Pairings: Kaishin

Warnings: A bit of cuddling, violence, inferred character death, playing with old Japanese legends to suit my own needs; no explanation given for Kaito, but then, Kaito does do often defy explanation, doesn't he?

A/N: Written for the Mirror Complex December challenge, "First Snow". Being a southern California girl, any knowledge I might profess to have concerning snow was likely taken out of a book, so bare with me on this. Also, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! (And now off to watch the Doctor Who Christmas special... .)

Hitsuyuki

The first snow, as it was wont to, arrived overnight. Tiny, delicate ice crystals, littering the ground like paint splatter on a canvas, only growing heavier as the night grew cold, quickly blanketing everything in white; blanketing the still and silent form splayed grimly across the abandoned lot behind the Tropical land coaster, a splash of bright, wet red staining the freshly fallen snow, a secret lover's lipstick stain on the collar of a clean white shirt.

A lover's kiss of cold iron to the back of the skull. Two sets of footprints leading away from the body, summarily wiped clean by the snow and Kudo Shinichi was left to die, having witnessed one more crime than his luck could successfully counter.

It was a silent night in Beika.

~*~

Shinichi awoke to a splitting headache and cold, cold fingers combing through his hair, dislodging flakes of snow which dripped wetly down the back of his neck and prompted the tiniest of shivers from him. Enough, at least, to inform the owner of the hand, the owner of the fingers, that he was awake.

There was the soft rustle of clothes by the side of his head, thin to his ears or, thin for this season, he rather felt by the sound of it, and a small little 'oh' that was more exhalation than any real monophonic. The fingers trailed down to brush frost from his lashes before settling delicately on his cheek, bare, icy skin a strange contrast to the gloved hand that moved to cup the back of his neck in the parody of an embrace. "I would ask what you're doing out here in this weather," a smooth tenor voice – a boy, somewhere around Shinichi's age – said, fingers drumming out a four beat count across the bridge of his nose, "but I get this idea , somehow, that whatever excuse you chose to give me would seem a bit silly, considering the circumstances, so I won't."

"Nnf shmmy." Shinichi said stubbornly against the boy's thigh. A low chuckle, like the crunch of many booted feet through a fresh layer of snow. Shinichi's shoulders stiffened in indignation and he rolled onto his back, head nearly cushioned in the other boy's lap now, but at least he could manage to speak clearly. "Not silly." He snapped, vision still blurred, black spots and white spots and snowflakes slowly melting on his face (he licks his lips and the taste is something sweet and pure from his childhood, when he still thought of snowdrifts as snow cones and living in Hawaii made any sort of winter at all a magical experience). "Combating crime is never silly."

He wondered distantly – in the way one might worry about spring in Peru – why he was bothering to defend himself to this stranger, rather than simply demanding he be taken to a police station to report what he had seen. And perhaps to a hospital after.

"Anything that results in a concussion is silly." The boy scolded him, fingers skirting up into his hair again and sufficiently mussing it up to a distressing degree. Shinichi frowned.

He dragged his gaze laboriously away from the twinkling night sky to square a disjointed glare at his companion in the snow, taking in a dark head of hair and bright, spirited indigo colored eyes, pale skin blending seamlessly with spotless white clothes. Thin, expressive lips a cornflower blue. "I could say the same of you." Shinichi accused, shivering through his self-righteous indignation. "You look as though you're about to keel over from hypothermia. Why are you out here? And in something so thin." That was not concern in his voice. It wasn't.

"You shouldn't be here, Shinichi-kun." The boy said in a low, strangely soothing hum. "And you shouldn't waste your time worrying about me. I've stopped feeling the cold a long, long time ago."

Shinichi's eyes drifted to the boy's chest, immaculate white suit tainted by a violent splotch of red, just over where his heart should be. He wondered dazedly, if he searched for a pulse in that thin, hollow bird bone wrist, what he might find. If he would find anything at all. He couldn't quite bring himself to check. He took in a deep, shuddering breath. "I had thought," He started, choosing his words with more precision than he had perhaps ever bothered to before. "that the use of the gender specific designation 'onna' indicated that the supernatural phenomenon could only be manifested in that of a female form."

The spirit – because that's what the boy was, Shinichi realized now, with the heavy glaze of unconsciousness slowly fading from his mind – laughed, tossing his head back with abandon, mussed hair a dark, wild smudge against his pale white throat. "You must spend an awful lot of time defending yourself in the adult's eyes, speaking like that." He murmured gently into Shinichi's hair, petting the side of his face. "You didn't think only pregnant women died in the middle of a snowstorm, did you?"

"I had presumed, perhaps a bit foolishly, that only maidens could become snow maidens." Shinichi said stiffly, deceptively calm all the while his naturally logical sobbed like a gibbering loon at the implications of his present company. "You aren't planning on marrying me or anything like that are you?" He sighed.

The boy cradled Shinichi in the facsimile of a prayer, arms enveloping him and head bent down over him, smiling beatifically. "I won't give you ten children." The boy whispered against Shinichi's lips, white gloved hand ghosting down over his torso and coming to rest lightly at his hips. "But I will give you a promise."

"Oh?" Shinichi gasped and shook beneath his touch, arching into it with a shocked, breathy whine. "And what would that be?"

A distant shout. A bright flash of light, followed by another, and another. Flashlights, Shinichi thought muzzily, and a lot of them. Police grade issued flashlights. "You will not die here." The boy told him in a hushed, doting tone. "You will not die tonight."

By the time the officers found him, half buried in the snow and eyes slightly dilated from the blow to the back of his head – concussion, a stern looking orderly will tell him later at the hospital, it's a wonder you woke up on your own, but a blessing – the boy is gone. Not even a depression in the snow from where he had set to prove that he had been there.

Nothing. Save an echo of the gentle fingers at the base of his scalp, the other's wintry breath against his lips and cheek. And a name, Kaito, whispered in his ear.