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Every now and then, over the years, Kokichi Oma had wondered what would happen if he let Detective Shuichi Saihara take him in to face the music. Like, for real “take him in,” without some kinda scheme already in the works to get free. It wasn’t every day somebody managed to snag a proudly infamous phantom thief, right? And Detective Saihara had devoted so much of his career to tracking Kokichi here and there, across the gaping, ridiculous world. It was just so damn flattering. Who knew what would happen if he let Shuichi do whatever it was he might want, after so long chasing him?
Heh! Sometimes he’d even thought about saying that, honestly. Letting his voice get low and strange, offering his Mr. Detective the chance to take what he wanted. Put on the cuffs, lock him away, tie him up or scatter kisses all down his neck like dropping fancy jewels one by one into your pockets. It probably wouldn’t go down the way it did in Kokichi’s flushed, embarrassing daydreams – the ones his D.I.C.E. gang members teased him about – but at least then he would know.
Or, that’s what he’d thought before. Surrendering to Shuichi was an open-ended possibility, a question that would never be satisfied. And that was fine, mostly. Thinking about it was like swaying along something high, high up, feeling the bite of cold air on his face. Maybe Kokichi would be able to catch himself if he fell – maybe there would be a little game, there, too, so he’d manage it laughing. All wildness and freedom and chance. But then again, maybe not. Kokichi had balanced along his fair share of crumbling gargoyle rooftops, all across the world. He’d ducked into slimy gutters chanting, “Ew, ew,” under his breath and made dripping skyscrapers into his own twisting house of mirrors. Shuichi was a gamble, just like balancing, just like thievery. Maybe that was why Kokichi had left behind pieces of himself, trying to give Shuichi an idea who he was. A couple bottles of unopened grape soda; a pack of Yu-Gi-Oh cards he’d picked out carefully to match what he’d seen of the detective’s personality. Maybe that was why he and D.I.C.E. had stolen something from every single continent – unless Kokichi was lying about Antarctica, which he’d really have to insist he wasn’t –just to give Shuichi a good show.
Then, everything changed. Kokichi’d changed it, actually, and now he knew he’d have to deal with whatever it was he’d done. He hadn’t been meaning to confess, of course. While he and D.I.C.E. were stealing all those prizes from the stupid killing game-inspired TV show, Kokichi had seen Shuichi sitting slumped in a rental car… Looking just worn out. Something about him was faded and raw, and Kokichi had thought, “Aw, man! That’s no good.” Shuichi’s lips were chapped; his eyes were red and sticky. He’d been late to the crime scene, which really wasn’t like him. Kokichi’d gone over with travel Aspirin in his pocket, to check up on the poor guy. His feet had been moving almost before he completely thought it through. He hummed something nonchalant under his breath as he moved, trying to believe this was easy, breaking into Shuichi’s car, flopping down next to him all defenseless and eager.
And then he’d offered some truths, which was a pretty unspeakable thing to do, too. He’d offered a kiss, claiming it was to win a bet with his gang members. The kiss was true. The bet… Eh. And then –
“Was this ‘bet’ another one of your lies, Kokichi?”
“Well, you never really know. I am a liar. Maybe I’m trying to tell you I’m in love with you.”
“Are you?”
“Do you want me to be?”
Shuichi’s silence had been like balancing on the edge of a building, again, sirens in the air, fog drifting like cold silk through Kokichi’s fingers. Shuichi’s silence had been like realizing maybe he couldn’t keep his balance, and maybe there weren’t any handholds on the way down, and maybe the answer to that old question “What would Shuichi Saihara do if he could take whatever he wanted from his favorite phantom thief?” might not be something Kokichi wanted to hear after all. Everything about their game might taste wrong if Shuichi said, “No,” you know? Like candy somebody soaked in vinegar for a prank.
So, Kokichi’d run away. It felt like the logical thing to do; it steadied the new, sick feeling in his stomach, and gave him a little power over what might otherwise have been a really bleak morning. Whenever he’d run before, Detective Saihara was right behind him, grey eyes solemn and sure the way they only really got when the chase was on. Otherwise, Shuichi had such a shy, gentle look about him. He couldn’t smile without it touching his eyes, making them softer. Way, way too honest. Kokichi would feel practically naked, if he went around looking as earnest and real as Shuichi did. He had felt too revealed there, even, with those thoughts – do you want me to love you? – dangling in the air between them.
Now, Kokichi was preparing his next prank. Shuichi was going to give him an answer soon enough, when it all came together – if he showed up, of course. If he still wanted to play. One of Kokichi’s D.I.C.E. members had rubbed his back that morning, murmuring kind words. Encouragements. “This heist is ridiculous, he’s going to love it.” That sort of thing. Another D.I.C.E. member had gathered them all breakfast in the shady hotel room where they were staying under a pun-filled alias. She teased Kokichi gently about the candy he asked her to grab for him, and he teased her about the way she’d been flirting with the creepy guy behind the receptionist desk.
There was nothing sadder than an unnoticed prank, and especially nothing sadder than a prank that went unnoticed by Shuichi Saihara. Kokichi had a lot riding on this one. Honestly, he’d scrapped the next couple plans he’d had lined up to mess with Shuichi, and pulled together something entirely new. Hopefully it would be good enough. Hopefully it would be funny, and hopefully Shuichi was going to say “Yes I want you to love me, and more than that – I’ve loved you, too.” As a phantom, an idea, a riddle… And as a person who’d sent pretty strong hints about wanting to play Yu-Gi-Oh sometime. As a detective, just and sure and determined…. And as a kind man Kokichi honestly didn’t expect to lie to him.
Setting up for this latest, possibly most-important scheme had taken most of the day. It wasn’t gonna be noticed until after the weekend – not by anybody, probably – because the fancy theater hall was closed for pest control reasons. Wink, wink. It hadn’t been too hard to fake a bug-related emergency. Not with the kind of connections Kokichi had… And this actually wasn’t the first time D.I.C.E. members had pretended to be involved in the insecticide-spraying business. (Not that they’d really sprayed any insecticide around, mind you. Kokichi’s connections probably wouldn’t have been able to forgive him for something like that.) So, in the meantime – with most of the pieces laid out and a couple super-rare original ancient play scripts waiting in his backpack – Kokichi was standing across the street from where he knew Shuichi’s detective office was. There was just one more thing he needed to do to set everything in motion. He needed one of Shuichi’s business cards, to slip it into the right hands. Dr. Korekiyo Shinguji was gonna be really pissed that some of the ancient plays he’d loaned to the theater had just wandered away, but he might call on a different detective if Kokichi didn’t play his cards right. That guy had weird taste, you could tell just by looking at him. He would also be willing to monologue at Shuichi for a good long while, though, giving D.I.C.E. some time to put finishing touches on their upcoming performance.
Kokichi was wearing an old, torn white raincoat and an expensive wig, just then; he had on slick, hipster-ish glasses and one of those masks that meant he had a cold. In the past, Shuichi had had a little more trouble figuring out Kokichi’s disguises when he changed his swimmy purple eyes somehow. That was sort of sweet, he’d always thought – like Mr. Detective might’ve liked his eyes, or something. Probably the glasses would be enough, though. They sort of had to be, since one of Kokichi’s D.I.C.E. members had borrowed his color contact set for a solo adventure.
The sun was just about to slip away completely, but Kokichi knew Shuichi would be working for a few hours more, at least. There were puddles of rain along the sidewalk, dripping into all the concrete cracks, watering the weeds. The neon sign above the Luminary of the Stars Astronaut Bar had just flickered on – that was where Shuichi ended up interviewing a lot of suspects, and Kokichi had always thought the rocket ship logo was pretty cute. Innocent, in a way. The bar’s owner had been eyeing him suspiciously, though, swabbing the counter and “tsk”-ing every now and then. He’d have to get a move on, right?
Kokichi took a deep, shuddering breath. The air smelled like whatever the astronaut bar guy was cooking; a car trundled past, sloshing a little rainwater up and on to his shoes. The sky looked like a bruise, smudgy and painful and honest as Shuichi’s smiles. Kokichi crossed the street and got honked at by another car, driving way too fast. He smiled and waved at them, cheekily.
Then, it was up the stairs. Kokichi knocked at Detective Shuichi Saihara’s door and tried not to think about how sorry and bleeding his eyes would look if he had to say “No.” No, you’re a job to me, more than anything – no, I’ve been trying to catch you, not court you. No, I can’t imagine we’d have any kind of future.
Shuichi called, “The door’s open! Come inside,” in a tired, inviting voice. A customer-service voice. So, Kokichi did. He brushed the rainwater off his shoes in the entryway – he stood, staring, awestruck, around at Shuichi’s walls.
There was his own damn face, a couple dozen times. Maybe more? There he was disguised, and there he was beaming ‘cause he’d just stolen something cool and almost totally stumped Shuichi. There was his plastic clown mask, and there were his friends from D.I.C.E. Shuichi’s crisp, efficient handwriting provided commentary next to all those pictures. Next to maps of Kokichi’s path across the world, with a big question mark over Antarctica; next to notes Kokichi had written and left around for Shuichi to find over the years. There were shelves full of case files and pieces of evidence, too – Kokichi didn’t look too long, but he thought he even saw the Yu-Gi-Oh deck he’d left behind for Shuichi way back when. So, he’d kept it after all.
“Oh, hello,” Shuichi said to him from behind his desk. The detective was sitting in a puddle of golden light, an old-fashioned lamp pooling over his notebooks and a cup of half-finished coffee. One time, Kokichi had played up just how much he hated coffee, watching Shuichi drink it… And then immediately asked for a taste. He knew how Shuichi took his coffee, after that. Now, it looked like the detective was flipping through a couple pages of pictures about a home invasion. There was a smashed TV, and an angry message scribbled on the sliding glass door. Shuichi tucked those papers under his arm and smiled. “I’m Shuichi Saihara. Please, take a seat. How can I help you?”
Kokichi had a story planned out for this. He was going to talk about a close friend of his he was worried for – he was going to say he was sure her boyfriend was being cruel to her… Cheating on her, gambling her rent money away. Something mundane but heartfelt, the sort of case he knew Shuichi thought was tedious but that he’d offer up his contact info for, anyway. It took him a second to get going on it, though. It took him another glance around at all the pictures of his own self in that office – at Shuichi’s hardwood bookshelves, at his coat and hat hanging up on a rack, at his simple, dark curtains. This was where Shuichi spent his days, when he wasn’t flying halfway around the world to meet Kokichi in some strangers’ city.
For a moment, Kokichi imagined himself swinging by that office to drop off Shuichi’s lunch, maybe bringing him something nice like boba tea. He imagined bantering back and forth about how their days had gone, knowing they’d both end up back in the same apartment sometime later that night. He’d ask for a second chair behind Shuichi’s desk maybe, a little over to the side. Reading manga and nudging Shuichi every now and then to show him the especially good parts. (Or maybe, you know… Being helpful?)
“Getting into the mind of a crook, I’d say the answer here is definitely to grovel and swear eternal fealty to their gang! They’ll be so busy drafting up the entrance paperwork, they won’t notice you sneaking off with the cash!”
“Okay, be serious, Kokichi. We’ve only got one shot at this.”
“Hm. Your loss! … Okay, fine. Just follow my lead!”
Or something like that.
It was strange, maybe, that Kokichi hadn’t been in Shuichi’s office before that moment. Truth be told, he’d always sort of imagined being invited in, someday. Maybe Shuichi’d be in trouble and need his help with something. A plot like that… Sort of like something out of a manga, now that Kokichi thought about it. Anyway, it had felt like cheating to break in somewhere like that office. Like skipping a few crucial steps in whatever game they were playing at the time. Kokichi’s hideouts shifted, but Shuichi had kept the same office he’d inherited from his uncle. It had been a little like an unspoken truce zone, as far as Kokichi was concerned.
The rules had changed now, though, hadn’t they? Their relationship wouldn’t be the same once Shuichi gave him a definitive answer. Some of Kokichi’s friends with D.I.C.E. had had to talk him out of sending Shuichi on a weeks’ long scavenger hunt leading up to that prank. They’d said it wouldn’t be good for his nerves, stretching the whole thing out. Better to rip it off quick, like a band-aid or an easy mark.
They were probably right. Kokichi wasn’t the kind of Supreme Leader Thief Lord that didn’t listen to his team, after all.
Kokichi left Detective Saihara’s office with a business card and a little disappointment at not being recognized even without color contacts. A line was already forming outside the Luminary of the Stars bar, and the moon was round and polished as a coin placed over the eyes of the dead. Kokichi pulled his hood up over that expensive wig he’d worn, and trotted off into the coming night until it swallowed him whole.
…
In Kokichi’s experience, the more complicated a plan was the more likely it would all tumble together into some kind of “success.” “Complicated” usually meant he had thought about all the ways something could go wrong and tried to put sneaky, supervillain-level machinations into place to keep stuff from falling apart. It felt natural, most of the time, the way carving wax might to an artist, or making everything space-themed might to a dork who was obsessed with the vague concept of being an astronaut.
Ahem – looking at you, Mr. Astronaut Bar.
That weekend, though, Kokichi just felt like he was micromanaging everything. D.I.C.E. members tried to cheer him up – they offered to do an impromptu game tournament, for instance, and kept raising and raising the stakes until Kokichi couldn’t resist. They just casually pulled up the most mindless comedy movies they could find on television, too. One of Kokichi’s teammates even helped him practice looking nonchalant and cold, if Shuichi did reject him after all they’d been through together… After that time they’d had to team up and escape from a crooked cop’s drug ring somewhere in Europe, for instance. After the way Shuichi had backed him up to the police when he pulled a couple heists targeting the Killing Game Lounge.
“Aw, I got rejected!” Kokichi practiced drawling. Shaking his head; keeping his eyes hard. “That’s okay. I don’t give up easily! Except… What if I do? Is that what you want, Mr. Detective?”
Saying that he was amazed by Shuichi Saihara – saying that the stealing thing D.I.C.E. did was to draw his eye, saying that the chase made being alive really living – the detective had heard all those words before. Kokichi was always offering him glinting fool’s gold words. Calling him socially inept one minute, describing him licking up dust in the corner of the room, and then wondering aloud if they’d been lovers in a past life. All that song and dance. It meant so, so much to Kokichi, but also so little that he could barely remember all the lies he’d told Shuichi as time went by.
But Kokichi could tell the kiss had mattered. Shuichi had believed it. The warmth of him, the wanting, whatever it was. Shuichi had believed that more than he believed any of Kokichi’s words. Of course he hadn’t been able to disguise it as a simple bet. Would the detective he’d risked so much for – the detective he stayed up late planning for, the detective he’d stolen priceless shit that didn’t mean a thing to him for – have been conned by as easy a trick as all that?
Kokichi wasn’t sure any plan would ever have been good enough to follow up his first kiss with Shuichi Saihara. The first confession of love Shuichi had ever believed… He was still tweaking the finer details of his scheme on Monday morning, after the theater had already tried to open and found everything wrong. People were probably wondering what the fuck they could possibly do with all the stuff Kokichi had affixed throughout the building – the maze of make-believe skyscrapers, for one. The miniature Killing Game Lounge with a big boot sticking out of it. All the inside jokes he’d scattered through that place, getting it ready for its transformation later on that day. They were probably just now finding some of the booby traps scattered around – dodging harmless firecrackers, getting silly string-ed in the face.
Kokichi had stolen the whole theater. They were probably just now figuring that out, and there would be festive police tape everywhere. All the better to set the mood, really.
Shuichi would probably appreciate the effort, anyway. Even if it wasn’t enough. Even if Kokichi’s voiceover commentary shook a couple times in the recording, and he’d had to re-tape things to get them appropriately diabolical. Lots of cackling, lots of nostalgia. Lots of trying to prove their history to Shuichi, which was maybe not the right way to go about it. God, maybe Kokichi should’ve just gone with the idea of gambling everything he’d ever stolen in a single card game. That could’ve been exciting, at least. Maybe he’d do that, at the end? Offer up the wager if Shuichi managed to grab him?
It could be fun, starting over from the ground up. Watching Shuichi return all their thieves’ horde to the masses. A hero. Kokichi would have to record TV reports about something like that; D.I.C.E. would throw popcorn at the screen when nasty politicians gave their little speeches of praise, but it would be nice to see Shuichi all dressed up and getting called an amazing detective. Who knew what could happen, if Kokichi threw a card game like that. Who knew what he’d ask for if he won? Maybe an ordinary date, somewhere no one could know them. Maybe Detective Saihara’s beating heart in a jar. Something about Shuichi made him want to improvise, normally. Drew the lies out of him like fake blood from a fake wound.
Now, Kokichi was sitting on his hotel bed, surrounded by the mess that followed him wherever he set up shop for too long. He was fiddling with a little game on one of his burner phones, trying not to rework his script anymore. He’d get dressed up soon – a clown mask, a cape that moved like smoke. He’d clap and pose dramatically, arms stretched wide.
Kokichi’d been keeping up with his gang over the course of the morning, too. Texting back and forth in a complicated and probably unnecessary code. The girl he’d sent to check in on Dr. Shinguji had been messaging commentary on everything she learned about anthropology before the museum curator got a call from the theater, and then everything she learned about how exactly a person went about tearing out another person’s nerves shortly afterward. Yeah, he was about as furious as Kokichi’d expected. Something about a “heartless crime” against the preservation of culture?
Shuichi’d probably just win the plays back, anyway. No big deal! But Kokichi’s teammate had made her eyes go wide and fascinated to calm the guy down a little. She’d asked a lot of questions about this dusty old tome or that antique sword with flaky gold stuff on it until Shuichi showed up. Just, you know. To make sure he did. Kokichi had copied Shuichi’s card and pinned duplicates on the community bulletin board outside Korekiyo’s apartment, and at the spooky, unsanitary diner he liked, and on the telephone pole outside his museum… But still. The guy could’ve been thinking about mummies or whatever and completely missed it.
But Shuichi appeared right on schedule, wearing a dark striped coat and nodding along as the anthropologist explained exactly what had been stolen in all its cultural context. He took notes, attentive as if back at school, with a pad of paper cradled easily in his palm. Kokichi’s teammate lingered for a minute or two, texting about how Detective Saihara was doing and whether or not she was afraid he’d get his nerves ripped out. The final verdict was, “Nah, Dr. Shinguji seems to love what a good listener he is. We’re probably good.”
And then she’d messaged, “Coming home!” with a lot of nonsense emoticons, and Kokichi had sent back a bunch of Cheshire cat faces and palm trees of his own. Alrighty then. He was still in his pajamas when his teammate came back, but it didn’t matter really. He’d practically grown up with D.I.C.E. They knew him better than he knew himself, most days.
Except that his teammate had something with her when she got back – a dark blue envelope, sealed up all nice. She said, “Detective Saihara gave it to me like he knew who I was! But he didn’t call the cops on me, or anything. And he waited until Dr. Shinguji was done reminding me not to play with his old swords. Weird, right?” She tossed some of Kokichi’s papers over her shoulder to clear a spot on the edge of the bed to sit. “Do you want me to open it in case he rigged the seal, or something?”
“Set it on fire,” Kokichi said, in his best order-giving voice. His heart was hammering; his mouth tasted dry as the desert where he’d stolen an actual dead pharaoh’s stuff and talked Shuichi into declaring “It’s time to duel!” before he got locked up for the night. “No. No, please. Just pass it to me?”
“Sure, boss,” Kokichi’s teammate said. Her eyes were soft and knowing. She squeezed her Supreme Leader’s hand just a little, as he took the letter from her. For a moment Kokichi thought about ripping the paper into tiny, tiny pieces and then skipping town. But that was the sort of thing he’d say he was gonna do.
The note was short, but it was enough. Shuichi’s handwriting was neater here than Kokichi had ever seen it – like he’d practiced the note a couple times, maybe sitting in that circle of honey-warm light in his office. Under a light rain; under an aching bruise of a sky.
“You’ve seen my office, now, so tell me what you make of the evidence – would you say I think about you all the time? I tried not to, believe me.”
And then on the other side,
“It feels impossible, but I think you know my answer, Kokichi.
Thank you for the Aspirin. The rental car bill was almost as over-the-top as you are.”
Kokichi remembered back to Detective Saihara’s walls – plastered with his own face, his own words. Little pieces of him left behind. Like trying to pin down a ghost, sure, but more than that. He remembered back to that sense of endlessness he had felt throwing himself down crusty fire escapes and through the sort of alleys where street dogs gnawed uncanny-looking bones that may or may not have had strips of fabric clinging to them, running from Shuichi, but… No, that wasn’t it at all. Running so Shuichi would chase him. He felt that endlessness again, looking at the note, knowing Shuichi hadn’t been able to wait to say those words to him aloud.
“Someone’s impatient,” Kokichi thought of saying to him, later. Soon enough, now. “I don’t dislike that.”
“I didn’t think you would,” Shuichi might have answered. Kokichi could hear it clear as day, in his soft, measured voice.
He shook his head and laughed; it was hard to stop laughing as he stood up and fished his clown mask out from under one of his too-many stuff piles. It was better than crying, he imagined. He threw open one of the hotel curtains, reckless as anything. The sky was a stormy and swollen dark, even there in the middle of the day. The perfect sort of weather to be a phantom; the perfect sort of weather to make promises and hope against hope someone might believe them. Also, it wouldn’t be too hot to wear a cape!
Kokichi watched rain splatter against the cracked sidewalk; he thought about what he’d say to Detective Saihara when he caught him, now. Now that he felt so wanted. He thought about what Shuichi would expect, and what he’d be willing to believe. Worst comes to worst, Kokichi would just have to show his detective what it was he meant. Like he had before, in the car. With the warmth of him, with hands and closeness and unspoken truths.
“This is gonna be fun,” Kokichi told his teammate, tossing her a smile. Told Shuichi, sort of, from not-that-far away. Coming closer all the time. “I wonder what kinda face he’ll give me when I tell him all about the game this time?”