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“Kaitou.”
Really, Daiki thinks. It couldn’t possibly have taken this long to find him. Tsukasa was ignoring him for so long, and now he just… chooses to appear? Asshole.
He doesn’t let himself turn around face him, though, because then he might give in and do something he’d regret, like falling right back into the other Rider’s orbit. Worlds and probability and defiance break around Tsukasa’s sheer presence .
He says. “Tsukasa.”
It’s a dance. Some strange thing between them that even now, even after the Superhero War, after… after what happens, he can’t deny. The thrill of making a Tsukasa chase after him for a change.
“I need my card.”
“Would you fight me for it?”
He finally turns around, and Tsukasa stares right back, not giving anything away, and Daiki tries but he could never master the numb way Tsukasa could appear to interpret the world.
It’s not true. Tsukasa’s real neutral face looks bored . He’s feeling something while looking at Daiki.
(And man does Daiki hate himself for still desperately trying to see scraps of caring from Tsukasa even now, when Tsukasa had kicked him from their ho—from the photo studio and then betrayed him, but he can’t stop the urge.)
“Do I have to?” Tsukasa asks. It’s said in that despicable way of his, however. That way that isn’t really a question.
Spitefully, Daiki replies “Maybe you do.”
The silent goes on for longer than it should. Both knowing the truth.
Daiki thinks about the way the big machine had altered his perception, turned his endless frustration and very real anger into something evil.
Kaitou Daiki is not a villain. He’s a thief . He hates the fake dichotomy in it all.
He couldn’t fight Tsukasa right in this moment, and Tsukasa, damn him, knows that.
Daiki can’t help it, he laughs.
“So what ,” he says. “Do you suppose we do ?”
“I need my card.”
Daiki… does not think he’s ever had a small emotion related to Tsukasa.
Tsukasa and his way of speaking reality into being, be it ordering monsters to destroy worlds or somehow making him into a new person one and a half times over.
“And then we never see each other again?” Daiki asks, as though it’s possible. The Worlds drop Daiki not far from the one who had given him this power far too often.
“Perhaps,” Tsukasa says.
Daiki hates when Tsukasa is like this. He hates about as much of Tsukasa as he really, truly loves, and unfortunately he isn’t quite as forgiving as Tsukasa himself is.
He feels trapped , and he hates feeling trapped.
And yet.
I need my card.
Daiki throws it to him, and Tsukasa is, shockingly, so surprised that it embeds itself in the wall behind him.
Daiki always forgets how hard and sharp those things are.
Tsukasa doesn’t move to get it yet, however.
“Kaitou—”
“I don’t want to hear it, Tsukasa,” Daiki says. “I truly meant it when I said I never wanted to see your face again.”
Meant. Past tense. Because it can’t hold for long.
Tsukasa all but stalks forwards, and Daiki finds himself rooted in place.
Get out.
You’re never here when it counts.
It’s the memories that let Daiki push Tsukasa back.
“Kaitou.”
“Tsukasa.”
Another silence.
“What are we?” Daiki asks. “Because I don’t know, I never fucking know, with you.”
Tsukasa doesn’t answer. The silence gives his answer away. He doesn’t know either, he’s just bullshitting .
Daiki can’t help but scoff.
“Kaitou.”
“Tsukasa.”
It’s officially a loop, and Daiki hates it. But he doesn’t know what else to say.
Tsukasa steps closer once more, and Daiki lets him, meets him.
He’s not sure if it’s the relief or the self hatred of Tsukasa’s lips on his that have him crying, he just knows that he lets it keep going until they’re in one of his satelite houses and very much naked.
He knows which one it is by the time he falls asleep, tracing the angry red mark of the half healed scar on Tsukasa’s back and knowing that it was necessity that brought him here and not desire.
(He ignores the trust implicit in the fact that Tsukasa falls asleep first because he doesn’t know what to do with it.)
He wakes up first, and he does what he does every time he gets scared. He runs.
Tsukasa wakes up alone, yet unsurprised.
He wakes up and wonders why it hurts worse than it had since the night right after Natsumi had died.