for desperate measures, and he was sure that the popcorn shop wouldn’t mind if a pound or two of their caramel corn went missing.
However, just as he placed his hands against the window frame, searching for any kind of weakness that he could use to jimmy it open, a bright light shone on him and he froze. One, two seconds passed before he finally turned around, shocked and berating himself for getting lazy and not paying attention to his surroundings. His hands went up, away from the window as he spoke-
“I-It’s not what you think-!”
Although, considering the fact that it was probably very early in the morning and Kaito was breaking several laws just by being outside, he wasn’t sure what the other was actually thinking.
Actually, the other guy was also breaking several laws just by being outside. Huh.
There were only so many hours in the day, and to Kaito’s dismay those hours were only being shortened by the idiotic law enforcement of the town. Nothing kept a criminal indoors, not even if that criminal wasn’t a mass murderer, and they should have realized it sooner.
That was why, one jimmied-open window and inflatable dummy later, Kaito was strolling down the streets well after curfew, taking care to keep to the shadows and avoid any cops- or civilians, for that matter, because some of them seemed just a little bit too eager to arrest a lonely straggler. What they didn’t realize - and he had, because he was a genius, thank you very much - was that tracking down a killer was much easier when you could think and act like a killer; namely, by yourself. And hell, with all the stores closed, Kaito had nothing better to do anyways. Heading outside and searching for clues was far better than staying indoors and moping around all night, anyways.
The only negative was that he was being a bit too cocky; while cops and angry mobs were easy to hear and see coming, other individuals like himself would have been harder, and so he let himself get lost in thought as he wandered, only listening for loud sirens and chitter chatter rather than footsteps or breathing.
“Now if I were a master criminal, where would I go?”
“You know, I thought this place was supposed to be…..happier.”
Koi was a land of love and pairings, or whatever the flyer had touted it as. And yet here Kaito was, halfway through his second hot chocolate, leafing through the news and not finding anything positive to report on. There were people dying, the police were cutting off his nightly activities, and the hot chocolate in the city cost him an arm, a leg and several points off of his dignity. And it didn’t even taste that good!
“Is anyone else’s style feeling sorely cramped, or is it just me?”
It was nearing that time of night, when everybody was wandering out of the streets and towards their respective homes. Usually the streets would have been livelier with nightlife - or so Kaito assumed, considering he was still new to the streets of Koi - but the curfew was strict, and nobody wanted to pay fines, or be put under suspicion, just for going out for a few drinks.
That was probably why he was being looked at, or at least that was the assumption he was going on. He was just getting ready to go home, helmet already nestled against his birds nest mess of hair, when he had noticed the kid - really, he looked about the same age as Kaito, but Kaito wasn’t exactly keen on respecting strangers - staring at him. Shooting a deadpan look back, he scowled shortly after.
