Pairing(s): lonelyyoungmaster!Shinichi x starvingartist!Kaito (reversible!ness), side / minor Eisuke x Ran

Warnings: Shounen-ai (no really), choppy writing / "snippets" storytelling, possible grammar mistakes / errors, Shinichi being a slightly self-deprecating dumbass, Kaito being all worldly and jaded

Notes: So basically, here's the story of this fic: Seeing as my two-year anniversary is in August, I was planning on doing a daily fic series for August called AU August. At first, I was going to employ a bunch of other fan fiction authors (thus that one time that I asked who would want to collaborate with me) so that I wouldn't have to do all of them, but then at the last second, I decided not to do it, which is why I didn't reply to anyone who offered to help. -_- Yeah, I know, I'm a terrible person. I'm so sorry, guys!

But anyway, I'd already started a couple of the AU fics before I gave up, so I've got a few here in my unfinished works folder. I found this one and thought it might be somewhat enjoyable, thought the rest of them… I don't know.

But for now, I hope you enjoy this painter!Kaito fic! – Luna

Life in Color

– i do my best to find some kind of glow

i'm giving it some heart and soul now

from the darkest grays,

the sun bursts, clouds break –

("life in color" by onerepublic)

It was roughly half past three in the morning when Shinichi opened the door. His expression didn't change the slightest at the sight that greeted him.

A disheveled, subtly bloody Kaito stood on his doorstep, paint-splotched bag slung over his equally splattered shoulder. His eyes glinted navy in the faint moonlight.

Shinichi leaned against the doorframe. "Hey," he said, not a trace of surprise in his voice. "Do you want the backyard today?"

Kaito swept back his grimy bangs with a remarkably clean hand. Across his forehead there was a smear of a red far too vibrant to be paint. Shinichi fought back the urge to reach out and wipe it off. "No, today I'd like to use the view from your room, if that would be all right."

Nodding, Shinichi stepped back and opened the door farther to allow the artist in. "Go right ahead. I'll be up with tea in a couple minutes."

"Thanks," Kaito murmured as he stepped onto the finely varnished marble floor, his heavy footsteps causing solid, too-loud thunks. He glanced at Shinichi, and Shinichi immediately saw the gratitude in his eyes.

It was always there.

"No problem," Shinichi smiled in return before he headed for the kitchen.

For as long as he could remember, Shinichi had lived at 221 Beika. His parents, though now long gone, had built the huge Western-style house along the outskirts of Tokyo years ago, poised to overlook the city from a slope. It was a ten-minute walk to the nearest train station, and the expensive house was difficult to maintain, but Shinichi never minded. The mansion had always been home and always would be.

Kaito had happened on an icy Thursday afternoon, a day in which the leaves lining the almost-bare limbs of the trees standing in front of the house rattled in the wind and the sky was a murky shade of gunmetal gray, like the depths of a lake in midwinter.

Shinichi had come home from his weekly shopping trip (for groceries and to chat with some of the Tokyoites for updates on city life) to find a man, shoddily dressed with a stained bag on his shoulder, staring blankly up at the imposing front of his house.

At first, Shinichi hadn't minded it – this sort of thing happened, as 221 Beika tended to elicit reactions of, "I had no idea there was a house up here!" and general expressions of wonder – but after a few minutes, when it became clear that this man wasn't moving, Shinichi had approached him.

"May I help you?" he had asked.

Sharply indigo eyes turned to him, nearly incandescent in the crisp gray light. Shinichi had almost taken a step back at the marvelously alive hue of those eyes, startled by the intensity.

Then the man had blinked, and the moment had shattered.

"I'm sorry, are you this house's owner?"

Shinichi had nodded blankly. His bag of groceries had suddenly felt oddly heavy on his arm. "Yes, that's me. I live here."

"I see." The man hadn't moved. "I'm Kuroba Kaito. Just another starving artist who's been inspired by something I could never reach." There had been a strange slant to his lips, almost as if he was mocking himself. "I'll go now."

Something had come over Shinichi. Even now, he couldn't explain it. A wave of… not pity, but something like it? A half-hearted attempt to be warm and kind and not like himself at all?

Whatever the reason, he'd stepped forward and awkwardly offered, "You don't have to, really. Do you want to come in? I can show you the views and – and you've been inspired by the house, right? Maybe you could, I don't know, paint… here?"

Kaito had just stared at him for a long second, and just when Shinichi had been sure he was going to run, his lips had curled into a grin and he had laughed. Musical and calming. "Sure. That would suit me just fine."

The scent of bergamot was heavy in the air as Shinichi pushed open the door to his bedroom, a delicate porcelain cup of earl gray in each hand. Kaito had already set up his supplies in the far corner, facing the bay window by Shinichi's bed that faced out over the lit buildings of Tokyo from the other side of the room. He looked up when Shinichi entered.

"Here." Shinichi set down one of the cups at Kaito's elbow. He winced at the latticework of gold filigree on the saucer. He hated how pretentious this whole setup was. An independently wealthy, unemployed twentysomething man letting a grubby, possibly homeless artist into his three-story mansion and serving him tea out of imported cups? It felt so condescending that he wanted to growl in frustration.

"Thanks," Kaito told him, and Shinichi snapped out of it long enough to nod and stand back against the doorframe awkwardly.

"So, uh, where should I go today?" he asked. Some days Kaito let him stay in the room and watch him work, and others he just read in the library. It seemed to depend on Kaito's mood.

"Oh." Casting him a quick glance, Kaito motioned at the bed. "You can go sit down there."

"Okay." Shinichi crossed the room, careful to not spill his tea. He set it down on the bedside table, following Kaito's command and sitting down on his bed. As he did, he glanced out the window. Tokyo really was quite striking while shrouded in darkness.

They sat in a comfortable silence, with Kaito looking from the window to his canvas. The smell of oil paints started to overcome the bergamot.

Shinichi finally broke the silence. He had been eyeing Kaito's bloodstained clothes for a minute or two, questions hovering on his tongue. "Why… what happened to you?" he finally asked, trying to keep his voice level.

"Are you asking about the blood or my life?" Kaito replied wryly, and Shinichi winced. The bitterness in his voice was as evident as it was in overbrewed black coffee.

"The blood," he answered in a small voice.

Kaito sighed. His brush moved against the canvas with soft whispers. "There was a mugging, and I helped the victim home. He was drunk, though. He thought I was the mugger and had come back, so he tried to take a few swings at me." He shoved his hair out of his face, the movement almost frustrated. "I fought him off well enough. His wife wasn't too happy with me, though." The murmurs of sable against cotton stopped for just a second. "She threatened to call the police."

A pang of anger hit Shinichi hard in the heart. He hated that. He hated how people assumed that just because Kaito didn't wear suits or button-downs, he was a – a criminal or a pickpocket or something. He absolutely hated it. Shinichi was someone who had seen enough murderers to last a lifetime, and they didn't only wear blood-smeared faces and carry bags full of canvasses and oil paints. They hid behind carefully crafted facades of family friend and victim's wife and honest businessman, concealing hearts shaded charcoal black with hate.

"I hate that," Shinichi said aloud, startling even himself. He'd never voiced his opinion on these occasions, when Kaito admitted that he'd been mistreated.

The brush stopped moving. Eyes tearing away from the window, Kaito looked at him, eyes unblinking. "Do you now?" His voice was flat, but there were traces of genuine surprise there. Shinichi heard them, tasted them in the air.

He leaned back against his pillows. "I… yes. I hate how they think you're… inferior. It's not… it's not right for anyone to think that you're… you're not as…" Words failed him, and Shinichi threw up his hands in exasperation. "It's just so wrong. The same people squabble over inheritance and petty blackmail and harbor grudges against their business partners for ridiculous reasons and still have the audacity to think they're worth more than anyone else. You're better. Better than any of them will ever be, and I just hate how they can't see that." He took a sip of his lukewarm tea, exhaling hard.

Kaito stared at him for all of twelve seconds before he wordlessly returned to his painting with twice as much fervor as before.

"What happened to your parents?"

This was directed as Shinichi as he sat down across from Kaito in the huge garden behind 221 Beika. Kaito had elected to paint the backyard in the bright morning glow of seven o'clock today, and Shinichi had consented.

"My parents?" Shinichi blinked, startled. Even after Shinichi's declaration a few weeks ago, he and Kaito usually didn't discuss personal things like this – they usually stuck to conversations about the weather or the latest gossip or just… bantered. They didn't talk about their pasts.

Kaito's eyes were focused on his canvas as he swept the paintbrush over it. "Yes." There was the underlying tone of you don't have to answer if you don't want to, and Shinichi heard it clearly.

"My father was a mystery writer," he said anyway. "He was a consultant for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Force. He used to always tell me about the cases he helped solve. Sometimes, if I begged hard enough and he was in a good enough mood, he'd take me along to crime scenes. I got to watch him bring people to justice. To me, it was magical." Shinichi swallowed. "He was killed while following a lead. They got the culprit, but it was too late."

Kaito's strokes continued evenly, though Shinichi noticed his hand tense.

"My mother was a retired actress," Shinichi continued. "She used to help out with school productions and at theatres. Everyone loved her. Six months after my father died, she was mugged and murdered on the train back home." His lap was suddenly very interesting. "By that time, I was barely twenty. At least the timing was good."

"There's nothing good about the timing," Kaito said softly, and Shinichi allowed himself to smile a little.

"I think it was good," he disagreed. "I'm glad I was an adult by then. I could stay here, the place that we'd all once lived together. I had the inheritance, the house, the freedom." He spread his hands. "What else could I want?"

"Your parents." The brush stopped, and Kaito's eyes met Shinichi's.

Shinichi sighed, but didn't say anything. After all, he could only agree.

"Do you have a girlfriend?"

Kaito tore his gaze from the canvas just long enough to blinked twice at Shinichi, as if trying to gauge whether he was serious. "Are you offering yourself up for the position?" he asked, lightly, as he dipped his brush back into the paint.

"Er – no?" The second those incredibly intelligent words came out of his mouth, Shinichi contemplated whether he could slap himself without garnering any more attention. Flinching in the cool murkiness of the library – today Kaito had wanted the midday view from the windows in there – he grasped the handle of his teacup a little harder as he brought it to his lips. He was just curious, that was all. Despite his less-than-savory appearance, Kaito was rather attractive, with his borderline mischievous smile and indigo eyes. Shinichi was fairly certain that the man could pass as for a model. It was only logical to wonder if he was in a relationship.

But why did he feel so uncomfortable now?

"I'm just kidding, Kudou-san," Kaito assured him, wiping his hands off on a rag and turning so he faced Shinichi, giving him his full attention. His eyes sparkled. "But to answer your question, no, I'm not attached at the moment. Nobody wants to date a penniless painter, after all." His smile was edged with bitterness.

Ignoring the twist of his stomach at Kaito's expression, Shinichi set down his teacup on the saucer by his elbow. "It's not that uncommon. When my father married my mother, she was a penniless actress."

Kaito quirked an eyebrow. "Just because her beauty swept him off his feet?" Without waiting for a response, he shook his head and picked up his paintbrush again. "That sort of thing doesn't happen to guys like me."

"Hey, your beauty could certainly sweep people off their feet," Shinichi disagreed, smirking. "Who knows, maybe you'll snatch up some pretty little CEO's daughter with your charms."

Unexpectedly, Kaito flushed, red crawling up his neck. "I doubt that," he scoffed, his brushstrokes suddenly the slightest bit erratic.

Shinichi smirked at him. Well, what do you know, flustered Kaito was adorable. "No, really. I think you could. You'd waltz up to her with a painting of Tokyo's city life and say something like, 'I'm just a lowly painter, I know. And I don't have money, so I can't buy your heart. But perhaps you'd be willing to share it with me?'" He laughed, picking up his teacup again. "You'd have her in a heartbeat."

When Shinichi glanced up from his lap, noticing that the sound of brush against canvas has stopped, he was surprised to find Kaito staring at him, his eyes unreadable.

"Do you really think that?" the artist asked softly.

Blinking, Shinichi nodded. "Why else would I say that? You're charming and gentle and have a better than decent face. You could get anyone, anytime."

Kaito just looked at him a little longer before he went back to painting. "Is that so," he murmured under his breath, and Shinichi wondered why for a second longer before he dismissed it.

It wasn't often that anyone other than Kaito came to visit 221 Beika, but when Shinichi opened his front door one overcast day to find a very familiar, very beautiful girl standing on his doorstep, he wasn't surprised.

"Ran," he greeted, leaning against the doorframe. "How are you?"

Mouri Ran, his childhood friend, beamed at him, throwing her arms out wide for a hug. "Shinichi! It's been so long!"

He ducked out of the way, backing up a few steps. "Only what, four weeks?"

Ran's cheeks puffed out as she pouted at him, dropping her arms. "Six months, you insensitive jerk. I just got back from Europe a couple days ago."

"I know." Shinichi smirked, feeling something sticky blossom in his chest. Ran was one of his favorite people – a mother, sister, and best friend all rolled into one. At one point, she had also been his future fiancée (thanks to their meddling parents), but both of them had long since dismissed the idea. Sure, Ran was beautiful and kind and sweet, but having grown up with her, Shinichi found it almost impossible to see her as anything other than a sibling. He suspected she felt the same regarding him.

As she glared, Shinichi sighed and reached out to give her a hug.

Eyes brightening, Ran flung herself forward, smashing into Shinichi's chest with an almost painful thud. "You do have a heart, Shinichi!" she grinned into his shirt, and Shinichi let out a sigh of long suffering.

"No, really, you do," Ran giggled, and Shinichi chuckled back. He laced his fingertips through her hair, gently tugging her closer.

"I missed you, you know," he mumbled clumsily against her temple. He wasn't very good with sentimentalities, but Ran just laughed one last time before she stepped back.

It was then that Shinichi looked over her silk-clad shoulder to see that Kaito was hovering awkwardly about ten feet behind her.

He felt his heart leap in his throat as he waved. "Kuroba-san!" Kaito seemed to flinch backwards, recoiling, at the address, while Ran glanced over her shoulder in surprise.

As Kaito started towards them, Ran's face relaxed into a smile. "Oh, Shinichi, who's this?" She extended a delicate hand to the painter once he was close enough, donning her typical million-watt smile. "Hello! I'm Mouri Ran!"

Still hesitant, Kaito nodded. "I'm Kuroba Kaito." His half-smile seemed forced as he shook Ran's hand.

Letting go of Kaito's hand, Ran turned on Shinichi. "Shinichi! When did you make friends with such a nice man? He's so pretty!" Shinichi almost smiled at how blind Ran was to Kaito's ragged attire. He loved her for it.

Ignoring the way Kaito bristled slightly, Shinichi shrugged. "He's a painter. You know how this house overlooks Tokyo?" When Ran nodded, Shinichi ran a hand through his hair. "Well, Kuroba-san was inspired by it, so I'm letting him paint the city from various places in the house at various times of day."

"Really?" Ran's face broke out into a wide, beaming expression as she clasped her hands tightly to her chest. "That's so nice! So… unlike you."

Smacking her lightly on the shoulder, Shinichi shook his head in irritation before he peered over at Kaito, who met his gaze with a slightly steely stare. "Sorry about this person. She's a bit of a handful."

"Hey! Is that any way to talk about your best friend?"

Acting as if he hadn't heard Ran's outburst, Shinichi smiled at Kaito, whose expression seemed to thaw just a little. "Would you like to come in?"

"I'd love to," Kaito answered, dipping his head as he stepped past Ran and into the interior of 221 Beika.

Ran scowled at Shinichi. "Aren't you going to invite me in?"

"Sure," Shinichi sighed heavily, rolling his eyes as he opened the door a little wider and gestured her in. "After you, my lady."

Giggling, Ran pranced into the house. "Thank you, my good sir."

Shinichi missed the way Kaito's eyes darted darkly from him to Ran, then back to him before the artist wiped his face clean of any expression.

Kaito was standing in the center of Shinichi's guest room, bag at his side and his back to the door, when Shinichi tapped lightly on the doorjamb.

He glanced over his shoulder as Shinichi entered, accompanied by the faint clinking of porcelain as he set down the tea tray on the dusty bedside table. "Hey."

"Hey," Shinichi replied quietly as he lifted a teacup off the tray. "Are you deciding what to paint for today?"

"Mm." The sound was noncommittal, and Kaito made no further comment as he reached for his own teacup – white bone china with a network of silver tracery, probably costing a fortune. Shinichi silently hated it.

A few feathery moments passed between them, silent and comfortable. The room was bathed in a warm ocher glow from the floor-to-ceiling window at the far side of the room, which provided a breathtaking view of the sunset right over Tokyo.

Kaito finally broke the calm a few seconds later as he placed his teacup back onto the tray and reached for his bag. "Is Mouri-san here today?" he asked, his back facing Shinichi.

"Ran? Not today," Shinichi responded, startled by the question. But it was true that lately Ran had been close at hand whenever Kaito appeared, so it shouldn't be too surprising, he berated himself.

For a minute, Kaito didn't reply, and Shinichi just watched the muscles in his back ripple as he dug through his bag for his painting supplies. Mentally, he wondered how those muscles would feel under his hands. They certainly looked smooth and hard, but what were they actually like –

Shinichi flushed at the thought. Okay, he didn't need to be thinking about that, of all things. With an inelegant clatter, he deposited his teacup on the nightstand and turned, heading for the door.

"Where are you going?"

Freezing at the sound of Kaito's questioning voice, Shinichi willed the blood from his cheeks as he pivoted back around and donned a hopefully natural expression. "I, uh… didn't want to disrupt you today, so…"

Kaito's eyes flashed navy for a second. "Don't worry about that. Stay." He tugged a paintbrush from its spot in his bag. "I don't mind."

"Uh…" Unsure of how to react, Shinichi faltered for a second before he returned to his former spot by the bed. As Kaito continued to pull paints and palettes out, he turned to face the sunset. It really was beautiful – dark shades of burnt orange melding with puffs of apricot clouds, gold streamers dancing across the last bits of powder blue sky. He felt his face relax just a little bit.

In his periphery, he was vaguely aware of Kaito glancing at him, jolting in surprise, and then beginning to paint with hurried but deft strokes.

Shinichi's first clue that something was off occurred when Ran stormed past him, her heels clacking loudly against the marble tiles, without a word. "Is Kaito-kun here?" she tossed over her shoulder as she shot towards the library.

Bewildered, Shinichi closed the door and shook his head quickly, hurrying after her.

"Ran, what's –"

"Eisuke broke up with me," she hissed, and Shinichi stopped short. That would explain it.

Ran had been going steady with Hondou Eisuke, a CIA agent, for nearly three years now. It had always been assumed by just about everyone, including Shinichi, that the two of them would get married soon.

Apparently not.

"Ran, that's…" Shinichi scrambled to find words. "I'm sorry. I wouldn't have thought…"

She whirled on her heel, tears streaming down her face. "I thought so, too! I thought we were going to get married and have kids and live happily ever after, too! But no – he tells me he's got to go back to America, and it's just too bad, but apparently I'm not good enough for long distance! So we're nothing now!"

Rant complete, Ran began sobbing, swiping frantically at her eyes. "Goddamn it," she muttered under her breath, scrubbing harder. "Goddamn it."

Holding back a pitying sigh, Shinichi considered his options for a moment before he took a faintly unsure step forward and wrapped her into a hug. "Shh, it's okay," he whispered, running a hand through his head.

Ran trembled. Her fingers fisted in the front of Shinichi's shirt, drawing taut across his back. It was sure to wrinkle, but Shinichi decided he didn't care. He threaded his hands through her hair and drew her head back so they were eye-to-eye.

"Don't worry about it, Ran," he said, as comfortingly as he could, and Ran blinked hard, teardrops leaving clear diamond trails down her cheeks.

"Kudou-san, are you…"

Shinichi jumped at the unexpected sound of Kaito's voice. He glanced at the door to see Kaito standing there, watching the scene in front of him blankly.

"Kuroba-san," coughed Shinichi. He felt fairly awkward, standing there with an armful of sobbing Ran, but he tried to act normal. "Uh, were you here to…?"

"I… the front door was unlocked," Kaito explained, taking a few steps back. "I had… something I wanted to show you." His eyes were impassive.

"Oh, I, um." Shinichi dragged his hands free of Ran's hair. "I – just, uh…"

Ran, who had been silent for the entire exchange, laughed suddenly. The sound was tearstained, but somehow still amused. Disentangling herself from Shinichi's arms, she flashed a slight smile. "Sorry to interrupt you two. I'll be going now," she said, and Shinichi's lips parted, about to give some kind of protest, but she shook her head at him.

"I'll be fine, Shinichi. You talk to Kaito-kun," she told him before she breezed out of the room. Far off, Shinichi heard the sound of the front door opening, then shutting.

The two of them stood in silence, Shinichi feeling disconcerted by the recent turn of events and Kaito statute-still.

"S-So, are you and Mouri-san in… some kind of… relationship?" Kaito finally asked, and Shinichi gaped at him, confused by his hesitancy. Kaito wasn't usually like that – he was always assured, always careful with his words. This was different.

"We're just friends," he answered, though. "She's – her boyfriend just dumped her."

"Oh." Kaito shuffled, his bag bumping against his side. "I – see."

In the stillness that followed his short words, Shinichi tentatively prompted, "You said you had something you wanted to show to me?"

Kaito's breath seemed to catch. "I – I do."

"So…?"

Kaito lifted his face, meeting Shinichi's gaze for a heartstopping three seconds before he set his bag down heavily on the ground and unzipped it.

Shinichi took an uneasy step forward as Kaito pulled out a canvas.

He had never seen Kaito's work before – Kaito had never offered to show any of his finished pieces to Shinichi, and Shinichi had thought it better not to ask. Still, he'd always suspected that Kaito was a diamond in the rough.

Shinichi had been wrong.

Kaito was more than a diamond in the rough. He was – he was indescribable.

Breath hitching, Shinichi couldn't stop staring at the painting. It was the view from right in front of his house, one he'd long since memorized, but somehow, there was – there was magic underneath the paint, magic that sparked the skyscrapers to life, that made the dark blue of the sky seem like part of a dream.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Shinichi recalled that this was the first painting Kaito had ever done at his house – when he had been too cautious to actually enter 221 Beika, done right after Shinichi had told him it would be okay for him to paint there.

"This is beautiful," he breathed aloud, and Kaito just nodded before he exchanged the canvas for another.

This one was also unspeakably gorgeous – the view from his bedroom at the early morning, sometime around three, perhaps. But something was different – the painting wasn't just of the view; it also included the window and part of the bedroom as well as –

Shinichi.

Heart stuttering in his chest, Shinichi inspected the painting closer. He was small, yes, just a corner of the canvas, really, but he was there. Kaito had painted just enough of the room to include him – sitting on his bed with a cup of tea on the table at his side, hair shining almost pearlescent in the moonlight. He looked ethereal, almost otherworldly, and it was shocking to see himself like that.

Looking up to meet Kaito's gaze searchingly, Shinichi opened his mouth to say something, but Kaito just yanked another canvas out of his bag and presented it to Shinichi.

This painting was clearly painted in the garden, maybe in the morning. There were detailed crimson carnations and brilliant bluebells and dainty daffodils, spotted with dewdrops against a light background.

Yet the garden wasn't the focus of the painting. Shinichi was – Shinichi, who was sitting casually at a table, his gaze dreamy and wistful as he studied something over the painter's shoulder. His hands were artistic and streamlined in his lap, his hair dark umber against his china skin, and Shinichi, the one who was made of flesh and blood, blinked in confusion. There was something here – something that seemed to suggest that Kaito thought –

Kaito changed the paintings, and Shinichi's jaw dropped.

The new canvas seemed to be painted with less finesse than the others – vibrant colors sloppily gave shape to walls of books and vast windows, almost unrecognizable. But in jarring detail, Shinichi was in the middle of it all, smiling. Smiling. His lips were lifted, his eyes were laughing, and against the slapdash background, he shone, every line clear and startling.

By now, Shinichi was starting to realize what Kaito meant. His gaze snapped up to Kaito's, and he was about to stammer out a question (didn't this mean that –) when Kaito's eyes softened and he lifted up one last painting.

This one barely bothered with a background – just a few scribbles forming a messy gradient from vermillion to tenné – and it was a portrait of Shinichi in profile view, a soft smile on his lips and his eyes sparkling. It was clear that every stroke had been premeditated, well-thought out, despite that the angled ends suggested they had been done quickly. The edges of each line were sharp and dark enough to give striking definition, yet somehow delicate and subtle enough to leave the painting with a stunningly dreamlike finish.

It was genuine, it was heartfelt…

…and it was quite obviously the work of someone who cared for the model quite a lot.

Shinichi could barely breathe as he tore his gaze from the painting. Kaito was watching him, his eyes almost pleading.

"So?" the artist inquired. His voice was quiet in the library's peace.

"I – I don't know what to say," Shinichi managed to get out. His heart was racing in his chest, thumping out a frantic rhythm against his ribcage. "I'm… does this mean… I don't…" What was he supposed to think? What was he supposed to do? The thought of this man – this amazing, beautiful, talented man – actually caring for him – a rich, privileged, idealistic child… it was impossible, he couldn't, there was no way –

Kaito was silent for a second before he extended the painting out to Shinichi once more. At Shinichi's silent question, he carefully enunciated, "I'm just a lowly painter, I know."

Shinichi swore his heart was in his throat.

Crystalline indigo eyes. "And I don't have money, so I can't buy your heart."

Shinichi's pulse was thundering in his wrists, in his neck. Everywhere.

Slight smile edged with heartbreaking hope. "But perhaps you'd be willing to share it with me?"

And Shinichi's heart exploded as he reached forward, almost knocking the portrait out of Kaito's hands, and wrapped his arms around Kaito's neck.

"Of course I would," he whispered, his breath ghosting over Kaito's lips. "You're charming and gentle and have a better than decent face." A pause. "Also, I love you more than anything else in this world."

Kaito blinked in surprise before he smiled – a warm, soft, woolen smile that Shinichi desperately wanted to be wrapped in. "I love you, too."

His lips were comfortingly welcome against Shinichi's as he whispered, "You had me in a heartbeat."

*calmly melts into puddle*

Yeah. So, um, that... happened.

(GOD SO SAPPY WHYYY)

Anyway, hope you enjoyed! Drop me a review if you did, okay?

See you around soon! - Luna