Chapter 5: An Anxious Raccoon

On the last bus of the night a tall, slender man sat in the seat next to the doors. The bus's tire hit a pothole with a loud CRACK, and the man jumped from his seat, reaching into his baggy coat to a hidden inner pocket on his left side.

"You might not want to bring that out in here," the bus driver said, one eye on his suspiciously jumpy passenger.

"It's just a fountain pen," the man said, pulling it out. His hand trembled, and he quickly returned it to its pocket. "Sorry, it was a bad day at work."

The bus driver smiled knowingly. They pulled into another stop. The bus driver's eyes lingered on the tall man's pale gray scrubs. "You a doctor?"

The man shook his head. "Nurse."

"Wanna unload while we wait? This is a timed stop, so we can't leave for another five minutes."

The nurse sat down, taking a few deep breaths. "Sure. I need to calm down before I get home anyways. I don't want my daughter seeing me like this."

The bus driver slipped his baseball cap off, used the rim to scratch an itch on the back of his balding scalp. "So what happened?"

The nurse took a few more deep breaths and rubbed his sweating palms on his scrubs. "A colleague of mine, someone I've worked with for years," he paused to blink very hard. "She became an angel of death."

The driver cocked his head, not sure what to make of the term. "A what?"

"It's what we call someone who starts killing their patients."

A minute of horrified silence settled over them.

At last the bus driver spoke. "Well, that sure as hell beats any of my bad days, and I've been robbed at knife-point twice."

The thin man rubbed his sunken eyes, and the driver did his best to not notice.

When he'd caught his breath again, the man said, "Usually I can leave work at work, you know?"

A chime went off. "That's my cue," the bus driver said. He reached into his pocket, pulling out his smartphone. "My name is Yusuke. If you wanna get a beer sometime and unwind."

The man reached into his pants' pocket to find his own phone, then stopped. "I don't have my phone with me. May I?"

"Sure," Yusuke said, checking the traffic before easing the bus back onto the road. At a stop sign, he turned on the screen and opened up the "new contact" window. "Just enter your name and number here."

The man accepted the battered phone and typed his name in big blocky Katakana, and after a moment of thought, entered a phone number. He handed it back.

Yusuke's eyes briefly scanned the phone before returning to the road. "Kuroe? That's an unusual name."

He shrugged.

"Nice to meet you Kuroe. Wish your daughter sweet dreams and take a nice long soak. That's what I usually do."

He gave a polite smile at the advice. "Nice to meet you too, Yusuke." He looked out the window as they rounded a corner. "Let me out at the next stop."

"You got it," Yusuke the bus driver said. He kept an eye on Kuroe. He was relaxing in his seat. Good.

The bus driver could've sworn he heard his passenger muttering as his rested his head on the window, utterly drained. He couldn't make out the words clearly, but it sounded like, "I'm charging that bastard Higure double."

A raccoon. That's what Kaito's face looked like. Hakuba, that git, had broken Kaito's nose, which had given him two black eyes to match. From the look of it, you'd never guess that the fight he'd gotten into had ended with its first and last blow.

But, there were more important things to worry over than his face.

He hadn't gone home. Hakuba had finally tricked Kaito into confessing that he was KID, and he had no idea what or who could be waiting for him. Instead, he'd ended up at Jii's dingy pool bar in the middle of the night. The old man had taken one look at Kaito's battered mug and ushered Kaito up to his little studio apartment over his bar. The space was incredibly cramped, and Kaito hadn't believed at first that anyone could actually live there. The majority of the room was taken up by a hand-carved work table. Then, with a twinkle in his eye, Jii had pulled on what appeared to be a simple rack of oven mitts and the table folded itself up into the wall. He had laid out a futon for Kaito beside his trundle bed, filling the small space again.

All this meant that there wasn't room for Kaito to sleep all day feeling sorry for himself. So he'd gotten up, and now was staring at his pitiful reflection, thinking about how his world was probably ending.

Aoko's heart was going to break when she heard. Did she already know? If she didn't already know, she would by now. It would be all over the news. He'd have to go into hiding, be lost to all of his friends who probably hated him now, be lost to the teachers that already hated him, be lost to the rivals who just wanted to use and expose him.

He meandered downstairs to the empty poolhall. It opened at noon, so he'd have to be gone by then. Jii was looking at something on his tablet, flicking through it with an intent look on his face.

"How bad is it?" Kaito asked, not sure if he wanted an answer.

The old man's eyebrows rose. "Six people dead, twelve injured."

Kaito blinked, uncomprehending.

Jii studied Kaito's face a moment, then went on, "Nothing about KID. There was an incident at a hospital. A nurse went on a rampage, administered poison in the IVs of a bunch of patients."

Relief flooded Kaito, followed by a hailstorm of guilt. He leaned on the counter, letting the emotions fade and waiting for his legs to stop feeling like jelly. "Nothing about KID at all?"

"You are correct. I don't think that Detective Hakuba has told anyone." He took down a chair from the table where it had been stacked. "Little Master, would you like breakfast? I can warm some leftovers up for you."

Kaito plopped down in the chair, nodding. As he watched Jii vanish into the kitchens, a sudden, horrible thought struck him like Hakuba's fist. "Which hospital?" he called.

Jii's voice echoed, sounding tinny from being echoed in the walk-in cooler. "Haido City Hospital."

His heart sank. Kudou's almost supernatural ability to end up right in the middle of things meant that he was likely one of the victims, or he had led the police to the killer. He better not be dead or injured. Kaito didn't know what he would do if Kudou died this way: murdered and under the wrong name. Kaito wasn't particularly superstitious and wasn't certain if he believed in ghosts, but something about being buried under the wrong name made his hackles rise. He shook off the image of Kudou's spirit doomed to wander forever, unable to find its own grave.

The microwave made a jarring DING, announcing that Kaito's meal was complete. A moment later, Jii was striding around the corner, Kaito's breakfast in hand. It was a simple soup, full of over-cooked vegetables and salted too heavily.

As he blew over his soup, trying to cool it down, Jii pulled up a chair beside him.

"When you're done, I want you to go to school. If that detective is there, you can figure out if he'll tell anyone, or convince him not to."

"You've really heard nothing?" Kaito asked.

Seeing that he needed to further soothe Kaito's fears, Jii elaborated, "It's not that I've heard nothing. According to the surveillance cameras in the police station, Detective Hakuba hasn't been in the police station since your fight. Inspector Nakamori's behavior hasn't changed, there's been no rise in activity in the Kaitou KID task force at all. That boy didn't rat you out."

Only the top portion of the soup had warmed, Kaito found. He stirred the rest of it together and drank it down, like the bowl was one large cup.

"Thanks," Kaito said. He meant it. He meant it with his every fiber. "You've helped me so much."

Jii stood up like he was twenty years younger, a smile on his creased face. "Your father did the same for me."

He arrived a period late to class, and received a crowd of stares and "Whoa! Didja gedina fight?" He glanced at Hakuba, but the guilty party looked away when their eyes met.

"It's nothing," he said, making sure his bravado swagger was in full gear. "You should see the other guy's fist!"

The girls giggled and the boys cheered like he was their conquering hero. Hakuba got up and stormed out for the rest of the break, so Kaito sidled up to Aoko, who was pointedly ignoring him.

"Getting into fights isn't cool, dumbass," she mumbled after Kaito put his battered face in front of hers, only a few centimeters apart. She put her hand on his face and pushed him away. Her hand smelled like peach hand-lotion. He held back the urge to lick it. His face had enough purple spots on it. For now.

He leaned back in his chair. "Yeah, I know. And I totally lost the fight too. All this?" he waved his hand over his face. "The dude did it in one punch."

She raised an eyebrow. "So why did the guy punch you?"

"You know I've never been that great at keeping my mouth shut." He bit his lip and looked down. "Let's just say I deserved it and leave it at that."

"So you learned your lesson?" she asked, arms crossed.

Hakuba reentered the classroom with the history teacher right behind him, and their conversation was cut short as they stood and bowed to the teacher.

The next break between classes, Kaito darted after Hakuba, ignoring requests from his classmates for a blow-by-blow version of the action. The long-legged guy was already at the end of the hall by the time Kaito have struggled past their classmates, and he had to run to catch up. Hakuba responded by sprinting up the stairs.

He called Hakuba's name, but he was ignored. A final burst of speed and Kaito grabbed Hakuba's arm, forcing him to stop. "I need to-" he panted, "talk about last night."

"I'm sorry," Hakuba said, his voice barely audible. He jerked his arm, trying to free himself, but Kaito held on fast. Hakuba's shoulders slumped and his arm fell lax. "Fine," he muttered. "Let's go to the roof, I guess. Let go of me before anyone gets the wrong idea."

Kaito released the arm, raising his own in a sign of submission. He followed Hakuba to the roof in silence.

Bitter cold drizzle and a sharp breeze ensured that no one else was there. Hakuba still wouldn't meet Kaito's eyes. He stood in the unpleasant weather without attempting to protect himself from it, as though he deserved it. His eyes stayed fixed on the ground.

"I shouldn't have hit you. I don't know why I did, I just got really angry, and it just happened."

"You said something like that last night," Kaito said. "But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."

Hakuba interrupted him, continuing with his apology. "I didn't know I had that sort of violence in me; I thought I was above it."

"I knew you did," Kaito interjected, his frustration starting to mount. There was a more pressing, life-altering discussion he needed right now. "You forget how we met. You tried to drug me."

"That's different!" Hakuba snapped. "That was a calculated tactic, and I was trying to catch a thief! I didn't do it because I was mad at you. I did that because it was my job. Punching you – I did that because…" his voice faltered.

"I was being an asshole," Kaito said. The sooner they got past this the sooner he could get to the important part of the conversation. "I made a racist comment while trying to rile you up, and it worked. It wasn't all your fault."

"You aren't the first!" Hakuba's voice was breaking, and a tear leaked onto his face. He roughly wiped it away, looking up. His eyes were red, his lips bloodless, showing a deep pain that Kaito had no idea was there. "You have no idea what I deal with daily! The teachers treat me like I'm retarded; everyone looks at me as though I'm this magical multi-colored alien that bamfed out of nowhere, even though I was born in Japan! I was bullied so much as a kid that my parents moved me to England to live with my mother's family, and there, I didn't fit in either! People were just as racist there, just in different ways. There's no place for me, and I'm reminded that constantly."

Kaito felt winded, as though Hakuba had punched him again. Guilt was chewing up his ability to speak. His mouth opened and shut uselessly.

"But I deal with that all the time, and all of that is a reflection of other people's failings, not mine. Hitting you, however, that was my failing. I pride myself in holding myself to a higher standard than the people treating me with inequity, and I failed last night."

Something clicked, like a perfect fitting part of a contraption sliding into place. To Hakuba, Kaito being KID wasn't a big, earth-shattering revelation. It didn't matter much compared to failing to keep his temper in check, losing control. Hakuba needed control over his life, over his actions to feel sane.

"If you want to press charges…"

"Hold it!" Kaito found his voice. "I'm not going to do that. Like I said, it was partly my fault for provoking you. I forgive you for punching an asshole. Anyways," he shifted his weight to his other foot. It was getting colder by the minute up there. "What are you going to do about me being KID?"

Hakuba shrugged, hugging himself. He walked back to the shelter of the doorway. "Nothing. I already knew."

"Can't you prove it now?" Kaito asked, looking at Hakuba's bandaged hand.

"Yes. But I won't. I do have a request though." Hakuba looked down his long nose at Kaito, a small frown lingering as he spoke. "Don't do any more heists. When you do, you put me in the position of having to choose between your safety and the law, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't do that. I'm enough of a hypocrite as it is. I don't think I can handle many more contradictions."

He mulled that over. There was a goal to his KID act. Some part of it was for the fun, the rush of it, the crowds, the mental exercise, the adrenaline ripping his cares away and turning them into pure euphoria. But, he could get that from performing. "I will if you help me find the people who murdered my father."

"Your father?" Kaito could just see the cogs whirring in the detective's head, but the chimes announcing the next period rang, cutting the conversation off.

They sprinted down the stairs back to their classroom, arriving breathless and to a pissed off history teacher.