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When Aoko had invited Kaito to a small party to celebrate the start of winter break, Shinichi hadn’t thought much about it. She liked throwing little get-togethers with her friends, after all, and it had been a while since the last one that he knew of. There could have been more, of course, since she didn’t always invite Kaito who would tell Shinichi about them, but either way it wasn’t something he spent much time thinking about. Aoko doing small get-togethers was just something she did.
Naturally, he hadn’t expected tonight to be anything but a fun if slightly exhausting evening with people he didn’t know very well yet but who were growing on him and who he was tentatively starting to consider more than just distant acquaintances. Nakamori Aoko he might even consider a friend, if not yet then one day soon.
However, when Shinichi entered the Nakamori’s house that evening, two things became very clear very quickly.
One, Kaito had fucked up. Shinichi didn’t know how or when, but he had.
Two, he needed to stop his boyfriend from coming in now.
Whirling around, he ignored their host hovering behind him and instead stepped in front of Kaito in a desperate attempt to block his view and push him back outside before he finished taking off his shoes. Unfortunately, the sudden motion had the exact opposite effect and Kaito lifted his head in surprise, eyes finding first Shinichi, then Aoko, then the room behind them.
He froze.
Unseen by either boy, Aoko smirked in triumph at her successful surprise. Served Kaito right for pulling that stupid, embarrassing prank! Dressing everyone in animal ears and tails that wouldn’t come off for hours, forcing everyone to go through the entire school day looking like they’d escaped from a zoo or were… were roleplaying something embarrassing or something! But two people could play that game, ha! She’d dare say she’d put just as much effort into her prank as he always did and personally, she thought she’d done rather well. She even thought the glittering scales she’d glued to her cheek as an extra touch looked rather good on her.
Gleefully, she said, “I’m so glad you had time to come tonight! Do you like my costume?” She did a little twirl to show the fishtail that had been mostly hidden by her body before. Kaito made a weak sound and flinched back. With her back to him as it was in that second, she didn’t see. “We noticed you didn’t include any fish in your zoo a few weeks ago and thought it was such a missed opportunity! Every good zoo has an aquarium, so I redecorated a little and we all dressed up to have some fun! What do you think? Looks good, doesn’t it?”
Behind her, Keiko and her other friends cheered, all of them elated to see the usually unshakable prankster speechless for once. None of them except perhaps Akako noticed the slight tremble in the magician’s usually steady hands or how unnaturally still he’d gone, but even she couldn’t tell for sure from this distance.
Aoko certainly didn’t notice. She was still too proud of successfully pranking Kaito of all people, it didn’t even cross her mind that he hadn’t reacted with his usual startled scream or shouted at her to put that finny thing away. The feeling lasted until Shinichi rounded on her and shot her the most venomous glare she had ever seen from the prickly but usually even-tempered teen.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” he hissed at her, barely contained fury dripping from every syllable. Aoko took a step back, stunned and suddenly much less confident in the success of her prank.
“I–”
“Don’t bother,” Shinichi snapped, turning his back to her and slipping into his shoes again, not even bothering with the laces. In a much gentler voice he said something she couldn’t understand to Kaito, who’d turned his head away from Aoko and the rest but hadn’t moved at all otherwise. He didn’t resist when Shinichi steered him away, he just let the other teen gently turn him around and push him towards the door, one hand on the small of his back, the other reaching for the doorhandle. Aoko had never seen him so docile… no, so quiet before.
Neither boy said another word to her and when the door slammed shut behind them, it sounded very final in the surprised silence that had befallen the previously happy room. No one dared to say anything for a few seconds, the sheer anger in the detective’s voice still ringing in everyone’s ears. It was Keiko who broke the silence first. “What just happened?” she asked, confusion clear in both her voice and face. Her friends shrugged, no more the wiser than she was.
Only Akako looked more thoughtful than confused. “It seems we struck a nerve. How interesting.”
Aoko could only nod, guilt curling in her stomach at the memory of Kaito’s face, utterly devoid of any expression. Had she gone too far?
Shinichi was fuming.
He desperately wanted to go back and give Aoko a piece of his mind; she was supposed to be his best friend, someone he could trust. How dare she use his fear as a weapon against him? Did she have any idea what she’d done to him tonight? Shinichi knew that Kaito could go overboard with his antics sometimes, but nothing he could have done could have warranted that.
Classmates dressed as mermaids and fish and other creatures of the sea, scales glittering everywhere. Lamps that threw the room into a cool blue light, speckling everything with watery reflections. The walls and furniture covered in corals and fish cut out of paper. Every family picture replaced by colourful reef scenes.
Kaito going rigid beside him, breaths quick and short with a desperate edge.
Shinichi took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds to get himself back under control. He couldn’t think about that right now if he wanted to keep a clear head. He’d hated seeing Kaito like that. He never wanted to see it again. Not if he could help it.
Clamping down on his renewed urge to go back and chew Aoko out to make absolutely sure there would be no repeat, he cast a worried glance over at his boyfriend; Kaito’s face was blank and his eyes glassy. Every breath was carefully measured and even, but at least it wasn’t a choppy ringing for air anymore, and while it was hard to tell under the yellow street lights, his face didn’t seem deathly pale anymore. He was still shaking though, and while it could be because of the cold and sharp winter air that burned in their lungs with every breath, Shinichi doubted it.
Since they’d come from Shinichi’s home with a longer commute and where thus already adequately dressed for the weather, Shinichi steered them past Kaito’s house and onwards until they reached a nearby playground. It was empty at this hour – evening had slipped into early night a while ago – so Shinichi decided that this place was as good as any to wait for Kaito to get his emotions back under control.
Taking Kaito’s hand, he pulled him to the wooden tower connected to a slide and climbed up the ladder inside until he reached a landing he could settle down on. Kaito followed mutely and without prompting slid into Shinichi’s lap, burying his face into the crook of Shinichi’s neck. In return, Shinichi wrapped his arms around the other boy, sharing the warmth of his body and feelings and hoping it was enough.
They remained like that for what felt like hours in the creeping cold but was probably just a few minutes. Kaito had gone still against Shinichi; not in the same, rigid way as before but a stillness Shinichi only ever saw on him when Kaito was lost in thought, and even then his hands were usually occupied with something. Kaito, when not in his KID persona, was rarely truly still, and it was never a good sign when he was. Shinichi’s worry only eased when he felt deft fingers begin to tug slightly at the stubborn tuft of hair on his nape and wind it around a slender digit until it slipped off again. Something in Shinichi relaxed at the sensation, at the sign of Kaito slipping from tense terror into something calmer, more contemplative. It was easier to bear like this, the stillness. Shinichi could wait.
“I wonder if we’ve always been like this,” Kaito finally muttered, voice muffled between Shinichi’s scarf and neck. “Exploiting each other’s weaknesses wherever we could to get the biggest reaction out of each other. We’d always be squabbling; I’d rile her up, she’d retaliate, and at the end of the day we’d make up and eat dinner together.”
“It escalated,” Shinichi said quietly.
“Yeah. Sometime last year, probably. First, I wanted to keep her attention on me because I hated the way she’d spent more and more time with other people instead of me, and back then that meant I’d tease her relentlessly.” Shinichi winced and Kaito huffed a laugh, then sighed. “Yeah. I was quite a menace, I imagine. It didn’t even work because then she’d go and spent even more time with other people just to spite me. And then the whole KID thing happened and everything just got worse because making her too angry to think clearly distracted her from all the odd stuff she started noticing about me, so I just… made her as angry as I could. And it always worked for a while.”
“Is that why you pranked your entire class, too?” Shinichi asked drily, and Kaito’s lips twitched against his neck.
“What can I say? It’s fun. Besides, class was boring.”
Shinichi snorted. “And you wonder why people might have it out for you.” He nuzzled into Kaito’s head. “Still, using your phobia against you isn’t fair.”
Another tug on his hair tuft, absentminded and just a thing for his hands to do while he thought. Shinichi doubted Kaito even noticed he was doing it, and he wasn’t going to point it out because then Kaito would either tease him or stop. “I don’t think she knows,” Kaito said finally, quietly. “Or rather, she knows but I don’t think she gets it. She’s not really scared of anything, much less… well. Like this. She probably thinks I’m exaggerating my reactions for effect.”
“It’s pretty hard to miss that they are not exaggerated.”
Another twitch of lips against the skin of his neck, this one accompanied by a small kiss. “You’re better at reading me than most. No one else sees through me the way you do.”
“Then maybe they should pay better attention,” Shinichi muttered darkly, thinking of Aoko specifically. He wasn’t in the mood to be charitable; she’d known him since early childhood, she should know when her best friend was in genuine distress! Even Shinichi had always known not to purposefully scare Ran with ghosts after the first time she’d burst into tears, and he’d often been called insensitive by his peers. And now?
Terror cursing through his veins, fear more intense than he’s ever felt before in his life, a cramped space, no air, footsteps coming closer, locker doors slamming open, there is no air–
A chill down his spine whenever he spots someone wearing black, a constricting weight on his chest whenever he sees a Porsche or long white hair, pure ice in his veins at the feeling of eyes watching him.
Yeah. He wouldn’t wish that paralysing fear on anyone. He knew it wasn’t quite what Kaito was feeling at the sight, smell or even just thought of fish, but he imagined it came close enough, and to purposefully inflict that on anyone, much less a person he claimed to love? Unimaginable. Unacceptable.
“I’ll talk to Aoko and make her understand that what she did wasn’t okay,” Shinichi said but Kaito shook his head.
“Just let it be,” he said, and Shinichi hated the slightly tired tone in his voice. “She doesn’t mean it, and I don’t want her to know.”
“Why not?”
“Because if she understood, it would just hurt her too. I don’t want her to worry or feel guilty.”
“Idiot,” Shinichi grumbled. “Don’t you think she’d rather know that she’s hurting you so she can stop?”
Kaito was quiet for a few seconds before he sighed. “Maybe. I don’t know. Just let it be for now and I’ll think about it.”
“You better, or I will tell her. And you know how direct I can be.”
Kaito leaned back, a smirk on his face that seemed genuine. “My, detective, are you getting all up in arms for me?”
“So what if I am,” Shinichi grumbled, face warming and unable to look at Kaito directly. “You’re my boyfriend, right?”
Kaito’s grin softened into a smile and he leaned forward until their foreheads touched, their shared breath misting in the cold air. “Yeah. Thank you.”
“For what? For being your boyfriend?”
“For being you,” Kaito said, nuzzling his nose against Shinichi’s for a second before sliding off his lap. “Come on, I’m hungry. What do you say to ramen? I know a great place not that far from here.”
Shinichi shivered; with Kaito’s body heat removed, the cold bit even harder even through all of his layers. “I’m in, let’s go.”
This time, it was Kaito who pulled Shinichi along, eager to get to someplace warm, and Shinichi smiled at the cheer that had returned into Kaito’s step. And as they sat over ramen – that were indeed delicious and, even more importantly, hot – and Kaito gesticulated animatedly with the hand not holding his chopsticks while he recounted some of his more infamous exploits at school, Shinichi thought that he much preferred these one-on-one dates with Kaito over tea parties anyway.