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Каито выключил телевизор. Его нахмуренное выражение лица отразилось на чёрном экране.
«Восемь лет назад… В том же году, когда умер папа», — пробормотал он себе под нос, вставая с дивана и засовывая руки в карманы. Воспоминания об этом событии были неприятны, но эта цифра всплыла в его памяти, как только кто-то упомянул об этом.
Каито поднялся наверх, и его взгляд упал на плакат с изображением отца. Единственное, что осталось в этой комнате от прошлого. Великий маг. Тот, с кем Каито хотел сравнить свои силы.
« Ты и рядом не стоял с Кайто КИДом! » Слова Аоко сами собой вспыхнули в его голове. Каито усмехнулся, глядя на наивность девушки. До сегодняшнего дня он мог поклясться, что никогда не слышал об этом Кайто КИДе, но о Куробе Тоичи, безусловно, слышал весь мир.
«Идиот», — пробормотал Каито себе под нос с теплой улыбкой, поворачивая голову к окну, из которого был виден дом Накамори. «Единственный, кого я не могу превзойти, это…»
Его взгляд снова упал на плакат. Куроба Тоичи в строгом костюме держал в руках цилиндр и, взмахнув волшебной палочкой, мягко улыбался. Иногда Каито казалось, что изображение почти оживает. Что его отец вот-вот посмотрит на него, широко улыбнется и даст какой-нибудь нелепый совет, которому Каито, несомненно, прислушается. Великий маг. Гений своего поколения. Невероятно умный и талантливый человек, который заставлял людей верить в себя и следовать за ним, что бы он ни делал.
«Куроба Тоичи», — это имя само собой сорвалось с его губ. Каито сжал их вместе, а его плечи, наоборот, невольно расслабились. «Мой… отец».
Признание поразило его с новой силой, заставив вспомнить прошлое, от которого он так тщательно убегал все это время. Он вспомнил, как пытался подражать отцу во всем, как учился самым простым трюкам и приемам, которые теперь выполнял автоматически. Как отец давал ему советы, как водил его на актерские курсы. Каито был уверен, что еще немного, и он точно не сможет сохранить то невозмутимое выражение лица, которое так любил его отец.
Однако, как только он отвлёкся на воспоминания, он услышал странный шум, который мгновенно вырвал его из размышлений.
Что за чертовщина? — подумал Каито, оглядывая комнату и пытаясь понять, откуда доносится звук. Он жил один и уже привык к тишине в доме, так что это точно не кто-то из домочадцев. Его голуби жили в отдельной голубятне, и соседи тоже не могли так шуметь, ведь они жили в отдельно стоящем доме.
Итак… — усмехнулся Каито. — Незваный гость?
Каито тихо прошел через комнату, прислушиваясь к каждому звуку в доме, но не услышал ничего, кроме этого странного, протяжного скрежета. Если подумать, звук был похож на завод очень старых часов. Шестерни заржавели, масло не меняли целую вечность, и сам механизм, казалось, был на грани поломки. Но он работал.
Спустя несколько секунд Каито наконец обнаружил источник шума. Это был плакат с изображением его отца.
За этой стеной находится комната моих родителей, — подумал Каито, тихо фыркнув и прижавшись головой к плакату, чтобы лучше расслышать. Однако, к его удивлению, плакат не был зафиксирован. Его голова непроизвольно скользнула в какое-то пространство за ним, а остальное тело последовало за ней по инерции.
«Черт!» — выругался Каито скорее по привычке, чем от настоящего шока. Как говорится, от его отца можно было ожидать чего угодно, и такой секретный механизм был лишь одним из многих подобных устройств.
Но имело значение не сам механизм или потайная дверь, а то, что было скрыто за ними.
Секретная комната.
«Т-так круто!» — Каито тут же огляделся вокруг сияющими глазами. Учитывая, что его комната раньше была кабинетом отца, это место, вероятно, напоминало полевую лабораторию? Он почувствовал, как от волнения затрепетали бабочки в животе. Тайное место отца, где до сих пор хранятся его вещи, и сохранившаяся атмосфера.
Это «логово» представляло собой полуподвальную комнату без окон, из-за чего воздух внутри был довольно затхлым. Каито уже мысленно сочинял, как его проветрить. Металлическая лестница, на которой он стоял, вела вниз в просторную комнату, освещенную холодными лампами, которые, казалось, реагировали на движение. Все было в порядке, но создавалось впечатление, что хозяин этого места уехал совсем недавно и скоро вернется. На столе лежали чертежи и бумаги, а на пробковой доске были прикреплены черно-белые фотографии незнакомых Каито людей, а также драгоценные камни. Пройдя дальше в комнату, Каито также обнаружил несколько странных изобретений. Больше всего его привлек металлический пистолет с необычно большим стволом.
Вытащив ствол, Каито понял, что он предназначен не для пуль, а для карт.
«Ух ты, вот это да!» — выпалил он, с интересом рассматривая новую игрушку. — «Интересно, она работает?»
Решив проверить это позже, Каито спрятал карточный пистолет в куртку. Он снова оглядел незнакомую комнату, и его взгляд снова упал на стол. Подойдя к нему, Каито подтвердил свою догадку: среди всех бумаг, чертежей и записок лежало письмо.
Письмо, подписанное Куробой Тоичи.
Сердце Каито забилось с бешеной скоростью. Неужели это послание из прошлого от отца? Личная переписка с кем-то? Любопытство терзало его, и, не теряя ни секунды, Каито с жадностью принялся читать.
“Dear Kaito. I am certain that you are reading this. And if that is so, then I have long been dead.”
Against his will, Kaito crumpled the old sheet of paper, but, startled, immediately straightened it again, forcing his emotions down.
“From the very beginning, I should have confessed something to you. But right now you are too young for the truth. So allow me to dedicate you to it at least this way.”
Kaito held his breath. A secret from his father? Was this the solution to one of his tricks? Or perhaps another piece of guidance?
“Before continuing, you must turn away from the desk and walk to the wall opposite the door. There, on the record player, press the button with the symbol of clubs. And then, most likely, you will understand everything yourself. If not, I will explain.”
“Damn it, dad and his pranks again,” Kaito grimaced, but he did stop reading and followed his father’s clear instructions.
The moment he pressed the right button, a quiet melody began to play, and behind him the scraping of the old mechanism sounded again. Turning around, Kaito froze.
In the middle of the room stood a white wardrobe, its doors already open. And inside the wardrobe hung an absolutely spotless white suit. And Kaito could swear that he had seen it before.
“What?” he asked the silence. His entire body went still, as if in front of him was not some old suit, but a wild beast about to pounce and tear him apart.
It looked more like a joke. Or a strange coincidence, did it not? Just a costume for another show. Just… A secret room Kaito had never known about before, building plans, a set of lockpicks lying next to the card gun, photographs of people who looked like mafiosi, and gemstones that had supposedly been stolen about ten years ago. And finally, his father’s strange behavior in Kaito’s childhood memories, for which he had always found excuses. But none of it made any sense.
This was some kind of joke, right?
Kaito stared at the white suit for several seconds, unable either to look away or to move. He wanted to leave. Pretend that he had seen nothing. That he had not understood.
He swallowed and slowly approached the wardrobe. Carefully taking the silk sleeve of the jacket into his hands, Kaito realized that the suit was extremely expensive and durable. And it had been tailored perfectly to his father’s measurements. But… how could it be him?
Because it was unmistakably the suit of the infamous Kaitou KID, whose photographs Kaito had seen just that very morning in the news.
“No,” he whispered, and a smirk bloomed on his face by itself. There was no joy in it, though. “That’s impossible.”
He lifted his gaze to where a face should have been. The empty space of the wardrobe looked at him through the glass of the monocle. In it, Kaito saw his reflection. Frightened. Almost unhinged.
Adjusting his expression back to something emotionless, he carefully took the top hat off its stand. Turning it in his hands, Kaito yelped in surprise when confetti suddenly burst out toward him.
“Damn old man,” Kaito muttered, spitting out bits of colored paper. At the bottom of the hat, a mocking note had been attached with a single word: “Gotcha,” and next to it a little drawing of a smiling face in a top hat and monocle.
“Ha-ha, at least someone doesn’t change,” Kaito grumbled without real amusement, putting the hat back in place and striding back to the desk with the letter, stubbornly ignoring everything else around him.
Only one question was spinning in his head. What does all this mean? What is Kuroba Toichi trying to tell him with all of this? And… really…
“Well then, if you have returned to reading, it means you want explanations, don’t you? From now on, read very carefully, Kaito. There are certain people whose goal is unknown to me. But it is certainly nothing good. You must stop them. Finish my work and do not let them finish theirs. I am counting on you, my son.”
“People? What people, Dad?” Kaito frowned even more deeply, reading the lines again and again, as if new words were about to appear in place of the old ones. But that was not the case. The letter was short, as if his father had expected Kaito to understand everything on his own.
But Kaito did not understand. He did not understand a damn thing. Maybe it was not even his father who had written it. Maybe it had been some cruel prank.
He crushed the sheet of paper in his fist, tearing its edge slightly. Noticing this, Kaito immediately froze, then began frantically smoothing it out. For some time he simply stood motionless. The characters and words blurred before his eyes, while somewhere in the background the quiet music from the record player continued to play. And Kaito knew that if he turned around, he would definitely see the wardrobe standing right behind his back.
Who was he trying to fool? He had lived in this room for the last eight years and would have noticed if someone had broken in. And what was the point? Just to remind Kaito that he once had a father? To anger him? No, if someone had truly tried to play such a trick on him, they would most likely have simply wasted their time, because Kaito might never even have found this room.
And he doubted that would have been the worst outcome.
Kaito pressed his lips together and slowly exhaled. This place was beginning to almost physically suffocate him.
Carefully placing his father’s letter back on the table, Kaito shifted his gaze to the other papers. Blueprints of buildings, written plans, dossiers on what seemed to be several police officers, among whom Kaito could make out a familiar face. Inspector Nakamori in those files was very young. It seemed he had been around twenty back then. With trembling fingers, Kaito picked up his dossier. He skimmed it briefly and, just as carefully as his father’s letter, returned everything to its place.
In truth, Kaito had never considered himself a fool. Everything pointed to one thing, and denying it…
Was pointless.
“Dad… was Kaitou KID?” His voice trembled. His head was buzzing, and it was hard to breathe. He rubbed his temples, still not fully understanding what was happening.
“Some people… criminals. He was hunting them? But why did he need the identity of Kid? For what? Why couldn’t he trust the police with this?” In his agitation, Kaito began shuffling cards out of habit. The soft, familiar rustle calmed his nerves a little, and his thoughts became clearer.
“Or were they hunting him?” The cards fell into a neat, even deck, and Kaito began pacing the room anxiously. “‘Finish my work’… Did Dad want me to take his place?”
Kaito abruptly stopped in front of the wardrobe with the white suit. The reflection of a startled teenager stared back at him through the monocle’s glass.
“Could those people have been so dangerous that he couldn’t ask for help?” Kaito continued muttering to himself, shuffling the cards again. “He knew he was going to die, and still… But why now?”
The quiet rustle resumed under the slow melody his father used to listen to so often. His thoughts spun in his head, forming a real vortex. Suddenly, the cards flew out of his hands and scattered across the floor, but Kaito did not hurry to pick them up.
There, in a box, lay a silicone mask that Kaito could swear he had seen before. No, not just seen. He had made it together with Toichi.
“He knew he was going to die, knew that I would come here. He trained me since childhood, set up this mechanism, and all because of this damn suit?!” he exclaimed, unable to believe his own memories. He felt insane at how easily all the dots connected. How simple and logical everything was. All his strange words, his lessons, his disappearances at night, his secrecy, his death.
He had simply been Kaitou KID.
Kaito dropped to his knees, unable to stop laughing at the absurdity of it all. It felt so surreal, as if he had stumbled into some kind of sitcom.
But his life was not a comedy from television, and his father’s corpse had not been a prop.
“Because he was KID,” Kaito smirked while his fingers trembled, clumsily picking up the fallen cards. He had always suspected that his father could not have made the kind of mistake that would get him killed. So could they have…
Kaito let out a loud breath, squeezing his eyes shut. No, none of this made any sense.
“Why didn’t he tell me right away? Why did he just decide to dump all of this on me in one day?!” he continued muttering, gathering the cards from the cold concrete floor. But as soon as he lifted his gaze, the white suit stood before him again. For several moments Kaito looked at it from below, as if bowing before the greatness of a pathetic piece of white silk. He pressed his lips together and took a deep breath.
“And what do you even want from me?!” he shouted into the emptiness, as if he could somehow reach something. “For me to fight some incomprehensible syndicate?! To… to what?!”
He jumped to his feet, bracing his hands against the sides of the wardrobe. Neither the suit nor the emptiness surrounding it answered him.
He moved to the desk. He rummaged through all the papers lying on it, searching for more letters. No, his father had left him nothing else. Just some pathetic, incomprehensible message that explained absolutely nothing. He wanted to scream. He felt that with the discovery of the truth, everything he had believed in and known until now was slowly collapsing. Blood rushed to his head, emotions clouded his vision. It all felt so unfair. So unjust. Why him? Why did something like this have to happen specifically to him? His father was Kaitou KID, a world-famous thief, a stealer of jewels and antiques. Kaitou KID was a criminal.
So who was Kaito, then? The son of a thief. And that thief had expected that… what? That Kaito would simply accept it? Take his place? Put on the cape and, with a calm smile, continue his work because he had been prepared for it? Who had Kuroba Toichi been all this time?
Kaito tried to take deep breaths, but still felt like he was suffocating. He could not calm down, could not accept the truth. The faces in the photographs, the blueprints, the images of gemstones, the damn letter — all of it seemed to mock him. Look, Kaito, here it is. Your father’s true identity. This is who he was all this time. A thief. A liar. A criminal.
Kaito clenched his teeth so hard he could almost hear them crack. Suddenly, the quiet music was cut off by a loud crash. Kaito was sure that if he had not lived alone, someone would definitely have heard it.
All the papers, photographs, blueprints, and even some of the inventions were scattered across the floor. Kaito’s palms burned. He stared blankly at the mess he had created, trying to catch his breath as if he had just run a marathon.
For several minutes he stood in silence, like a lost child. His head was completely empty, his hands trembling. He carefully bent down, hastily gathering everything from the floor into a pile and placing it back on the desk. There was no talk of restoring the former order, but Kaito no longer cared.
“What am I supposed to do?” Kaito sank to his knees in front of the desk and, placing his hands on its surface, buried his face in the crook of his elbows. “You were a thief… You… What else didn’t I know about you?”
A lump rose in his throat. Never before had Kaito felt such helplessness, as if a massive weight of someone else’s expectations and responsibility had suddenly fallen onto his shoulders.
After calming down a little, Kaito stood up, though he continued to grip the edge of the desk tightly.
“Did mom know?” he muttered, his gaze still wandering over the papers scattered across the desk. A sudden thought struck him. “And Nakamori-san?”
Kaito’s eyes widened at that realization. Damn it, his father had been talking to a police officer as if nothing was wrong, and even living next door to him! It was so bold and at the same time so insane that a smirk involuntarily appeared on Kaito’s face.
“If Nakamori-san finds out, he’ll have a heart attack,” Kaito said with a faint laugh, shaking his head slightly. At that very moment, another person came to mind. “And Aoko? She admired dad too.”
Kaito clenched his fists and slowly exhaled. Yes, those two definitely must not find out. It would be better for them to remain ignorant and continue hating Kid than…
He froze, feeling a chill down his back. His father had wanted Kaito to take his place, but what about the imitator who had appeared the day before? Who was he? Were they connected?
“Today is the anniversary of dad’s death, and he planned the heist for today,” Kaito muttered.
Could that really be a coincidence? Was it truly just another imitator of the great thief, as the media kept saying? Or was he somehow connected to Kuroba Toichi and had deliberately chosen this date?
“Could he know something about those people Dad wrote about?” Kaito began shuffling the cards again, deep in thought. His father had been a very secretive figure, as Kaito had only recently realized. What had that man been hiding? Why had he become a thief? Who were those people? And in the end…
Who had the man named Kuroba Toichi really been?
Kaito turned around and looked at the suit again. But this time there was determination on his face.
“I guess this really is the only option,” Kaito muttered with a faint smirk, slipping the cards into his pocket. He could not show up at Kid’s heist as Kuroba Kaito without raising suspicion. And Inspector Nakamori would most likely just send him home.
Taking the suit out of the wardrobe, Kaito carefully draped it over his arm and returned to his room through the hidden door. Only now did he notice that all this time what he had thought was an ordinary poster had another side, with an image of Kid covering his face with his cape. At the sight of it, Kaito’s chest tightened, but he pushed the rotating door with a little more force than necessary.
There is no need to reveal Kuroba Toichi’s identity, Kaito thought, buttoning up his blue shirt. If this really turned out to be just an imitator, it would be strange if some high school student suddenly showed up at the heist and started demanding information about KID because he was supposedly his father.
Imagining that scene, Kaito let out a humorless chuckle.
Or if that person was somehow connected to those people… Kaito frowned, pressing his lips together as he pulled a hoodie on over his shirt. Yes. Putting on the suit right now was only a necessity. He was not going to steal anything. Just safety.
Kaito nodded to himself, placing the top hat, monocle, and cape into a bag. From the news, he vaguely remembered the place and time of the heist, and if he hurried, he would make it there before it began.
***
The sun was slowly sinking toward the horizon, coloring the sky in shades of orange and violet. The weather was warm, though windy. Climbing onto the roof was not a problem for him, even though Inspector Nakamori was guarding the perimeter thoroughly. Quickly changing into the white suit, Kaito glanced displeased at the eerie smiling mask in his hands.
On the way to the museum, he had remembered that the thief from the news had been wearing a similar mask. Kaito did not understand why he would need it. It was uncomfortable to breathe in, and the visibility was terrible. How had he even planned to escape from that crowd of police in it, if he could not properly look around because of the limited view?
Letting out a heavy sigh, Kaito put on the unfortunate accessory with the expression of a great martyr.
Then, after thinking a little longer, he took it off again, a malicious grin appearing on his face.
If everything went smoothly, he would be able to catch that thief off guard. He just needed to prepare a little.
***
Jii Konosuke could confidently say that he was already too old for such activities. Breathing heavily, he climbed onto the roof. Despite everything, he could almost feel proud of himself, because stealing the stone had turned out to be much easier than he had thought.
Master Toichi, what other trials will you send upon my soul, the old man thought, trying to catch his breath. The contents of the letter the great magician had handed to him shortly before his death surfaced involuntarily in his memory. He had insisted that it should not be opened earlier than eight years later.
To carry out a heist in your memory, to draw your killers out into the open… Jii felt his lungs burning, and along with them his heart from the injustice his master had suffered. But what are you trying to achieve with this, Master Toichi? Could this old man really stand against them?
“Releasing a decoy doll in order to slip onto the roof unnoticed? What an old-fashioned trick!”
A confident voice spoke. For a moment, it seemed vaguely familiar to Jii.
Jii looked around, and at that very moment a figure in a white suit and mask stepped a couple of paces out of the shadows. His hands were placed behind his head, as if he knew his opponent posed no danger at all.
Another imitator? What is he doing here? Jii asked himself mentally.
«Вы позорите имя великого вора!»
Джии слегка вздрогнул от этого замечания, но постарался не показать своего недоумения.
«Кто вы?!» — спросил он резче, чем хотел.
«Я тебя ждал», — вместо ответа произнес незнакомец. «Кайто КИД-тян».
***
Вернувшись домой, Каито чувствовал себя таким уставшим и измотанным, словно после самого скучного дня в школе. Камень тяжело давил на его карман, а голова так раздулась от мыслей, что казалось, вот-вот взорвется.
«Значит, папу действительно убили эти люди», — пробормотал Каито себе под нос, поворачивая драгоценный камень в руках. Он поднял его, и лунный свет, проходя сквозь его желтые грани, отбрасывал цветные узоры на его лицо.
Я его не крал, но мне так противно, как будто я это сделал, — пробормотал Каито про себя. — Джии сказал, что пытался выманить убийц отца, верно?
Каито сунул камень обратно в карман и повернулся к изображению Куробы Тоичи на потайной двери.
Неужели проблема действительно в них? — подумал Каито, сжимая губы. — Папа написал, что их цели ни к чему хорошему не приведут, и он пытался их остановить. Стоит ли мне… попытаться?
Каито шагнул к двери и уже поднял руку, когда внезапно услышал громкий крик из соседнего дома.
«Кайто! Иди поешь!» — крикнула Аоко, и Каито поморщился от того, как некстати это прозвучало. Однако, несмотря на раздражение, он подошел к окну и крикнул в ответ так же громко:
"Я иду!"
«Сегодняшний ужин будет особенным!» — воскликнула Аоко, улыбаясь так ярко, словно выиграла в лотерею. Каито лишь тяжело вздохнул и, выдавив из себя улыбку, спустился вниз.
Возможно, он подумает о делах Кида чуть позже.