AN:for the prompt: Any, M/F, Love at last sight

~O~O~O~

There are things only realized after the fact. Like as a child, only realizing after the fact that picking a flower would kill it that much sooner. Like picking apart the oddities in his family's life before and after his father's death. Like how pulling on a white suit and top hat to confront a look alike was essentially the choice to uncover all of his father's secrets or die trying.

He'd half expected it to be him. He wore white, stark against night shadows. He was the target, the song and dance distraction, the lure.

It was not him.

It was her.

Aoko, his oldest friend, his only friend. Aoko who chased him with mops and wasn't afraid to cut his ego down to size. Aoko who stayed up late on heist nights waiting for her dad to come home. Aoko who laughed as his jokes just as often as she scolded him for them. Aoko who hated a central part of his identity with a burning passion. Aoko who wasn't supposed to be at heists at all.

Her face is surprised first, her mouth in an 'o' of a gasp as her knees crumple. The shooter had aimed at Kaito—Kid—but he'd moved. He'd moved and Aoko had been there instead where she should not be, could not be because this didn't happen to Kaito. He balanced chaos and control on a knife blade and always came out on the best side of luck. Kaito doesn't think about the police that could find them. He doesn't think about the shooter possibly preparing a second bullet. He clears the space between them, catching her before her head hits the ground.

His hat rolls away, a second shot, but that is less important than Aoko's confusion and the wet gurgle of breath that forces its way through her lungs. Lung. Artery. Bullet in her lung and she is bleeding out. He presses at the wound, his back open to threat, but no further shots come; the sniper must have run.

"Aoko," he says, trying to get her to focus. "Aoko, look at me, don't stop breathing on me."

She blinks, her eyes focus, and she looks shocked, then hurt. "Kai—t…" Her words cut off in a choke.

Ambulance, Kaito thinks, hospital. The cell phone is in one hand as he dials and the other holding pressure that he knows isn't enough. "There's been a shooting," he says to the operator on the other end, "at the Kid heist. Victim is Nakamori Aoko, entry wound in the lung, showing difficulty breathing and blood in the airways." He doesn't know what voice he uses, only that it isn't his own. "Hurry. Please." He sets the phone aside, not hanging up in case they need to trace the phone's location, but unwilling to listen to the operator more. "Aoko. Aoko, breathe."

Inside he is shattered. The mask of confident mischief that lives on his face during heists is gone and he isn't sure he could have faked a smile if he tried.

She looks at him, really looks at him, sharp focus on his face as she opens her mouth to speak. All that comes out is a high pitched whine of pain.

Blood is spreading beneath his fingertips no matter how much pressure he puts on the wound and his gloves are stained red. Kaito speaks and can't remember what he says, words, syllables, sounds spilling out like they can staunch the flow of blood or take the pained creases away from her face. Aoko is crying. Aoko is crying and a red rose isn't going to make it right this time, nor a joke or getting chased by a mop.

Kaito draws a breath and what comes out this time is, "I'm sorry."

Distantly there are sirens, but it's Aoko that has his focus. Her hand moves—to touch? To pull him closer? To push him away?—but she tries to take a breath and chokes, and all he can see is his panic reflected back from her eyes. There is blood foaming on her lips and blood beneath his hands. There is nothing he can do to stop the light leaving her eyes full minutes before the ambulance arrives.

He leaves. Runs rather, feeling hot shame and cold pain and the same awful helplessness he felt when he saw Oyaji die on stage all those years ago. He runs until suddenly he isn't running anymore, high up top of a building he can't remember climbing with the cityscape below him with all its light and sounds distantly echoing up.

The hat is missing, as is the phone. The gloves are still tacky with blood though it is turning brownish black as it dries. Staring at those gloves he lets himself shake and fall apart. He is not Kid. He is Kaito and Kaito has lost the biggest presence in his life a second time. Oddly, there's no tears like there was for Oyaji. It's been so long since he cried he doesn't know if he can anymore, and somehow that makes the pain worse. He chokes on a breath and then stops breathing for a moment entirely because it sounded too much like Aoko choking for air.

It is later, much later, days, weeks, months, that it hits like a punch in the gut that he loved her. Maybe always loved her, he can't tell when it started. It had been a joke. He flirted, she got angry, she had her own rough method of flirting, he brushed it off. It had been a joke until it wasn't anymore and she was bleeding out and looking like he'd broke her heart and he was holding her body and feeling like he'd lost his.

Kuroba Kaito doesn't return to school after. Kid becomes a bit more ruthless in his hunt.

The mask never comes off, really. Kid isn't sure how much of Kaito is intact underneath.