Archive of Our Own

It probably comes as no surprise that between the two of them, Kaito is the one who’s more prone to fits of romantic grandstanding. In fact, it’s gotten to the point that exes of his have accused him of “performative affection” and “trying to distract from their relationship issues with grand gestures” and “loving confetti bombs, brushstroke calligraphy, and the French language more than he loves them.” They may well have all been right, considering how now that he’s with Shinichi, Kaito realizes that his previous definition of love may have been insufficient, as it were.

(Incidentally, when Kaito told Shinichi this revelation one night, couching it in much lovelier language about Shinichi teaching him the meaning of love and opening his eyes to the wonders of life and illuminating the magnificence of the universe, Shinichi blinked at him and said, “Uh, okay. Do you mind getting lightbulbs tomorrow? The ones in the bathroom are burned out and it’s really creepy seeing my reflection in the mirror when it’s all dark in there.”

“Didn’t you just get back from investigating a bunch of clown-themed beheadings?” Kaito said, bewildered. “How are you scared of a dark bathroom?” Shinichi squinted at him and rolled onto his other side in a sulk. Kaito went out and got the lightbulbs the next day.)

Shinichi, for his part, is the exact opposite. If Kaito were one end of the spectrum, Shinichi would be several solar systems away at the very opposite end. He seems to be allergic to performing overt acts of stereotypical romance. An example of this might be their second anniversary, which they agreed to let Shinichi plan. Kaito came home to find Shinichi lying naked on their bed, scrolling through his phone. He barely looked up when Kaito came in.

“Sorry, one second,” he said, tapping away on the screen. For a moment Kaito had entertained scenarios of Shinichi throwing his phone down once he finished his LINE message and launching into a sonnet, or maybe extracting a guitar from somewhere on his very attractive person and starting a delightfully out-of-tune serenade. (As much as Kaito loves Shinichi, he has no illusions about Shinichi’s musical ability.) Both options were quite appealing until Shinichi set his phone on the nightstand and rolled onto his stomach, at which point Kaito’s thoughts were directed elsewhere.

“Ready?” said Shinichi after an expectant pause. Kaito, distracted, tore his gaze away from Shinichi’s exposed backside to meet his eyes.

“For what?”

Shinichi made a small huffing noise. It was the sound he made when he thought Kaito was being deliberately obtuse.

“Paperwork from the blood tests is back,” he said, gesturing at the nightstand, which was such an unexpected sentence that Kaito took a moment to parse through it all. “Both of us are clean. You can check for yourself.”

“When did you take my blood?” asked Kaito, impressed, as he unglued his feet from the carpet to go sift through the papers.

“You know how your doctor called you in for a physical and a blood draw last week even though it’s been less than a year since your last one?” Shinichi said. “I paid him off to do it.” Kaito blinked.

“Should I get a new doctor?”

“Most definitely. I didn’t even pay him that much,” Shinichi agreed, then gave an impatient, cat-like stretch and turned to look at Kaito with an eyebrow raised. “Just so you’re aware, I gave myself an enema before you got here and there’s flavored lube in the drawer. Thoughts?”

Obviously, Kaito had a few thoughts on the subject.

So yes, Shinichi’s particular brand of romance is wildly different from Kaito’s, but it’s not as though Kaito is opposed to it. The reverse also seems to be true, in that Shinichi doesn’t mind Kaito’s more extravagant attempts at romance. While some of Kaito’s previous partners have been embarrassed or even disturbed by Kaito’s gestures—the term “love bombing” has been used in reference to Kaito, unfortunately—Shinichi takes it all in stride, which Kaito accredits to the streak of showmanship that Shinichi never managed to extinguish from his amateur teenaged detective years. No man who puts on deduction shows, complete with dramatic finger-pointing, can claim to hate public attention.

He does manage to sometimes surprise Kaito in how he reacts to things, though. When they first started dating, Kaito hired a skywriter to write “Kudou Shinichi, will you be my boyfriend?” across the sky above Tokyo, then took Shinichi to dinner at a trendy restaurant with a four-month waitlist and a lovely patio area where they could sit and see the skywriting. Shinichi had said yes, of course, but what intrigued Kaito the most was what happened after. The following morning, #kudoushinichiwillyoubemyboyfriend was still trending on Twitter, and Ran called to see if Shinichi knew.

“Yes, that was Kaito,” Shinichi told her. He was curled up on the couch, fresh from a shared shower and wearing one of Kaito’s sweaters. Kaito hovered in the kitchen and pretended to wash dishes while he really eavesdropped and cast covetous looks at the bit of Shinichi’s collarbone that kept slipping out of the sweater. “Of course I said yes. It’s Kaito.” Kaito preened at that. “Hm? What do you mean? No, the only thing that was ridiculous about the whole night was the spice rub on the salmon I ordered. It was awful.”

Kaito stared at the plate he was holding, wondering if his ears were still functioning properly.

“What? Yes, I know how much a skywriter costs—people are saying there was a flash mob? There wasn’t one—whoever’s saying that is lying. Oh, but one of the waiters did serenade us. He was pretty okay.” The man hadn’t actually been a waiter; he had been a classically trained opera singer that Kaito had hired for the night. “That’s not the point. The bill was astronomical—Kaito didn’t manage to hide the check in time before I saw it—and the place has four and a half stars on Yelp. And they put a cinnamon crust on the salmon, Ran. It was definitely the most outrageous part of the whole thing.” Shinichi looked up when Kaito fumbled a plate, pulling the phone from his ear to give him a concerned look. “What’s wrong?”

Kaito has this theory that Shinichi subsists on a diet of pure spite. It would at least explain why he seems to live to subvert expectations. Either that or he’s just naturally the weirdest person Kaito knows.

So yes, Shinichi isn’t a traditional flowers-and-chocolate-and-maybe-some-fireworks-and-a-rented-yacht romantic the way Kaito is, and he’s ambivalent to that brand of romance. But he’s still a romantic, as it turns out. It’s a little embarrassing, actually, that it took Kaito as long as it did to catch on. Especially considering that prior to that realization, there had been lingering doubts in Kaito’s mind about whether Shinichi cared about him as much as Kaito cared about him. It was hard to imagine that Shinichi could reciprocate to the same extent, considering that at times Kaito almost felt sick with love for Shinichi. As in, he would look over at Shinichi existing in some mundane yet oddly compelling way, and feel a sore spot grow in his chest at the blinding amount of feral emotion that he felt in response. Therefore, in Kaito’s mind, it made sense that Shinichi, whose behavior never indicated any similar phenomena or even a particularly strong affection, might not feel the same way about Kaito.

That was the case until the incident with the slippers.

Aside from some Shinichi-related ephemera and a souvenir plush squirrel that he got with Aoko at Tropical Land in middle school, Kaito only has a few worldly possessions that he’s attached to.

That was and continues to be true, with the exception of his slippers. Or, as Kaito still thinks of them in his head, The Slippers. They were these ridiculously overpriced temperature-regulating slippers that his mother got for him from a store in America that promptly went out of business after a year, probably because people refused to support their extortionist prices. They were a women’s size 12 and an eye-searing shade of purple. They were also the most comfortable things that Kaito had ever put on his feet. Shinichi seemed indifferent to them, although he did get an odd wrinkle between his eyebrows the first time he found Kaito carefully hand-washing them in the bathroom sink with imported lavender detergent.

The Slippers met their end two years after Kaito’s mother first got them for him. Kaito went to put them on one morning and found half his foot sticking out of one. Apparently the seam holding the top of the slipper to the sole finally gave in. Shinichi was already at work, so Kaito spent a solid minute cradling The Slippers to his chest before he laid them to rest at the garbage site and sullenly went to start consulting Google for new (and doubtless inferior) slippers.

The following morning, however, Kaito got a surprise. Half asleep, he got out of bed and set his feet on the floor, looked down, and saw that a pair of purple slippers in a women’s size twelve beside his mismatched socks. They were the exact size and brand as his previous slippers. It was as if they had been resurrected into a much younger form.

Kaito went out to the kitchen, wide-eyed and clutching the slippers. Shinichi was standing at the kitchen counter, one hand scrolling through his phone and the other resting possessively on handle of the coffee pot. There was no coffee mug in sight, which was a bit odd, but seeing as there were more pressing matters at hand, Kaito ignored the weirdness for the moment.

“Are you—these—slippers?” he said coherently, brandishing the slippers. Shinichi glanced up from his phone.

“Oh. A few weeks ago I noticed your other ones were getting worn down, so I got you those as a backup,” he said, then picked up the coffeepot and poured coffee directly into his mouth without spilling or looking away from his phone. (That was one mystery solved.) Kaito continued staring at him.

“You got me these? These one hundred and ninety-dollar slippers from an obscure store in America that went out of business over a year ago?” He had to think over what that would entail. Possibly stalking eBay and other even sketchier online venues, possibly selling his soul to a demon, possibly joining some kind of slipper-distributing mafia. (Kaito was perhaps not as awake as he had thought.) No matter what, it would’ve taken an inordinate amount of time, money, and effort. Just so that Kaito could have his slippers.

“I love you more than words can say, Shinichi,” Kaito said, dramatically flinging himself across the kitchen at Shinichi. The slippers went flying somewhere behind him, forgotten for the moment. “I would slay a thousand beasts, nay, a million, just to spend a second in your presence. I would swim every ocean—”

“Watch the coffee,” Shinichi said urgently when Kaito snuggled into his side a little too vigorously.

Kaito started noticing things after that. It was things like Kaito’s favorite brand of tea never running out in the pantry, or forgetting an umbrella on a day forecasted to be rainy and then finding a little collapsible one at the bottom of his bag anyway. Things like complaining about his car being almost out of gas and waking up the next morning to find the tank filled, or like offhandedly mentioning that he’d lost one of his gloves and then seeing a new pair on his bedside table a few days later. Shinichi would never deny that he’d done any of the things if Kaito were to ask directly, but he also never seemed to expect any praise or acknowledgment.

Somehow, over the five years they’ve been together, they’ve come to a silent understanding and appreciation of each other. Kaito will rent out billboards and send massive bouquets to Shinichi’s workplace and learn how to play “Fools Rush In” on the harp, and Shinichi will send Kaito a tasteful nude when Kaito is away from home on business and slip a sandwich and a bag of chips into Kaito’s bag when Kaito’s running late and forgets about lunch. They’re both comfortable enough in their relationship that insecurity seems pointless.

Needless to say, Kaito has also reached the point where he’s sure that he would rather be electrocuted with a cattle prod for every remaining day of his life than live in a world without Shinichi.

“Romantic, but kind of a weird comparison to make,” Aoko says when Kaito invites her over to tell her this revelation. Her thirteen-month-old daughter is crawling around at their feet, cooing enthusiastically, and Kaito is racking his brain to recall the last time they mopped the floor. He decides to abandon the train of thought as Kaede wipes her hand against the floorboards and then shoves her fingers into her mouth with an intrigued gurgle. Well, at least she’s building up her immune system.

“But it’s how I feel,” Kaito says when he returns his attention to Aoko. “The pain of electrocution would be insignificant in comparison to the pain of losing Shinichi.” Aoko gives him a look from where she’s curled up on their sofa.

“Sure, but there’s absolutely no other way you can frame your feelings? Because let me just say, if Saguru had proposed to me by saying he’d choose me over being cattle-prodded for the rest of his natural life, I don’t know that I would’ve accepted.”

“That’s not what I said.” Kaito frowns. “Wait, is that what I said?”

“Regardless,” Aoko says before he can hurt himself thinking about it too hard, “aren’t you the master of romance, or whatever? Shouldn’t you know exactly how to propose?”

“I know what I would do,” Kaito says. “I got us a pair of matching engraved rings and I already bought an island for the proposal. The problem isn’t that I don’t know how to propose. It’s that I’m just not sure it’s how I should do it.” He buries his face in his hands. It’s hard to explain what exactly he’s feeling. “It’s like—I always do something big, right? But a proposal is supposed to be the biggest moment in a relationship, aside from the wedding, maybe, or at least make for a memorable story that can be told to future grandchildren. I feel like I’ve spent the last five years upping the ante, so now I just… don’t know if what I’m planning is big enough.”

“You bought an island?” Aoko says, clearly getting hung up on the wrong thing.

“Yeah, I know a guy,” says Kaito, waving a hand. “It’s a small island. I got it for really cheap since there’s nothing on it except an abandoned sanitorium that people say is haunted.”

“I was about to say that sounds like a horrific place to get engaged, but then I remembered who you’re trying to propose to,” Aoko remarks before Kaito gives her a look and she visibly forces herself to focus on the actual issue at hand. On the floor, Kaede coos, grabs onto Kaito’s ankle, and begins to chew on Kaito’s sock. “Well, from what I can tell, there are two options here. If you want to make it memorable, you can either do what you’ve been thinking and try to outdo all your previous attempts. Or you can go the opposite direction and go really small and simple. Like the kind of proposal that’s just between the two of you. Intimate, you know?” Aoko seems to be gathering steam as she talks; there’s a gleam in her eye as she adds, “I think that could actually be really romantic if you kept things small, since that’s kind of the way that Kudou-kun expresses his affection. It could be a way to show him that you understand how he tells you that he loves you. You know what they say about love languages—people express their feelings in the same way that they best understand them.”

“Do they say that?” Kaito asks, suspicious about this mysterious “they,” as he tries to gently dislodge Kaede from his big toe without kicking her in the face. When Aoko nods enthusiastically and starts Googling things on her phone to show him, Kaito sits back, thoughtful. Well, it would certainly make an impression. And they could always go to the murder island for their honeymoon.

The first thing that Kaito thinks of is a picnic by Beika River at sunset. It seems appropriately lowkey, in the sense that it takes little planning and won’t cost much, assuming that he doesn’t decide to get the extremely expensive wine that Shiratori is always offering to sell him. (As an aside, Kaito isn’t sure that Shiratori does that because he thinks Kaito and Shinichi are the type to appreciate expensive wine, or if he just sees Kaito as an easy target to scam.) Kaito buys a wicker basket and a gingham blanket, looks up a few recipes for tea sandwiches and handheld pies, and checks whether there are any events going on by the river.

Shinichi gets busy with a string of murders in Shinagawa for a little while, and then Kaito gets called out to do a magic show at the bachelor party of the heir of a prosperous corn chip company in Nagoya. And then, once work dies down for both of them, there’s a week straight of outdoor ska concerts by the river, which doesn’t seem like the ideal soundtrack for a proposal, even a lowkey one. So when the timing finally works out and Kaito is relatively sure that trombones will not make an appearance at his proposal, Kaito texts Shinichi a casual hey want to go on a picnic by the river.

Sure, Shinichi replies a few minutes later. We searched it for bodies last week, so it should still be clear.

did u…… find any? Kaito sends against his better judgment.

No, responds Shinichi. Which is pretty good for Beika River. Usually we find at least one and a half.

Kaito briefly reconsiders his plan, but he’s already bought a charcuterie board, so he decides to press on.

The issue arises when they actually have the picnic. The sun is just beginning to set, spilling warm orange light over everything, dabbing the undulating surface of the river with shivering streaks of bronze. Every now and again an errant ray of golden hour sunlight will catch in Shinichi’s eyes or cling to the curve of Shinichi’s lip, and Kaito will lose track of what he’s saying. He’s pretty sure he’s had to restart the story he’s telling about the corn chip heir at least three times.

Shinichi doesn’t seem to notice, or if he does, he doesn’t comment on it. He’s weirdly focused on Kaito, not that Kaito’s complaining. His eyes haven’t left Kaito’s face once, which resulted in him accidentally pouring iced tea into his own lap at one point. He tried to play it off, but Kaito is pretty sure that tea isn’t actually a fabric softener, and even if it was, it wouldn’t make sense to use it on clothes that he’s still wearing. Maybe Shinichi can feel that something’s different about tonight, Kaito theorizes as his heart gives a thump in his chest. Maybe he’s figured out that Kaito is about to propose.

“And then, after he dragged me into the bathroom and made me pinky swear not to tell anyone, Aizawa-san started crying and said that he wasn’t even sure if he was in love with Maizono-san, and that he didn’t even like the Maizono company’s pretzel sticks,” Kaito says. He’s not entirely sure where he was in the story. He might have already said this part. Either way, Shinichi nods.

“So he was having second thoughts about marrying his fiancée?”

“Yes. And then he admitted that he might be in love with Saotome-san.”

“Saotome? His best man?” Shinichi looks appropriately intrigued, his sandwich forgotten in one hand. A leaf of arugula falls out of it onto the blanket. Kaito nods, leaning forward.

“Yeah, the heir to the fruit gummy company. Not the heir to the company that makes soda gummies—that’s Katou-san, who later on in the night admitted that he was having an affair with Maizono-san. Despite being married to Wakamatsu-san, who’s Maizono-san’s matron of honor.” When Shinichi opened his mouth, Kaito added, “Wakamatsu-san is the heiress of a cracker company.”

Shinichi wrinkles his nose.

“Were none of these people allowed to interact with heirs to companies that don’t make snack foods?” He shakes his head. “If they dare to make friends with the heir to a home appliance company, for instance, will they immediately be disowned?”

“Who knows?” Kaito shrugs. “Either way, I’m just glad I got paid in money and not a lifetime supply of corn chips. I was half expecting that when I first got booked.”

“I don’t know,” Shinichi says, thoughtful. “Doesn’t that company make those puffed corn things? I kind of like those.” He brightens. “Maybe if there’s a murder, you can recommend me to solve the case and then they’ll give me a lifetime supply.”

“I doubt there’ll actually be a murder. I mean, sure, there’s a lot of interpersonal stuff going on in there, but people are more rational than that,” Kaito insists half-heartedly. Shinichi gives him a flat look.

“Last week I solved a case where someone killed their neighbor over a tree blocking their view. Their view of the street in front of their house. They lived in a residential area. There wasn’t anything to see except for some power lines and an apartment complex.”

“Point taken.” Kaito smiles to himself at the way Shinichi settles, looking self-satisfied as he finishes the last of his sandwich.

The sun exited the scene gracefully at some point in the conversation. Streetlights are beginning to go on, flickering faintly in the distance like sleepy fireflies. The air takes on a slight chill. In the dim lingering light, Kaito makes eye contact with Shinichi and inhales slowly. His heart is racing the same way it did the first time he stepped off the roof of a building with his hang glider open, the same way it did throughout his very first heist, the same way it did the first time he saw Shinichi’s face as an adult. Shinichi’s eyes are luminous, even more so than usual.

This is it. The moment.

Kaito opens his mouth, his entire body tensed—and explosions go off.

Not metaphorical explosions, Kaito realizes after a stunned moment. He turns to see fireworks going off above the river, painting the sky with an assortment of sparkling colors, dribbling softly down the canvas of night sky once they’ve burned bright enough to make his eyes hurt.

“Oh,” he says, spellbound. For a minute he just looks at them, enraptured—he knows enough about fireworks to know that these are quality, the kind that cost a significant amount—before he snaps out of it. Wait. What if Shinichi thinks that the proposal is related to the fireworks? Fireworks aren’t special enough to put the proposal at Outdoing All of Kaito’s Previous Grand Gestures, but they definitely take it out of Small and Simple territory. He’s landing firmly in the Typical Tuesday for Kaito range, which is exactly what he didn’t want.

Kaito’s stomach sinks. He’s not sure who decided to have a firework show tonight of all nights, and he wishes they would’ve posted it somewhere so he would have at least known not to try to propose here tonight. Pressing his lips together, Kaito starts shoving things back into the basket.

“What’s wrong?” Shinichi asks, alarmed. One look at Shinichi’s face makes Kaito immediately feel guilty. He leans over and kisses him on the cheek, consolatory.

“Sorry, darling. All of a sudden I don’t feel well,” he says when he pulls back. Shinichi is still frowning at him, evidently not convinced by the excuse. His gaze darts across Kaito’s face.

“Do you feel like you need to go home right this second? We might as well watch the fireworks.” A burst of bright green casts a lovely dappled pattern across Shinichi’s cheek. For a moment, Kaito considers it, but now that his proposal’s been ruined, he’s not in the mindset to linger around the site of the failure. His stomach feels tight and cold, and his throat has gone dry. All that wasted adrenaline, probably.

“Yeah,” he says as he pushes the half-drunk canteen of iced tea into the basket and gets to his feet, annoyed at the universe. He pauses, though, when Shinichi just continues sitting there on the blanket, looking up at him with wide eyes. Another wave of guilt crashes over him. “You can stay and watch if you want, though?”

Shinichi regards him for a moment, worrying his lip between his teeth, then goes to stand.

“No, that’s okay. I just want to be with you,” he says as he starts folding up the picnic blanket which is so sweet and uncharacteristically honest that it makes Kaito smile, even as irate as he is. Then, “Also, I want to change my pants. They’re still wet from the tea.” He grimaces down at his jeans, which have a faintly brown stain all over the front in a rather compromising area.

“Yeah, it looks like you have some kind of concerning medical urinary condition. People on the train will probably take pictures,” says Kaito helpfully. Shinichi jams an elbow into his side as he flounces past. They take a cab home.

Kaito’s next big idea is a classic proposal ploy: hide the ring in Shinichi’s food, wait for him to find it, and then propose. It’s the definition of simple and small. When he calls Aoko to run the idea past her, he can almost hear the face that she makes.

“Stop making that face,” he says.

“I’m not making a face,” she lies. “I’m just thinking—what if he chokes on the ring?” Kaito hopes that like the face she very clearly is making, his own incredulous stare translates across the line.

“If Kudou Shinichi is done in by choking on a wedding ring when he’s gotten shot in the stomach and tried to walk it off—more than once, I might add—I’ll eat my hat.”

“You don’t wear hats. You think they make your head look big,” Aoko points out.

“It’s the principle of the matter,” Kaito says, and hangs up.

He does make an effort to minimize any risk of choking, though. He puts together a bento with Shinichi’s favorites—chicken karaage, an onigiri shaped like a cat, potato-macaroni salad. He slips the ring in between a decorative leaf of kale and some cherry tomatoes. At least that way, Shinichi isn’t likely to bite into the ring.

Kaito’s plan is to go to the police station during Shinichi’s lunch hour, give Shinichi the bento, and hang around until Shinichi finds the ring. This plan almost immediately goes to shit when Kaito sets one foot in the homicide division and Takagi’s head jerks up, reminiscent of a sniffer dog catching the scent of PCP. He launches out of his chair, vaults over Satou’s desk, and comes to a staggering stop in front of Kaito, his face panicked and his hands held out in front of him as though he’s trying to placate an enraged buffalo.

“Ten points for the landing,” Kaito says, blinking at him. “It’s good to see you too, Takagi-san?”

“Right, yes, of course, you’re here,” Takagi says. His eyes are like a wild horse’s. Kaito takes a cautious sidestep away, wondering if he’d about to be trampled. “Did you need something? Did you see a murder? Did you bring an unattended child?”

“No, I’m here to see Shinichi. Obviously.” Kaito frowns at him. “Also, if I had an unattended child with me, the last place I would take them is the homicide division of a police station.” He squints. Takagi has begun sweating. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Of course!” Takagi says shrilly. “Um, if you don’t mind, I’ll go let Kudou-kun know you’re here, okay?” When Kaito moves to skirt around him, he jumps back and plants his feet with his arms outstretched. “No, really, I can get him!”

“What is wrong with you?” Kaito says, wonder in his voice. “I’ve never seen you this unhinged, and I was part of your wedding party.” Takagi’s pre-wedding jitters are still fodder for much mocking around the station. Personally, Kaito thinks he deserves the ribbing he gets. Most grooms don’t jump into a decorative koi pond, fully clothed, to soothe their nerves.

“I just think it would be best if I went to let Kudou-kun know you’re here,” Takagi squeaks. He’s moving forward with deliberate slowness, as though he thinks Kaito won’t notice that he’s being pushed back until it’s too late.

“Right.” Abruptly done with whatever Takagi is trying to pull, Kaito deploys one of the smoke bombs that he always carries—no matter how much Shinichi might raise his eyebrows at it, it’s come in handy more than once—and, once Takagi and the rest of the department are suitably bewildered, he slips past them and heads for Shinichi’s private office.

The door is firmly shut and locked, which is unusual for Shinichi, who tries to adopt a literal open-door policy. He’s had to deal with significant flack from the media and a few of his superiors for being one of the youngest inspectors in police history, and Kaito knows his strategy for heading criticism off is to focus on what the officers under him have to say instead. The locked door, therefore, doesn’t bode well. A seed of concern sprouts in Kaito’s stomach, but he pushes it down and knocks. His heart is pounding in his chest.

He has to stand there knocking for at least five minutes, his nervousness abating in favor of confusion, before Shinichi cracks the door open and sticks his head out, looking frazzled. Apparently the wild-horse-eyes thing is catching, because Shinichi has a moderate case of it. Kaito inspects him. Shinichi’s hair usually doesn’t have quite so many cowlicks unless he’s in the throes of a time-sensitive investigation, which he isn’t, because he usually fires off a quick text to Kaito to let him know if there’s something serious going down just so Kaito knows not to bother him. First Takagi, now Shinichi… Maybe someone spiked the department coffee supply?

“Kaito,” Shinichi says, a little breathless. He glances out to the desks and frowns, probably at the smoke and embarrassing amount of shouting, but exposure to Kaito has rendered him immune to asking questions that have answers he probably doesn’t want to know. “Uh, what are you doing here?” His tone is hard to read, but seems to lean towards not particularly thrilled. Worry mounting, Kaito lifts the bento box he’s holding and gives it a little wiggle.

“I thought we could have lunch together?” he asks hopefully.

“Uh…” Shinichi drags the sound out, glancing over his shoulder into his office. The door opens a little more, and Kaito’s eyebrows jump when he sees that the wall behind Shinichi seems to be covered in what looks like textured foam squares. He’s not sure why Shinichi would have soundproofed his office—maybe experimenting for a case? It seems like something Shinichi might do. He’s pulled from his musings when Shinichi looks back at him, his expression apologetic.

“Sorry, Kaito. I don’t think that’s a good idea right now. I have sensitive documents out,” he says, his whole face twisted in regret. Kaito’s heart sinks even as he pastes on a smile.

“Oh. That’s okay.”

Shinichi’s gaze flits down to the box in Kaito’s hand.

“Do you want me to take the bento anyway? Since you came all this way to give it to me…”

Considering that Kaito needs to be there to propose, he thinks not.

“No, you can have it when you come home tonight,” he says. “I wanted to watch you eat it. I tried out a new recipe and I wanted to get your feedback.”

“I could always just tell you how it was later,” Shinichi points out, quizzical. Kaito grins.

“Yeah, but then I’d miss out on hearing your little orgasm noises when you put it in your mouth for the first time,” he says with relish. Shinichi goes bright red all the way down to his shirt collar. Even his ears look pink. It’s as if he isn’t the same man who woke Kaito up by riding him into the mattress this morning.

“I don’t make—” Shinichi lowers his voice, looking up and down the empty hall hastily—“orgasm noises when I eat.”

“Are you sure?” says Kaito, reflective, then snaps his fingers as though he’s come to a realization. “Maybe I’m thinking about when you eat other things.” He winks with deliberate lasciviousness. Shinichi’s mouth drops open in shock. It has to be the fact that Kaito is doing this at work; Kaito has said much, much worse.

“Kaito,” Shinichi says, pained, and Kaito laughs and decides to give him a break, leaning in to kiss him on the nose just to watch how his face scrunches up.

“Okay, okay. I won’t harass you at work anymore. Go back to your case files and I’ll see you at home.”

“Bye,” Shinichi says softly, the corners of his eyes crinkling a little as he smiles. Kaito can feel his eyes on him as Kaito strides back down the hall, and the feeling of his warm gaze is almost enough to offset the disappointment he feels when he gets in the elevator and looks down at the bento still in his hand. When the elevator doors shut, he lets out a sigh that makes his whole ribcage shake.

Kaito’s next move—after calling Aoko and complaining for long enough that she hangs up and loudly enough that he doesn’t notice that he’s talking to a dial tone for at least five minutes—is to go back to the absolute basics. He books a reservation at the restaurant where Shinichi’s parents got married—the high-rise one with the observation deck that overlooks the city—and informs Shinichi that they’ll be meeting there on Friday night.

Shinichi gets caught up in a case and ends up coming directly from a crime scene, although you wouldn’t know it from how he looks. Kaito’s mouth starts watering at the sight of him approaching, and it has nothing to do with the fact that the table next to theirs just got their entrees.

“Hi,” Shinichi says once he’s reached their table, leaning in to give Kaito a kiss on the cheek. Kaito turns his head just in time so that the kiss lands on Kaito’s mouth instead. Shinichi blushes as he pulls back, and for a second Kaito is worried that he’s actually uncomfortable with the PDA. But then Shinichi’s face goes determined, and he bends back in and kisses Kaito on the lips again, longer this time and with a significant amount of heat.

“Hi,” Kaito says breathlessly when Shinichi straightens for the second time. He draws the tip of his tongue over his slick bottom lip. His mouth tastes a little minty now—Shinichi must’ve been chewing gum earlier or something. Shinichi’s eyes zero in on the motion, and he sways closer, like a sunflower turning to the light, his eyelashes drifting down as his gaze slides down Kaito’s body. It makes warmth bloom in Kaito’s cheeks.

There’s a small, polite cough.

“If you’re… done, I have your menus, sirs?” says the maître d’ from behind Shinichi. She’s blushing furiously, holding the menus in front of her like a shield, and appears to be talking to a nearby potted plant with how studiously she’s avoiding looking at them. Somehow Kaito missed the fact that she had been guiding Shinichi to the table. The sight of Shinichi with his hair all styled and his suit jacket tapered tight to his waist was apparently enough to wipe out all of Kaito’s powers of observation.

Shinichi is now the color of a sunburned lobster. Kaito decides to take his usual approach, which is called “Refusing to be Embarrassed.”

“Thanks for waiting,” he chirps, reaching out to take the menus from the maître d’. She nods with the joint mobility of a wooden drawing doll and begins to back away from the table.

“Your server will be by to take your order shortly.”

“Thanks,” Shinichi says, although it comes out somewhat mangled. He takes his seat across from Kaito and puts his face in his hands. “On an unrelated note, I hear Arizona is nice this time of year.”

“Really? I hear that Arizona is nice at no time of the year.” Kaito reaches out to pull one of Shinichi’s hands away from his face and take it in his. “Anyway, darling, I don’t see why you’re so embarrassed. I’m sure there are people who would pay to watch us. In fact, I’ve gotten several DMs on Instagram about it.” He starts to reach for his phone. “Do you want to see?”

Shinichi gives him a look that implies he does not want to see the DMs, now or ever.

“I’m just going to delete the last five minutes from my memory,” he declares.

“I’m not,” Kaito says with just as much determination. “I thought you were about to rip my clothes and off and throw me down on the table.” He gives a contented sigh, cuddling Shinichi’s hand against his cheek. “I’m keeping that memory for the next time you’re out of town on another vampire-themed exsanguination case. Maybe I’ll text you when I do. Just to keep you in the loop.”

“Speaking of fake supernatural deaths, did I tell you about the werewolf murder I just solved in Toyama?” Shinichi says with urgency, very obviously grasping for a change of subject.

Kaito allows it, but more because he likes seeing the way Shinichi’s face gets more and more animated the longer he talks about how the case progressed and how he figured out the killer’s alibi trick and how they hid the weapon. That case bleeds into another before Shinichi asks how Kaito’s day was, and Kaito launches into the latest drama with the snack company heirs—he was invited back to perform at Maizono’s birthday party. That topic carries them through their appetizer and mains, and it’s just when dessert arrives that the conversation comes to a comfortable lull. While Shinichi checks something on his phone, Kaito clutches at the ring in his pocket and takes a deep breath. This seems like the perfect moment.

“Shinichi, you know I love you, right?” There’s a little too much plaintiveness in his voice, to the point where he sounds borderline desperate. Kaito swallows and wishes his heart would stop pounding in his chest.

Shinichi, in the process of putting his phone back into his jacket, blinks.

“Of course I do,” he says, then pauses. “You know I love you too, right?” There’s barely any hesitation over the words, which makes Kaito’s heart melt, his whole body flushing with the warmth of knowing he’s loved. Shinichi isn’t one for verbal declarations of love, but he seems to instinctually know when Kaito needs to hear these things.

He opens his mouth, about to launch into the speech that he’s been mentally rehearsing for weeks, when Shinichi turns to peer out the large glass window that they’ve been sitting beside the whole evening.

“What’s that?” he wonders, his tone a mix of confused and nervous. Kaito blinks, caught off guard, follows his gaze. He’s looking at a tall, sleek building, one that’s of a height with the restaurant’s observation deck or perhaps even a little taller, the sides gridded uniformly with countless square windows. Kaito thinks it might be a hotel. As they watch, lights begin blinking on to form letters, spelling out words.

I LOVE YOU.

Kaito’s heart lurches, sinking so quickly he feels a little nauseated, and he looks away from the building, gritting his teeth at the injustice of it all. He curses his luck. Like the picnic, he’s once again being foiled by some other person trying to manufacture a big romantic moment. All he wanted was a quiet evening with no romantic grandstanding involved whatsoever. Maybe it’s karma, he thinks, that he’s spent years pulling off dramatic gestures only now to be unable to avoid them. He stares, unblinking, at the dessert in front of them—some kind of raspberry cheesecake—until his eyes start to burn.

“Kaito?” Shinichi asks, questioning. “Are you… watching the building?”

“No.” Kaito grabs a fork and stabs it into the slice of cheesecake that they’re sharing, pointedly not looking at the building despite how he can feel the lights shifting in his periphery. They’re probably spelling out something even more romantic now. Maybe poetry or something. He chews the cheesecake with as much aggression as he can (which isn’t much, considering how soft it is). “I don’t think I should intrude on their moment.”

“But…” Shinichi trails off. Kaito lifts his gaze from the cheesecake to see Shinichi’s face do something odd, a flash of disappointment passing across his features before they smooth out into something more neutral. It seems as though he’s picked up on Kaito’s suddenly dark mood and has decided not to engage further. Wordlessly, Shinichi picks up a fork and starts attacking his side of the cheesecake. They hack away at the cheesecake, not speaking, until their server comes with the bill, dropping it on the table and beating a hasty retreat. The sight of two men eviscerating an innocent slice of cheesecake while sitting in complete silence is a little on the uncomfortable side, Kaito will admit.

Later that night, when they’re in bed together, Shinichi rolls over onto his side to look Kaito in the face. Kaito still has his phone in hand, looking at the latest additions to his Instagram feed (it’s full of various cute animals, which is exactly what he needs right now). The glow off his screen illuminates half of Shinichi’s face, shadows soft around his eyes and clinging to the sharp curve of his cheekbone. It’s honestly embarrassing how easily he captures Kaito’s attention while doing little to nothing at all.

“We’re okay, right?” he says when Kaito lowers his phone. Kaito looks at him, not sure what to say.

“Of course we’re okay,” he answers. When Shinichi’s expression doesn’t change, he takes a deep breath and lets one of his hands reach out to touch the inky softness of Shinichi’s hair. It’s silky and still a little damp against his fingertips, because Shinichi gets lazy with blow-drying. “We’re always going to be okay.”

Shinichi regards him for a moment.

“Good,” he says at length. “Otherwise it would be awkward of me to do this.” He slides downwards gracefully, disappearing underneath the comforter. A moment later Kaito feels Shinichi’s long, elegant fingers tugging at the waistband of his pajama bottoms.

They have to take another shower. Kaito dries Shinichi’s hair for him this time.

After that, things are—well, not quite weird, necessarily, but they’re not quite what Kaito is used to, when it comes to his relationship with Shinichi. They are separate people with separate lives, but they also usually spend most of their free time together. Kaito likes to think that they’re a little codependent, but in a cute way instead of an unhealthy way. Aoko tends to be skeptical when he tries to convince her of that, though.

They’re still spending all their free time together, but all their interactions are interspersed with the occasional weird conversation. They have at least four stilted exchanges that leave Kaito wondering if he’s losing the very last marble he had. The most recent and definitely the worst one goes as follows:

“Kaito, you didn’t send a notification for a KID heist, right?” Shinichi asks Tuesday night when they’re in the living room, coexisting peacefully in the same space even though they’re both on their own phones.

Kaito looks up from his phone, where he’s been Googling where to get a custom jigsaw puzzle. He wants to get one that spells out “WILL YOU MARRY ME,” possibly overlaid over one of his favorite nudes of Shinichi. He’s not all too hopeful, though. His last attempt was a romantic crossword that spelled out “Will you marry me?” It had backfired when Shinichi had blinked at him and said, “Why are you making me do a crossword?” and then gotten called away to investigate the poisoning of a supermarket clerk. The jigsaw probably will end the same way. Kaito doesn’t typically force Shinichi to engage in puzzles.

“I didn’t,” he says slowly when the question registers, his brow scrunching. It’s odd that Shinichi would even ask, because he always picks up on when Kaito’s in heist planning mode. Mainly because Kaito gets sucked into memorizing blueprints and calculating how many explosives he’ll need and doesn’t stop to eat for hours at a time.

“Oh,” Shinichi says, looking down at his phone. “Well, someone sent a heist notification for this Saturday.” He shifts where he’s curled up on the couch. “I shouldn’t have a case on Saturday, and you don’t have any plans, right? Maybe we should go check it out?”

“Uh,” Kaito says. He’s been toying with the idea of a beach proposal, where he puts the ring in a bottle and buries it in the sand, and then he and Shinichi can dig it up while building a sandcastle or something. He was planning on going to scope out a few of the nearest beaches that day. “If it’s just a fake KID, that’s something you could handle on your own, right?” When Kaito dares to look over at him, Shinichi is staring at him with his eyebrows raised.

“You’re not interested in investigating a fake KID?” There’s a little wrinkle on his forehead now. “What, do you have other plans?”

“Yes,” Kaito says, a little too fast, and then mentally flails to come up with a follow-up when Shinichi looks ready to ask what his plans are. “I’m… buying pants… from a store… that day. And then I have to… get my hair… washed. And cut. I have to get a haircut!” It’s plausible. Kaito is proud of himself until he realizes that now that he’s said it, he’ll have to actually get a haircut, and his hair was just getting to a good length for Shinichi to pull. He deflates.

Shinichi eyes him. His hand is creeping towards his phone, as though he’s about to start looking up symptoms on WebMD to diagnose whatever is clearly wrong with Kaito.

“Anyway, I’m going to sleep now,” Kaito says, and shoots out of his seat.

Needless to say, things have been—different.

It’s kind of ridiculous how things end up coming to a head. Kaito comes home from a job to find Shinichi cradling his head at the kitchen table. Sometimes this means professional troubles, which tend towards tragic endings for people who didn’t deserve it, and Kaito’s course of action is to hold Shinichi silently and let him work through it on his own until he’s ready to talk. Sometimes this means personal troubles, which tend towards things like Hattori and Kazuha having another public breakup or Sera getting into a fistfight at the grocery store, and Kaito’s course of action is to sit and listen to Shinichi rant and make noises at the right places and then hold a pillow for him to punch. Right now, though, he can’t tell which it is, so he hovers at the entrance to the kitchen.

“Darling?” he says after the silence gets to be too much.

“I finally figured it out, when I accidentally opened that package. I thought it was for me,” Shinichi says into his hands. He lifts his face, and Kaito genuinely can’t tell what emotion is on it. He’s distracted from trying to figure it out when Shinichi points at a box on the far side of the table, which has been sliced neatly open. Upon closer inspection, it seems to be full of—Kaito takes a step forward, squinting—large, flat, irregularly shaped cardboard pieces.

Kaito’s heart stops. It’s the jigsaw puzzle that he had custom-made. The one of “WILL YOU MARRY ME” written in block letters over one of Shinichi’s artsy, well-lit nudes, the one that he ordered on a whim when his beach idea fell through. (He couldn’t think of a good, non-obvious way to mark the location of the bottle, or a good reason to suggest that they start building a sand castle. Also it’s forecasted to rain for the next two weeks.)

“Did you—I mean, did you put it together?” he asks faintly. The blood is rushing in his ears. Shinichi’s reaction doesn’t seem promising.

“It’s a ten-piece puzzle, Kaito. I didn’t have to put it together to figure out what it says. Also, I recognized my own ass.”

Kaito frowns, momentarily distracted.

“Wait, it’s supposed to be a hundred-piece puzzle. Dammit, I must’ve missed a zero when I sent in my request and the girl on Etsy didn’t say anything. Why didn’t she question it? Who would order a ten-piece puzzle?”

“I’m so happy to know that a woman on Etsy now has access to one of my nudes,” Shinichi says. Kaito freezes.

“Uh…”

“Anyway, that’s not the point.” Shinichi clears his throat and sits up straight, folding his hands in front of him as though he’s about to address the country on a nationwide broadcast. His hair is sticking up like he’s been running his hands through it. “I finally figured out why you’ve been acting so weird. You’re trying to propose to me in, like, a Pinterest way.”

“I… am?” Kaito thinks about it.

“Yes. You’re trying to do a lowkey, casual, homemade, simple proposal.” The more adjectives Shinichi slings at it, the more Kaito tenses. The way he’s saying it doesn’t sound all too positive.

“Is that a… bad thing?” he asks, hesitant. Shinichi gives him a slightly wild-eyed look, one that reminds Kaito of that day back in Shinichi’s office where his bento proposal failed. It doesn’t seem like a good sign. Kaito feels one of his feet sliding backwards in instinctive retreat; he forces it to still and meets Shinichi’s gaze squarely. He’s not going to apologize. “Is that a bad thing?” he repeats.

Shinichi pauses. His gaze searches Kaito’s face, looking for what, Kaito couldn’t say.

“It’s not what I thought you’d want for a proposal,” says Shinichi after a beat. “I thought you’d do fireworks or serenade me or train a flock of birds to put the ring on my finger or something.” An unhinged edge has entered Shinichi’s voice by the end of the sentence.

Kaito wets his lips, trying to keep his breathing even. He can hear the blood rushing in his ears. The neurons in his brain are firing desperately, to little avail.

“I thought you’d like something simpler. That’s more your style,” he says.

The look on Shinichi’s face is difficult to interpret, but Kaito gives it a shot anyway. Equal parts incredulity and affection, maybe?

“I thought you’d like something ridiculous. That’s more your style,” Shinichi says. He puts an special emphasis on you and your, raising his eyebrows and giving Kaito a loaded look.

It takes Kaito a good thirty seconds to put it all together. Shinichi watches him through the whole realization, his chin tucked to his chest and his hands twisting together. By the end of it, he fully understands the look on Shinichi’s face. He can only imagine that his own face is doing something similar.

“You were the asshole who did the fireworks show when I was trying to do a quiet riverside picnic?” he says, even though it’s not really what he wants to say. Shinichi starts nodding so hard he almost falls out of his chair.

“I scheduled them for that day because I thought having them at the picnic it would be a good way to surprise you. They spelled out ‘Kuroba Kaito, will you marry me?’ But you didn’t want to see them because you were disappointed that your quiet picnic was ruined. That’s why you made us leave.”

Kaito’s jaw is hanging open so wide that the corners of his mouth are starting to hurt.

“And the building lighting up when we were at dinner?”

“That was me too. That time it said ‘I love you, you’re the light of my life, Kuroba Kaito, will you marry me?” Shinichi says. The words are spilling out of him so quickly it’s a little hard to understand. “It was so expensive to get it arranged. I had to bribe the hotel management, and even then they apparently got a ton of complaints from the guests about the lights turning on and off. I had to use a bunch of the occupied rooms to get the words right.” Kaito’s brain is working so fast he feels like he might be on drugs.

“Wait, so that time that I visited you at work… I was actually going to propose to you with a ring in the bento that I brought.” Shinichi blinks, his lips parting. Apparently he hadn’t figured that out, at least. “Is—was Takagi acting weird because of the proposal, or something?”

“Well,” Shinichi begins. His face twists, his eyes go shifty, and Kaito watches in awe as he turns bright red. “I’ve been, ah, writing a song. For you. And practicing at work, since I can’t at home, for obvious reasons.”

Kaito thinks he may have been airdropped into an alternate universe at some point in the last ten minutes. One that he wants to live in forever, of course, but an alternate universe all the same.

“Is that why your office was soundproofed?” he gets out once the shock has faded enough that his tongue starts working. “Because you can’t sing at all, and when you try it sounds like two seals fighting to the death, and nobody wanted to hear you?”

Shinichi somehow manages to go even redder as he nods.

“Oh my God,” Kaito says breathlessly.

“I also planned this whole fake heist,” Shinichi continues, rubbing at the back of his neck with one hand as he avoids Kaito’s gaze. “It was supposed to be on Saturday, like I said. I was going to, you know, dress up as KID—"

Kaito mouths dress up as KID to himself at least four times over. His imagination is having a good time with the thought. A very good time. He crosses his legs, sensing that it’s not really an appropriate moment for the good time.

“—and then serenade you with the song and give you the ring I got for you. Um.” Shinichi comes to an abrupt halt, licking his lips in an uncharacteristic display of nerves. Kaito stares at him, openmouthed. Steeling himself, Shinichi lifts his chin and continues. “The song is called ‘Stole My Heart.’ It has a guitar accompaniment that I also composed. I’ve been keeping the guitar at work, too.”

“Come here,” Kaito says fervently, making grabby hands at Shinichi until Shinichi gets up to wobble over and allows himself to be cuddled. “Come here, you brilliant, beautiful man—” Shinichi’s face is hot when Kaito rubs their cheeks together, and it’s hot when he grasps Shinichi’s jaw and kisses him on the mouth, long and enthusiastic with enough tongue that Shinichi is wrinkling his nose when he pulls away. It’s adorable. “I love you so much I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“A similar sentiment came up in one of the sonnets that I wrote,” Shinichi says.

“One of?” Kaito says, and then, “Sonnets?”

“I thought haikus would be kind of a copout.” Shinichi wraps his arms around Kaito’s waist, his fingers gripping tight in the fabric of Kaito’s shirt. He rests his forehead against Kaito’s shoulder. “So, sonnets.”

“Shinichi,” Kaito breathes, burying his nose in Shinichi’s hair. They sway there in the kitchen for a long few blissful moments. “You know, you didn’t have to do anything big for me. I know that’s not how you like to express yourself.”

“I know. And I know you understand that. You understand me. That’s how we’ve managed to stay together for so long.” Shinichi lifts his face long enough so that their gazes meet. His expression is earnest. “But it wasn’t like I was forcing myself. I just thought maybe I could explain how I feel in your language, for once. The language of dramatic over-the-top grand gestures, I guess.” He smiles, and it’s so, so lovely. Kaito almost swoons. “And in your own way, you did the same for me, didn’t you? You wanted to show me how you felt in a quieter way than you usually go for.”

“Yeah.” Kaito bends in to kiss Shinichi again. They’re still moving with each other, slow-dancing to silent music. “Isn’t there a story like this? Like, the wife sells her hair to get her husband a watch chain, and the husband sells his watch to get his wife a hairbrush?”

“Maybe?” Shinichi’s arms go tighter around Kaito’s middle. “But either way, I think it’s pretty clear that we’re getting married.” The words send a shock of relief through Kaito, warmth gathering in his chest. He didn’t realize it before, but maybe he was worried about Shinichi saying yes when he proposed. Maybe there was the tiniest part of him that was still unsure about whether Shinichi loved him as much as he loved Shinichi. But it’s silenced, now, by the fact that Shinichi arranged a firework show and bribed a hotel to spell out declarations of love in flashing lights and wrote sonnets and learned to play the guitar. Maybe Aoko was right when she said that people express their feelings in the same way that they best understand them. Or maybe it's just that Shinichi was willing to try for him.

“We’re getting married,” he says softly.

They’re quiet for a moment, breathing each other in. Kaito can’t put into words how happy he is. It’s intense, blinding, undaunted. It’s the feeling of almost-sickness, the visceral bloom of hot emotion in his chest that always starts around Shinichi. The room is still around them, his fiancé is warm in his arms, there’s nothing that could make this moment better—

“I still have the KID outfit that I got for the heist,” Shinichi says, with a hint of suggestiveness. “In case that’s something you’d be interested in seeing.” Then, pulling back to look at Kaito with alarm—“Wait, are you crying?”

“Shinichi,” Kaito blubbers through tears, “I love you so much.”