"Wait, wait wait wait wait wait wait." Kaito rubbed between his eyes. "What the hell do you mean by that?"
"Hm? Oh," she gave a slight gasp. "His mother, Yukiko, would have us watch him when she and Yusaku would go abroad. I think you both were..." She paused in thought and clicked her tongue, mumbling years and doing basic math. "7 years old?"
"So...I'm guessing we hung out a lot?" Maybe that's why his faces looked familiar and he could take a guess at what Shinichi was thinking through expressions. They played together as kids.
He doesn't really remember anything at all though. It's been 10 years! How could anyone remember all that from 10 years?
"Yes! Every minute of every day." She chuckled on the other side of the phone, sifting through memories. "You were especially latchy to Shinichi. You would always follow him like a little puppy. Hugging him and giving him kisses on his hand, even some on the cheek. It always looked like you had a little crush with how much you loved being around him!"
Kaito could feel his face get hot. He was a weird kid. 7 year old him didn't have shame, did he?
"I think we still have some photos lying around." He could hear a shuffling, like his mom was back at the house and looking for the photos herself. "Check your father's library. Maybe you can find them in there."
"Oh, right." He brushed his hand through his hair again and chuckled.
"I mean...it has been ten years. I don't think anyone really remembers people from that long ago."
"Yeah. I guess." He looked over at the clock. It's 5:34. "Anyways, I'm gonna let you go."
"Okay~~ Love you!!" She screamed through the phone. He held out his phone again, then placed it back to his ear.
"Uh, yeah. Love you too." He hung up and sighed. This woman has too much energy.
Kaito got up from the couch and headed to the library.
The halls leading to the library were lined with photos. Some with his parents as young adults, then to when he was a baby, then a toddler, and so on. He got to the doors leading to the library and swung open the double doors leading inside the book-filled room. The library looked similar to the library in Beauty and the Beast, except much, much smaller.
The shelves had books going from A to Z. There was a certain shelf in the library that kept personal family books, such as photo albums. He walked to the shelf containing these personal books and scanned for a photo album containing pictures around 10 years ago. Each photo album was labeled with years, starting with his parents first meeting, ending with...the very year his dad passed.
He paused at that year. Whenever he thinks about his dad, he gets depressed. He wished he could see him again.
He sighed and passed over it to the next album over. The very year he needed. He slid it out of its place and brushed the cover off, little bits of dust flying off and slowly falling to the dark floor. He opened it the first page, with the typical "This album is the property of..." with his family name written in the blank.
He flipped through and there was a series of pictures. It was him playing with multiple kids in some photos, but the majority of the photos have him playing with a certain kid. He looked familiar.
Wait...is that...? Thinking about it, the kid had a signature hairstyle. He had a cowlick, like... SHINICHI?? He flipped through more and more pictures of them, with Kaito performing tricks for their younger selves, playing with toys, reading a book together...
He finally got to the final picture of the album. The picture had Kaito leaning a bit toward young Shinichi, a landing a kiss on him. It wasn't even on his cheek! Kaito had kissed Shinichi on the lips.
"Oh. My god." He covered his face in embarrassment and groaned. "How could I have done that?!"
But the pictures confirmed his idea that he could somehow recognize Shinichi's thoughts through expressions. But after ten years? How was that possible? Whatever.
He should show Shinichi. But how should he do that? Should he just whip it out like, "Hey we used to be best friends!"? Should he ease into it?
He sifted through the pictures again. Shinichi was really cute. No, he's really cute even now. He can even be really handsome when—
He paused.
Does...does Kaito like Shinichi? Now that he's thinking about it, he has been having these...thoughts about Shinichi for a while. Kaito would just stare at Shinichi sometimes and just look at his face, analyzing it. He enjoyed watching him, especially when he was deducing a crime, pointing out little details no one cared to look for or even think about. He took down criminals so swiftly, never doubting his deduction on the killer and having a counter argument when the perpetrator tried to deflect the accusation.
He was simply amazing.
