Birthday Presents ( by House of Mystery )
- for Poirot Cafe's Themed Contest #6

If there was a Hell, Ginzo Nakamori decided, it must have felt like a birthday party at ten minutes to twelve.

He sat up with a groan, his eardrums still throbbing from all of the laughs and screams and Mai Kuraki singles blasted thirty decibels above any sane volume. His eyes feeling two seconds away from dissolving into mush. His third bottle of sake beating a steady rat-a-tat-tat on his skull. His sinuses trying (unsuccessfully) to drown out the stench of sugar and sweat and alcohol and what was probably vomit. And his third-best suit scuffed up beyond any laundromat's help.

(And his blood pressure was probably in orbit by now. That was what he got for pigging out on sweets he hadn't touched since eighth grade.)

He had to hand it to Aoko's little friend. The Kuroba kid could throw one hell of a party. Sure, he'd heard as much from Aoko too many times to count, but going to one...

But what the hell. A kid only turned twenty once, and he'd have to be some kind of ogre to rip that out of Kaito's hands. The kid was old enough to drink now. Old enough to smoke. Old enough to get laid.

(A sudden, horrible thought gripped him. He chased it out with a promise that Kaito's hide would be hanging over his fireplace if it ever came close to happening.)

It took him three tries to get to his feet. Two more minutes to remember why he'd done it in the first place.

His lips felt like old leather. A glass of water would help, he decided. Maybe a cigarette too. Now he just needed to remember where the Kurobas' kitchen was.

"-duh-don't leave, babay..."

He looked at the babbling, half-asleep boy (Yamato? Hamada?) by his feet and rolled his eyes. How many friends did Kaito have?

Stepping around the pitch-black living room was like stepping through a minefield blindfolded. He could've sworn that drunk and half-drunk guests were actually popping out of thin air every time he picked a place to put his foot down. Still, he persevered. Ginzo Nakamori had been in tighter corners than this. In every sense of the word.

(A certain incident involving Kid, the German ambassador, and two barrels of yak butter came to mind. He ordered it back into the ether, where it belonged.)

"-don' wanna-"
"-luh-look beautiful tanig..."
"-ha-na-na-na-na... white of crime..."

Maybe a dozen steps in, he saw a half-open door spilling a bright yellow rectangle across the floor. He shuddered. Not that he usually had any problems with yellow, but looking at it now felt like gouging out his eyes with a thumbtack.

He turned away from it and blinked three times, determined to take some other way around. The Kuroba house wasn't that big. He'd find the kitchen eventually. Hopefully.

Okay, maybe he should wake Kaito up and ask him for help-

Something stopped him. Something behind him.

Voices.

There were voices behind the door. Two of them. Not drunken slurs, but the kind of hush used by people desperate to keep a secret but too young - or too emotional - to know how.

He knew the first like his own name - light, sweet, worried.

Aoko.

He knew the second almost as well - mellow but cocky. And annoyed.

Kaito.

Something told him to keep walking. He didn't listen.

It was Kaito speaking now: "I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. Do you know what your old man and his goon squad did to me last Sunday?"

What?

That didn't make any sense. He hadn't even seen Kaito last Sunday. He'd been too busy trying (emphasis on trying) to stop Kid from making off with Charlemagne's Eye-

Aoko took over: "Look, it's not forever. Just until-"

"Until what?" Kaito's voice was harsher than he'd have thought possible. "Until he retires?"

Silence.

Then-

"You don't know what he was like when you were gone."

A sigh. "Aoko, remember all your little speeches about how your dad's life would be easier with 'that dumbass burglar' gone? Now he's got reason to retire, and you won't let him."

More silence.

"That was back then. I-I didn't know..."

A sob. An honest-to-God sob.

"Oh God. Do you know what the psychiatrist at Metro HQ told me last month?"

He felt a cold sweat rolling down the back of his neck. Aoko couldn't know. She couldn't.

"That eight-year break Kid took? His first one?" Aoko's voice was barely a whisper now. "Dad was going up to the roof of headquarters twice, three times a day. And he'd just stand there and stare at the streets and... and..."

And think about joining Kid.

One of the oldest men in his squad - a Holmes geek, because of course he was - had called those eight years the Great Hiatus. He'd known it as Hell.

Day after day, month after month, year after year of wondering where Kid had gone. Headquarters had ordered Kaitou Kid's file shelved eighteen months in. If he wanted to work on it, he could do it when there weren't bank robbers and firebugs and serial killers running around Tokyo this very minute.

On brighter days, he would imagine that Kid had finally quit while he was ahead, settled down somewhere with a wife and son instead of risking the magnificent mind of Ginzo Nakamori any longer. Those days, he would stroll into headquarters with a smile slapped on his face, pretend to listen to his new workload (the newbies in his squad seemed eager enough to work on those) and leave with that smile just a little bit smaller.

And on darker days, he would wonder if Kid had just ran somewhere no human law could touch. Maybe one of his shiny toys had blown up in his face - literally - while he'd been rehearsing the next heist. Maybe he'd had some kind of incurable condition (leukemia? Colon cancer? AIDS?) all along, and meant to seize the last years of his life with that gentleman burglar getup. Or maybe he'd just tripped down the steps on the way to the morning paper.

If that was what had happened, then... then it was his job to follow Kid, wasn't it? He couldn't let the son-of-a-bitch escape justice. Even if the afterlife had his back.

But Kid hadn't been dead. He'd learned as much four years, eight months, five days, ten hours, and eighteen minutes ago. When that newscast had broken across his ancient Toshiba, screaming about how "someone" in a white silk hat and cape had swiped a pigeon's-blood ruby from the home of Ono Bank's president.

It had been the second-greatest moment of his life...

And the first? Seeing that hat and cape for himself in the darkness of the Ekoda Historical Museum, with the Kono Star Sapphire on the line. That was a moment he'd prayed would never end.

(But of course, it had. No matter. Headquarters ordered Kid's file reopened on the double. Newspapers across Tokyo demanded statements from Kid's "number-one nemesis". And in time, he'd gotten a task force bigger than his first one had ever been.)

He looked down and saw that his legs had given out some time ago. When, he didn't know. He wasn't in much of a hurry to get back up.

Aoko's voice started up again. "Look, I can try to help if you want. I can try giving him false leads, drag out these heists and give you time to breathe. Just..."

Here it came. He tensed every muscle in his body, knowing what he was going to hear next.

"... just don't stop being Kaitou Kid. Dad needs you."

It wasn't as much of a blow as he thought it'd be. But then, he already felt like someone had scooped out his insides and dumped them down a sewer. What more could they do to him?

Kaito. Kaito was Kid. Kaito was Kid because Aoko said so. Because Aoko thought he needed the son-of-a-bitch to... to... to help him get through the day?

She was wrong, of course. She had to be.

Either that, or...

... or...?

Or he was dreaming.

Yes, that was it. Too much cake and too much booze and too much everything else at Kaito's birthday party. All play and no work made Ginzo a mere toy, and his brain was making him pay for it.

None of this made much sense anyhow. Kaito was Kid? Bullshit. He'd proven otherwise years ago. Kid had proven otherwise years ago. Back when Aoko had dragged Kaito down to Tropical Land...

Like Kid couldn't think of his way out of that, came the cold whisper from everywhere and nowhere.

No. No, he couldn't.

And that was final.

This was a dream, and when he woke up in the morning, all of it would be gone. No dream lasted forever.

Come morning, he'd smile and say goodbye to Kaito (and maybe help with the cleaning before he left), and his task force would go back to the grind. Sooner or later, Kid would send them another one of those stupid little notes. And maybe the Superintendent-General's son would ride along. That crazy old fool from the Suzuki-Zaibatsu, too. Maybe even that four-eyed little smartass from Beika.

He couldn't hear anything from behind the door now. That suited him just fine.

It wasn't easy to maneuver himself onto hands and knees, but he did it anyhow. And slowly, as silently as he could, he crawled across the carpet, around and over boys and girls mumbling about jobs, kisses, motorcycles, and more. He didn't stop until he found a cozy little nook by the sofa. Not the spot he'd woken up from, but close enough.

There, he curled into a ball, closed his eyes, and ordered himself to sleep.

He slept.

But he did not dream.

Posted on behalf of House of Mystery on Poirot Cafe.
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