Sanctuary Night (Kaitou Kid X OC)

Chapter 16

After reading the note from a so-called "Faux Kaitou Kid", Rie and Kaito simultaneously smirked. They have been proven right. Hakuba was stunned as he gripped the paper and read it over and over and over again.

"It wasn't him. It's not Kaitou Kid. An impostor of an impostor." Kaito muttered and turned to the fleeting ambulance. "My respect for him stands. Kid-sama is a victim too, and as long as we don't have Faux in our grasp, it is wrong to convict him of murder. Don't you think so too, Rie?" He gave her a bright smile as she replied with a determined nod.

"That bastard...! He killed someone because he was bored!? That son-of-a-bitch...!" Hakuba crushed the note in his palm and turned to Rie and Kaito. They flinched at the sight of Hakuba pissed out of his wits. "You two! I order you to help me in this case! You will help me find out who Faux is, where he is hiding, and capture him the first chance we get!"

'What makes you think you can order us around, you-'

"Our pleasure, Haku-san. It is an honor to work with you." Rie kept Kaito at bay as she bowed in acceptance to Hakuba's demand. While Kaito grunted complaints at Rie, Hakuba already started walking away and into the museum's entrance. Now left alone, Kaito let his thoughts out.

"What the hell, Rie! I don't want to work with that guy! He's a huge prick and-!"

"I've thought about it, Kaito. Just think. He's our ticket in any sort of evidence acquired in the crime scene. Right now, the only labels we have are 'students and passersby'. You think authorities will let people with labels like those investigate, let alone get close, to the scene? Drop your pride and think things through." Rie patted his shoulder and glanced at Aoko who was smiling and having a conversation with her father. Even though she'd been crying, the relief she felt after knowing he was fine despite being involved in a murder case helped her back into her normal, cheerful self. Kaito looked at them as well and sighed.

"Fine. I'm only doing this because you told me so, not because I want to." Rie gave him a nonchalant thumbs up before everything went black. That was the last thing he remembered before Kaito woke up the day after.

The groggy boy sat up from his futon and looked around through crusty eyes. The curtains let sunlight into the room, a thin beam that landed on his face. He wiped his eyes to get rid of the dizziness and yawned. The night before left him - left all of them - exhausted. As he stretched and woke up his muscles, he found Rie sleeping on the couch while Aoko slept on the futon to the left of him, both wearing respective colored pajamas. Rie wore black, with respect to her family name, while Aoko wore blue, with respect to her given name. They were in the living room, by unanimous decision. Aoko refused to let Kaito into her room and Rie didn't want to stay in the living room alone with him either. They chose to just sleep in one big room, no objections were heard.

Seeing his best friends soundly sleeping tempted him to go back to sleep as well, but his body clock denied his choice. He groaned as he completely stood up, trying not to remember the events from last night. He drowned out the thought by thinking about the reason why he and Rie are sleeping over at Aoko's house in the first place: to help Rie relax.

"With these two around, I'll do anything but relax..." He murmured after a yawn. While his eyes were closed, he heard shuffling by the couch which meant Rie woke up.

"Be quiet, Kuro-kun... We should be the one complaining... You weren't even supposed to be in this sleepover, remember..." Rie's voice was raspy, as expected from a dry throat. She sluggishly removed the blanket over her as she sat up, putting on her glasses after experiencing temporary blindness from sudden blood rush.

"So that's what you look like when you don't have your hair in a braid..." Kaito drew closer to the couch and leaned down, leveling his eyes with Rie's who was still squinting from waking up. 'I mean... I've sort of seen it before but it was when Naito-chan had it from a bun so there were waves... Your bed hair is fully spiky...' He held out a hand and smoothed out the spikes of her bed hair, surprised at how soft it was.