Chapter Text
Kaitou 1412 had started out with doves and illusions, wonder and delight, and had traded that in for a gun and slipping around in the cover of night. There were plenty of moments in his life that he could call 'the start of the end'
Losing his father, his mom leaving. Finding out his father's death was because he was the elusive phantom thief only known by four numbers...the list of potential blames just went on and on. He was certainly well past the start, only trapped in this misery.
Fifty-two years had passed in the life of Kuroba Kaito and he hadn't been happy for most of them.
His apartment was cold as he rolled over in his bed one morning, and he fumbled looking for his glasses on the bedside table. His vision had gotten worse over the years of being hunched over a workbench with a lamp in the dead of night working on some device for a heist, or serving customers at the nightclub the Blue Parrot had become since his teen years.
Kaito yawned, rubbing the sleep from his eyes before putting the frames on his face. As 1412 he wore contacts, but wearing glasses as Kuroba made his identities feel separate. Made him feel like some sort of superhero hiding his identity with just a pair of glasses.
Like he wasn't the furthest possible from a hero of something. His tired mind forced a huffy laugh out of his mouth at the deranged thought. He was no hero.
The bed creaked as Kaito rolled to try to make it to the floor, head rushing as his body tried to beg him to stay in bed. Kaito didn’t really sleep anymore. Oh sure, there were fleeting hours here and there, enough to keep him from the brink of death, but he couldn’t claim his mind was as sharp as it used to be after decades of poor care.
It was a quick walk to the kitchen, using the walls as support as he stumbled towards the coffee maker. Coffee wouldn't hurt him. It was the only thing in his life that hadn't hurt him.
He grabbed a mug, and put it under the machine. Kaito had been unsure about the whole single cup coffee maker when it had been gifted to him but it had been an absolute lifeline since then. Kaito grabbed a coffee pod, sticking it into the machine, and waited for the liquid gold to pour.
A dash of whiskey from the cupboard topped it off perfectly. He eyed the sugar but ultimately drank it back in one, black gulp.
His phone was sitting on the kitchen table, where he'd left it last night in a futile attempt to hopefully get more sleep without the extra distraction and he picked it up, both hoping and dreading that something would be waiting for him.
He was used to being alone at this point. Who really would want to bother with him anyways.
Kaito didn't really talk with the Nakamoris anymore, and his mother had perished in a tragic boating accident. Or so the letter he had been sent years ago, arriving months after the alleged incident, claimed. Since she had yet to miraculously resurface Kaito was inclined to accept either his mother's death or that she wasn't going to come back at this point. Not that she had really cared much, towards the end.
He wasn't living up to his father's legacy. Wearing his suit yet tainting his very name with his crimes. Kaito was just tying his mother to painful memories, so he understood why she left.
Still, he'd cried as much as he had lost his father as a child. Even though he was a grown man when he lost his mother either to death or apathy to his existence, he had cried and cried.
The screen of the phone came to light, and to his surprise there was one message, but he scowled when it was just a selfie of Yusaku surrounded by the lap of luxury and plenty of beautiful women.
Yusaku had a wife that loved him, why would he be risking that for women that looked so hollow? Kaito sent back what he was sure was the right angry emoji. Smart phones had been around a while but he still found himself having trouble keeping up with all the little things that kept coming out year by year.
This was a far cry from the young boy who would chase him across rooftops, their laughter echoing together in the moonlight, but Kaito was no longer a young man himself either. They'd both grown up. Everyone had. Kaito just thought everyone else had gotten the better deal.
Yusaku sent back a text of 'Hakuba had a similar reaction, you both really don't know how to have any sort of fun, do you?'
Kaito glared at his screen. He didn't need that reminder this early in the morning. Still, it was a bland comfort that he and Saguru agreed on something for once.
Two of his detectives had gone on to become famous mystery writers, but Saguru was the one that hurt, because it had been the start of him pushing Kaito away, needing to spend countless hours perfecting his drafts and not even seeming to enjoy Kaito just sitting there beside him while he worked. Saguru called him distracting, Kaito just thought he was helping.
Kaito put his phone down and went to prepare breakfast to the tune of birds singing outside and his own dark thoughts.
There were plenty of contenders for the start of the end, but breaking Saguru's Super Famicom had to be a strong one. Saguru wrote plenty before his father had thought a computer was a computer no matter what and thought a home PC was a valid replacement to a game system, but Saguru having access to a writing program had changed everything.
Saguru still sent him every book he ever wrote. It was sitting on the counter near the stove, out of its packaging but not read through yet. As he cooked his eggs Kaito thumbed through the book, but his heart wasn’t into it. All he could do was close it and stare at the cover. It was a first run edition, coming out for the English speaking market first most times now, so it bared the alias Samuel Holden.
Now-a-days Kaito speculated that Saguru could have used his actual name if he were starting out as a new author, but back in the 90s his agent had recommended a pen name. Kaito had been there to help settle on Saguru’s pen name, back in better times.
My middle name is Justin Saguru had provided then, and they had almost went with that since it would be easy enough, teasing the idea of using some sort of bird as a last name to signify Kaito’s love for birds, and Saguru’s growing tolerance of them. Justin Crane would make me sound like a super villain Saguru had noted, but the name had been considered longer than any of the other combinations. It was only the realization a mystery writer with the initials ‘SH’ was too good to pass up that had Saguru pairing a common enough ‘S’ name with his mother’s maiden name of Holden in the end.
Saguru had was a common emphasis in his musings lately. Almost everything to do with Saguru aligned with the past tense.
That was Kaito's fault. He could see that now.
He opened the book again, seeing it was signed, as usual. Saguru never specified if he was signing the books so Kaito knew it wasn't just the publisher sending it at Saguru's request, but it seemed likely.
When he sat down at the table again with his food, he opened his phone again and sent Saguru a quick 'Thank you for the book' text.
Saguru read the message.
He didn't reply.