When Pandora bleeds... (Shinkai)

Show Evening

How old is he?

Kaito knew he should have stopped since long to think of him, rewind all the encounters, project his memories in front of his inner eye.

Did he find a cure?

As far as he knew, Kudo Shinichi hadn't come back yet. The applause of the crowd around him went like a hollow echo through his head, it was a simple trick and yet it was able to create such a wave of fascination.

Edogawa Conan should be seventeen years old. Kudo Shinichi twentyseven. Had Shinichi been abandoned? Forgotten?

Kaito's lips curled up into a mischievous smile as he bowed to the crowd, ending his glorious magic show with a last disappearing act. He had come to know that this was an essential crowd pleaser- and somehow, it made him feel nostalgic regarding his own dark past as Kaitou KID. Kaito didn't need any agent, anybody promoting him, he worked alone and wouldn't ever rely on others again more than necessary.

I want him to see me.

Kaito shook his head, dismissing any further interrupting thoughts, and headed down the rather tight backstage floor towards his assigned room.
His gaze slid from the mirror on the opposite wall to the catering next to it, then further to the left to his garderobe and from there to his desk. A frown dared to make its way onto the mischievous face of Kaito's as he recognized a familiar red fluid seeping out of a box he knew too well.

Sighing, he closed the door behind himself and went to pick up the box, carefully drying it with  napkins spread out for his use. Kaito made sure to clean every single spot until nothing was left- he had been very careful to keep this secret and wasn't going to risk anybody mistaking the fluid for blood. He had been pretty shaken himself at the first discovery, mere days after splitting the blue diamond "Soul".

Pandora had begun to bleed, every full moon, precise like a clockwork. What this meant, Kaito didn't know and didn't want to know, either. It had turned into a routine for the worldfamous magician; Kaito paid attention to his half of the gem like his father would have done.
Instead of disposing himself of the wet napkins, he stuffed them into his pockets and checked his room once again for any hidden cameras any crazy fan could have brought in here. Kaito was very careful at what he was doing. It was his last and only task.

Sometimes people needed to let go of something to embrace new ideas. However, cutting ties with all of his former friends had been hard for the magician, yet it was a step he had been willed to take. Kaito often remembered the first day after his last magic trick as Kaitou KID.

Ahoko, please, don't cry.

Aoko hadn't taken his confession well. She had kicked him out of her and her father's house the moment after; she hadn't called him for breakfast the next morning, either. Kaito grieved for a long time after this. No words were spoken.
Around half a month later, the doorbell had rung. Aoko had explained to him in her silent and shaky voice, that she couldn't accept the choice Kaito had made, the humiliation he had forced her father, the task force and various detectives through.

For a gem? All that for a gem?!

Kaito had just stared at her, nodding along to every word she had said, every insult she had thrown at him, every stab she had forced into his soul. He knew it was his fault her father had missed a lot of Aoko's childhood.

Don't... Don't visit me again, Kaito-kun. I... I can't live with this. Please... Leave me alone.

Kaito had moved out the very next day. No word of goodbye to anyone, no trace for anybody to follow. Sometimes Kaito thought about Kudo Yusaku's offer to catch up on each other... but what sense did it make? It left an open end he couldn't close, it might have even enabled his dearest rival to sniff out a trace.

Jii had died two years after, leaving him only with minimum contact to his mother. He had organized the funeral all by himself. She was proud of him, very proud.
Her little baby had become an adult.

I wonder...

Kaito left the backstage area through a secret exit and took a breather of fresh air outside, enjoying the cool night on his skin. It made him feel warm inside, warm with memories and love.
The magician flashed a glance at the full moon and smiled.

...does Pandora bleed inside your heart, Meitantei?

The garden full of statues he had given his Meitantei as his last trick went through his mind. He had replaced Kudo Shinichi's stone heart with Pandora's other half, for the statue to hide and protect it.
Kaito grimaced as he felt the gross and wet napkins in his pocket and pulled each of them out to throw them away into a local dustbin. Better here than in his room. The fluid had gotten stuck on his hands the first time he had seen and cleaned it up in panic of anybody finding out, the reason he constantly wore gloves since then. What it had done to him, Kaito didn't know and didn't care, either.

The magician bit gently into the glove on his left hand and pulled it slowly off, revealing the reddish marks from the first encounter with Pandora's blood. It looked like he had dived hands first into a gruesome crime scene full of blood and hadn't washed his hands after that. But Kaito did, and how much he had done. Yet the marks remained, Pandora's blood hadn't left him anymore.

Secretly, Kaito found them a little pretty.