[fanfic] WiP: Shattered.
Mar. 11th, 2004 03:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ickaimpSomething that I have learned the few times I've attempted to alter my hair colour is that my hair does NOT like chemical dyes. They don't take at all. Which is odd considering that my skin loves ink, both just drawn on it and in our tattoos.
However, it appears that my hair dearly adores henna.
Our hair is bright firey orange right now. With a few golden-brown splotches towards the roots where we kinda missed.
... which is not just a little bit of a surprise considering that we were expecting it to kinda tint our hair red, like the way it turned after we came back from Japan last year. (still can't explain why it did that)
Still highly amused. Plus side, hair is very soft and silky. >^.^<
Anyway, re-visiting a very old plunnie. Grammer sucks, I know. Just wanted to get this half up before we got distracted with something else. ^^;;
+++
Nakamori Aoko had seen something that she shouldn't have seen.
Heard something that she shouldn't have heard.
Learned something she shouldn't' have known.
But right now, none of that mattered.
For her, there was nothing.
Nothing but the darkness.
No light, no sound, simply wrapped up in a cushion of nothingness.
No up, no down, no way to tell how much time had passed, or even if there was such a concept of time much less if it actually did such a thing as pass.
And then a voice broke through the fuzzy numbness.
"C'mon, Aoko! Open your eyes, there's a good girl, please, please, open your eyes..."
Aoko. That was her. And she knew that voice. Someone named... Kaito. Kaito who was sweet yet cold and her best friend whom she cared for a lot even though he confused her. But Kaito was a good thing, and she had missed him, before. Before the blankness. She had been so afraid she'd never see him or anyone else again, but if Kaito was here then everything was fine, because although he was cold he cared about her too.
So she opened her eyes. Just a little bit, her eyes felt heavy, like she was seeing from underwater, making everything blurry and out of focus. Gentle fingertips drew her face upwards, to a white shadow in front of her and a pair of warm concerned violet eyes meeting hers. "Aoko..." Kaito's voice breathed a sigh of relief.
There was something she was missing... something important. She blinked, her vision clearing as hands helped her stand up. It wasn't Kaito who was standing there, but someone else... someone who was familiar as well.
Someone she -didn't- like. The Kaitou Kid.
Kaito's gentle voice continued to talk, a sense of urgency behind it that caused her to focus on it. "I'm gonna tell you a story, Aoko. Not the whole story, but enough to either get you in trouble or out of a whole lot of it. And you'll probably figure the rest out, but that's fine because I think I -want- you to know and..."
He let out a long shuddering breath that alarmed her. Kaito never worried.
"I'm rambling. I don't even know if you'll remember this when the drugs wear off. All right. First thing first. Let's get you dressed. We can do both at the same time."
A rustle of fabric from him, then soft material covered her head, then pulled down so that she could see and breathe again. "Here we go, Aoko. Let's get the sweatshirt on first, you're gonna need it." Careful hands helped to dress her, like a parent helping a sleepy child get ready for bed.
"The story starts out simply enough, though even I don't know the full beginning, neither Mom or Jii-chan ever told me. We come in about the middle. Y'see, Dad was looking for a gem called Pandora, that was supposed to cry tears of immortality when held up to the moonlight under a glow of a certain comet. Which is well and good and all, seeing as such things aren't supposed to exist. Arm up please."
Her arm wouldn't obey her command for it to move, and Kaito guided it into the sleeve of the sweatshirt with ease. "Thanks. The problem is that the gem did exist. I, being the cheerful idiot I am, took up Dad's mantle after I found out about it to find the gem and try to put a stop to his killers. Yeah, turns out it wasn't an accident that Dad died in. Other arm."
Once again, her arm was guided into the sleeve. The warm shirt was pulled down around her and straighten out. "Turns out Dad didn't die at all, but I'm getting ahead of myself. How on earth am I going to get the pants on you? Anyway, this recent trouble was caused because I found out one little titbit of information that I shouldn't have, sort of like how everything started I guess. Can you hold on to me for balance? Guess we should have put the pants on you while you were sitting..."
Strong hands, still gentle, slipped off her shoes, pulling material over her feet and ankles. "So, like I said, Dad wasn't killed, turns out his death was all an elaborate hoax by the people he was trying to keep the gem from. Evidently Dad had found Pandora a year or so before his 'death' and had shattered it. So the jewels he was stealing to supposedly find Pandora, he was using to hide shards of it. Next leg."
Her first leg was set down and the second lifted and tugged into the sweatpants. "This was all found out a few weeks ago, when I discovered that Dad wasn't dead, and that they'd been trying to use him for information and various experiments ever since. The group looking for Pandora's got connections to a larger group that sometimes uses people for experimentation. Not nice people. Too bad for them, his 'death' knocked his brain for a few loops, and he couldn't even his own name, much less where he hid the core of Pandora, the part that weeps."
He trailed off, tugging the material farther up her legs. "Good thing you're wearing opaque tights today or you really would kill me. Shoes back on." He said it cheerfully, slipping her feet back into her shoes and lacing them up. "So Dad couldn't remember anything, until recently, when they got the idea of showing him some clips of the Kaitou Kid in action, and well, he recognised me. I'd hope so, even if I'm only half trained, he did teach me everything the School of Hard Knocks didn't."
That foot was set down and the other one was picked up. "Well, the bad and the good news is that when he recognised me, he remembered where he hid Pandora's heart. Good, because I was able to find out due to the fact that I'm nosy and can't keep myself out of trouble worth beans and bad because that's why you got kidnapped this afternoon. Sorry about that, by the way. Alright, back up you go."
He helped her stand, flopping over him like a rag doll before she got her wobbly balance again. "Alright, pants go up and sorry about this, but your skirt's gotta go." She could feel the waist of the pants bunch up against her skirt and silently agreed. That wasn't comfortable. Fingers found the zipper and undid it, the skirt falling down over the pants to pool at her feet. "I'll, uh, hold on to this until we get back outside, kay?"
She nodded, her neck muscles lax causing her head to rock back and forth. Aoko decided that was annoying and resolved not to do that again. She could feel more than see his grin at her. "Looks like you're feeling better. Good. Back down we go..." He eased her back into the chair again, moving behind her as he continued talking, just like a little chatter box.
"Gonna put your hair back so it'll fit under the hood better." He explained as he gathered her hair up. "I bet you don't remember, heck I hardly remember it, but a couple of months before Dad disappeared, the two of us found what we thought were some chunks of rock candy sitting on a table in Dad's room. It was red, and had a neat kind of shimmer to it, so being the brilliant children we are, we ate it."
"Neither of us thought anything of it at the time, but what we actually ate was Pandora. You may not remember, but Dad freaked. But since neither of us showed any adverse signs to swallowing it, he never said anything about it after that." Gloved hands massaged her scalp and she leaned into it. Her head ached a bit and it felt good, easing some of the pain away. Had he done this for her before? She couldn't remember.
He seemed lost in thought for a minute, just smoothing her hair back. Finally he wrapped it up in a hair band. "Dad died a few weeks later, or so we thought." Motions quick now, he pulled the hood up over her head and moved in front of her, inspecting her face. In the light, one eye looked blue, the other purple, hidden behind the monocle.
"You should be able to figure the rest out." He finally said, voice heavy, straightening the hood over her features. "When you feel able to move again, just head out the door and down the open doors. Your Dad is waiting for you outside. I'll watch your back."
He leaned forward, pressing a quick kiss on her forehead as if delivering a blessing of protection. "Take care, Aoko. I'll see you soon."
And then he was gone.
Her forehead tingled where he had touched it, a strangely comforting feeling that permeated the numbness that was quickly fading now. The fuzziness continued, gradually fading away as she became more and more aware of her surroundings.
She was in a dark room, the walls of cold concrete and the only thing inside of it was her, and the metal chair she was sitting on. The only source of light was the open door behind her, illuminating the un-familiar surroundings.
What was she doing there?
Memories reasserted themselves. She had been grabbed by some men in black on her way from school. Familiar men, ones that she had seen before, talking about the Kaitou Kid.
The Kaitou Kid had been in here.
No... that had been Kaito.
Kaito had told her how to get out of there.
With a sharp jerk, she inhaled and blinked, feeling as if she was drifting up out of a very cold sleep. She had to get out of here.
Her legs felt like jell-o as she attempted to stand and she clutched the chair for support, wincing. Pins and needle pains shot up her legs, the result of sitting too long.
How long had she been out of it? When she got her hands on who ever had done this to her, she was going to smack them so hard they'd see stars for a month. And then smack them again. Harder.
Open doors. Kaito told her to follow the open doors out. She could do that much at least.
The hallway leading out she had been in was as grey and boring as the room had been. There were miscellaneous doors lining it, but all of them were closed, so she continued on. Noises sometimes came from behind the closed doors, causing her to shiver and pick up the pace.
The hall took several turns, winding its way thru the drab interior of the windowless building until she finally came to an open door. Aoko pressed herself up against a wall, leaning forward slightly to peer around the corner.
It was dark outside, save from a few lights illuminating the pale concrete. A few stars sparkled at her from the night sky as a cool breeze playfully brushed her face.
Freedom.
Elation warred with nerves and she slunk out of the building, suddenly very grateful for the dark clothing Kaito had dressed her in. Instinct made her avoid the bright lights, skirting them to slink in the shadows like a lowly thief. She'd been caught once to day and she'd be damned if she'd be grabbed again.
Minutes passed as she moved, uncertain what to do now that she had escaped the building. She could still see a fence around it, and a car on the other side...
A parked running car with someone who looked very much like her Father sitting in the driver's seat. "Dad-" She cut off the cry of delight part way through and scuttled in that direction as quickly as she dared. Upon closer inspection there's a large hole in the fence, and she could see her father watching the building with an anxious expression, teeth biting down on one if his pipes like he was going to bite the stem in two.
She'd never been so grateful to see her father in her life.
His face lit up when he saw her, relief palatable on his usually grouchy face. He motioned for her to hurry up and get in the car. Which she did, wasting no time to slip through the hole in the fence as her father twisted around and opened the door to the back seat. She slipped in, careful to close the door as quietly as she could behind her.
"Daddy!" She leaned over the seat, wrapping her arms around him in an awkward hug, getting the head rest tangled up in there as well. He reeked of tobacco from his pipe and old sweat, but they were old familiar scents and as comforting as the arm he wrapped back around her.
"Are you alright?" He asked gruffly, the concern thickening his tone as he gave her a comforting pat. "They didn't do anything to you?"
"They just rambled about the Kid and some sort of stone and tied me up, that's all." She assured him, loosening her grip slightly so that she wasn't attempting to squeeze the stuffing out of him quite so much. "Where's Kaito? He was there too, he told me how to get out..." She paused, looking at him. "What are you doing here anyway?" Now that she thought about it, it was just a little bit too convenient that he was waiting for her outside. Minus the rest of the police force.
"Kid needed some help." The comment was made a little bit too calmly, little bit too casually and it caught her attention.
"Kid?!"
The sharp retort of gunfire behind them caught their attention and they turned to see the Kaitou Kid running out of the doors she had just escaped into, his white cape streaming behind him. He was incredibly fast, like a darting ghost through the shadows but not faster than a flying bullet.
Bright flashes of light strobed the area as dark figures opened fire on the fleeing thief.
"Kid!" Aoko stared with wide eyes the thief's body shook like a leaf in the wind, bullets striking the flesh and making it jerk.
Her father gunned the car, the moonlight kissed body falling to the ground as the shadowy figures moved in around it fading into the distance. She stared at the fallen with wide eyes. She may have disliked the Kid, but she certainly didn't wish him dead either.
"Whew." A cheerfully relieved voice sighed beside her. "That was a close one."
She let out a strangled half scream/shriek as she turned to find the Kaitou Kid sitting next to her, calmly fastening his seatbelt.
Her father glanced in the review mirror, caught sight of their new passenger and let out a gruff chuckle. "After all the attempts my men made to get you, I would hope it would take more than a few thugs to take you down."
The thief laughed, appearing comfortably at ease trading barbs with her father. "That's why they call us 'Phantom Thieves' you know. Impossible to catch or kill."
"Heh." Her father snorted. "You're as human as the rest of us and you know it. They didn't nail you did they? No nicks or damage?"
"Naw, I'm intact." The thief shrugged, a flicker of sadness crossing his face. "It's just a good thing they don't know what I really look like though."
Her father's eyes flickered as well. "Yeah."
Aoko wondered what they were talking about for a moment, then she remembered the dancing body and decided that she didn't want to know after all.
"Oi, Aoko-san." The Kid looked at her out of the corner of an eye. "Why don't you go sit up front with your Tousan?"
"Huh?" She glanced up at her father, who looked back at her through the rear-view mirror before nodding. She hesitated, looking back at the Kid. He had slouched down, arms wrapped around himself, his hat tilted over his face, apparently fast asleep. "Ah, okay..."
Feeling rather awkward, she climbed over the front seat and sat back down, buckling her seat belt. Her father glanced over at her, giving her a re-assuring crooked smile. "Don't worry about it." He said softly, motioning to their white clad companion in the back seat. "It's been a long day."
She smiled back, somewhat re-assured with her father's easy acceptance of the thief's presence. If he was alright with it, then there must be a good reason for it as well. It was his job to catch the Kid anyway.
Following an urge she didn't quite comprehend, she leaned over, resting her head against her father. He didn't comment on it, shooting her a fond look before turning his attention back to the road.
-tbc-
Plus side, we still have all the old notes for it! Huzzah!
Was very cool talking to everyone on chat last night. Sorry about being distracted.
However, it appears that my hair dearly adores henna.
Our hair is bright firey orange right now. With a few golden-brown splotches towards the roots where we kinda missed.
... which is not just a little bit of a surprise considering that we were expecting it to kinda tint our hair red, like the way it turned after we came back from Japan last year. (still can't explain why it did that)
Still highly amused. Plus side, hair is very soft and silky. >^.^<
Anyway, re-visiting a very old plunnie. Grammer sucks, I know. Just wanted to get this half up before we got distracted with something else. ^^;;
+++
Nakamori Aoko had seen something that she shouldn't have seen.
Heard something that she shouldn't have heard.
Learned something she shouldn't' have known.
But right now, none of that mattered.
For her, there was nothing.
Nothing but the darkness.
No light, no sound, simply wrapped up in a cushion of nothingness.
No up, no down, no way to tell how much time had passed, or even if there was such a concept of time much less if it actually did such a thing as pass.
And then a voice broke through the fuzzy numbness.
"C'mon, Aoko! Open your eyes, there's a good girl, please, please, open your eyes..."
Aoko. That was her. And she knew that voice. Someone named... Kaito. Kaito who was sweet yet cold and her best friend whom she cared for a lot even though he confused her. But Kaito was a good thing, and she had missed him, before. Before the blankness. She had been so afraid she'd never see him or anyone else again, but if Kaito was here then everything was fine, because although he was cold he cared about her too.
So she opened her eyes. Just a little bit, her eyes felt heavy, like she was seeing from underwater, making everything blurry and out of focus. Gentle fingertips drew her face upwards, to a white shadow in front of her and a pair of warm concerned violet eyes meeting hers. "Aoko..." Kaito's voice breathed a sigh of relief.
There was something she was missing... something important. She blinked, her vision clearing as hands helped her stand up. It wasn't Kaito who was standing there, but someone else... someone who was familiar as well.
Someone she -didn't- like. The Kaitou Kid.
Kaito's gentle voice continued to talk, a sense of urgency behind it that caused her to focus on it. "I'm gonna tell you a story, Aoko. Not the whole story, but enough to either get you in trouble or out of a whole lot of it. And you'll probably figure the rest out, but that's fine because I think I -want- you to know and..."
He let out a long shuddering breath that alarmed her. Kaito never worried.
"I'm rambling. I don't even know if you'll remember this when the drugs wear off. All right. First thing first. Let's get you dressed. We can do both at the same time."
A rustle of fabric from him, then soft material covered her head, then pulled down so that she could see and breathe again. "Here we go, Aoko. Let's get the sweatshirt on first, you're gonna need it." Careful hands helped to dress her, like a parent helping a sleepy child get ready for bed.
"The story starts out simply enough, though even I don't know the full beginning, neither Mom or Jii-chan ever told me. We come in about the middle. Y'see, Dad was looking for a gem called Pandora, that was supposed to cry tears of immortality when held up to the moonlight under a glow of a certain comet. Which is well and good and all, seeing as such things aren't supposed to exist. Arm up please."
Her arm wouldn't obey her command for it to move, and Kaito guided it into the sleeve of the sweatshirt with ease. "Thanks. The problem is that the gem did exist. I, being the cheerful idiot I am, took up Dad's mantle after I found out about it to find the gem and try to put a stop to his killers. Yeah, turns out it wasn't an accident that Dad died in. Other arm."
Once again, her arm was guided into the sleeve. The warm shirt was pulled down around her and straighten out. "Turns out Dad didn't die at all, but I'm getting ahead of myself. How on earth am I going to get the pants on you? Anyway, this recent trouble was caused because I found out one little titbit of information that I shouldn't have, sort of like how everything started I guess. Can you hold on to me for balance? Guess we should have put the pants on you while you were sitting..."
Strong hands, still gentle, slipped off her shoes, pulling material over her feet and ankles. "So, like I said, Dad wasn't killed, turns out his death was all an elaborate hoax by the people he was trying to keep the gem from. Evidently Dad had found Pandora a year or so before his 'death' and had shattered it. So the jewels he was stealing to supposedly find Pandora, he was using to hide shards of it. Next leg."
Her first leg was set down and the second lifted and tugged into the sweatpants. "This was all found out a few weeks ago, when I discovered that Dad wasn't dead, and that they'd been trying to use him for information and various experiments ever since. The group looking for Pandora's got connections to a larger group that sometimes uses people for experimentation. Not nice people. Too bad for them, his 'death' knocked his brain for a few loops, and he couldn't even his own name, much less where he hid the core of Pandora, the part that weeps."
He trailed off, tugging the material farther up her legs. "Good thing you're wearing opaque tights today or you really would kill me. Shoes back on." He said it cheerfully, slipping her feet back into her shoes and lacing them up. "So Dad couldn't remember anything, until recently, when they got the idea of showing him some clips of the Kaitou Kid in action, and well, he recognised me. I'd hope so, even if I'm only half trained, he did teach me everything the School of Hard Knocks didn't."
That foot was set down and the other one was picked up. "Well, the bad and the good news is that when he recognised me, he remembered where he hid Pandora's heart. Good, because I was able to find out due to the fact that I'm nosy and can't keep myself out of trouble worth beans and bad because that's why you got kidnapped this afternoon. Sorry about that, by the way. Alright, back up you go."
He helped her stand, flopping over him like a rag doll before she got her wobbly balance again. "Alright, pants go up and sorry about this, but your skirt's gotta go." She could feel the waist of the pants bunch up against her skirt and silently agreed. That wasn't comfortable. Fingers found the zipper and undid it, the skirt falling down over the pants to pool at her feet. "I'll, uh, hold on to this until we get back outside, kay?"
She nodded, her neck muscles lax causing her head to rock back and forth. Aoko decided that was annoying and resolved not to do that again. She could feel more than see his grin at her. "Looks like you're feeling better. Good. Back down we go..." He eased her back into the chair again, moving behind her as he continued talking, just like a little chatter box.
"Gonna put your hair back so it'll fit under the hood better." He explained as he gathered her hair up. "I bet you don't remember, heck I hardly remember it, but a couple of months before Dad disappeared, the two of us found what we thought were some chunks of rock candy sitting on a table in Dad's room. It was red, and had a neat kind of shimmer to it, so being the brilliant children we are, we ate it."
"Neither of us thought anything of it at the time, but what we actually ate was Pandora. You may not remember, but Dad freaked. But since neither of us showed any adverse signs to swallowing it, he never said anything about it after that." Gloved hands massaged her scalp and she leaned into it. Her head ached a bit and it felt good, easing some of the pain away. Had he done this for her before? She couldn't remember.
He seemed lost in thought for a minute, just smoothing her hair back. Finally he wrapped it up in a hair band. "Dad died a few weeks later, or so we thought." Motions quick now, he pulled the hood up over her head and moved in front of her, inspecting her face. In the light, one eye looked blue, the other purple, hidden behind the monocle.
"You should be able to figure the rest out." He finally said, voice heavy, straightening the hood over her features. "When you feel able to move again, just head out the door and down the open doors. Your Dad is waiting for you outside. I'll watch your back."
He leaned forward, pressing a quick kiss on her forehead as if delivering a blessing of protection. "Take care, Aoko. I'll see you soon."
And then he was gone.
Her forehead tingled where he had touched it, a strangely comforting feeling that permeated the numbness that was quickly fading now. The fuzziness continued, gradually fading away as she became more and more aware of her surroundings.
She was in a dark room, the walls of cold concrete and the only thing inside of it was her, and the metal chair she was sitting on. The only source of light was the open door behind her, illuminating the un-familiar surroundings.
What was she doing there?
Memories reasserted themselves. She had been grabbed by some men in black on her way from school. Familiar men, ones that she had seen before, talking about the Kaitou Kid.
The Kaitou Kid had been in here.
No... that had been Kaito.
Kaito had told her how to get out of there.
With a sharp jerk, she inhaled and blinked, feeling as if she was drifting up out of a very cold sleep. She had to get out of here.
Her legs felt like jell-o as she attempted to stand and she clutched the chair for support, wincing. Pins and needle pains shot up her legs, the result of sitting too long.
How long had she been out of it? When she got her hands on who ever had done this to her, she was going to smack them so hard they'd see stars for a month. And then smack them again. Harder.
Open doors. Kaito told her to follow the open doors out. She could do that much at least.
The hallway leading out she had been in was as grey and boring as the room had been. There were miscellaneous doors lining it, but all of them were closed, so she continued on. Noises sometimes came from behind the closed doors, causing her to shiver and pick up the pace.
The hall took several turns, winding its way thru the drab interior of the windowless building until she finally came to an open door. Aoko pressed herself up against a wall, leaning forward slightly to peer around the corner.
It was dark outside, save from a few lights illuminating the pale concrete. A few stars sparkled at her from the night sky as a cool breeze playfully brushed her face.
Freedom.
Elation warred with nerves and she slunk out of the building, suddenly very grateful for the dark clothing Kaito had dressed her in. Instinct made her avoid the bright lights, skirting them to slink in the shadows like a lowly thief. She'd been caught once to day and she'd be damned if she'd be grabbed again.
Minutes passed as she moved, uncertain what to do now that she had escaped the building. She could still see a fence around it, and a car on the other side...
A parked running car with someone who looked very much like her Father sitting in the driver's seat. "Dad-" She cut off the cry of delight part way through and scuttled in that direction as quickly as she dared. Upon closer inspection there's a large hole in the fence, and she could see her father watching the building with an anxious expression, teeth biting down on one if his pipes like he was going to bite the stem in two.
She'd never been so grateful to see her father in her life.
His face lit up when he saw her, relief palatable on his usually grouchy face. He motioned for her to hurry up and get in the car. Which she did, wasting no time to slip through the hole in the fence as her father twisted around and opened the door to the back seat. She slipped in, careful to close the door as quietly as she could behind her.
"Daddy!" She leaned over the seat, wrapping her arms around him in an awkward hug, getting the head rest tangled up in there as well. He reeked of tobacco from his pipe and old sweat, but they were old familiar scents and as comforting as the arm he wrapped back around her.
"Are you alright?" He asked gruffly, the concern thickening his tone as he gave her a comforting pat. "They didn't do anything to you?"
"They just rambled about the Kid and some sort of stone and tied me up, that's all." She assured him, loosening her grip slightly so that she wasn't attempting to squeeze the stuffing out of him quite so much. "Where's Kaito? He was there too, he told me how to get out..." She paused, looking at him. "What are you doing here anyway?" Now that she thought about it, it was just a little bit too convenient that he was waiting for her outside. Minus the rest of the police force.
"Kid needed some help." The comment was made a little bit too calmly, little bit too casually and it caught her attention.
"Kid?!"
The sharp retort of gunfire behind them caught their attention and they turned to see the Kaitou Kid running out of the doors she had just escaped into, his white cape streaming behind him. He was incredibly fast, like a darting ghost through the shadows but not faster than a flying bullet.
Bright flashes of light strobed the area as dark figures opened fire on the fleeing thief.
"Kid!" Aoko stared with wide eyes the thief's body shook like a leaf in the wind, bullets striking the flesh and making it jerk.
Her father gunned the car, the moonlight kissed body falling to the ground as the shadowy figures moved in around it fading into the distance. She stared at the fallen with wide eyes. She may have disliked the Kid, but she certainly didn't wish him dead either.
"Whew." A cheerfully relieved voice sighed beside her. "That was a close one."
She let out a strangled half scream/shriek as she turned to find the Kaitou Kid sitting next to her, calmly fastening his seatbelt.
Her father glanced in the review mirror, caught sight of their new passenger and let out a gruff chuckle. "After all the attempts my men made to get you, I would hope it would take more than a few thugs to take you down."
The thief laughed, appearing comfortably at ease trading barbs with her father. "That's why they call us 'Phantom Thieves' you know. Impossible to catch or kill."
"Heh." Her father snorted. "You're as human as the rest of us and you know it. They didn't nail you did they? No nicks or damage?"
"Naw, I'm intact." The thief shrugged, a flicker of sadness crossing his face. "It's just a good thing they don't know what I really look like though."
Her father's eyes flickered as well. "Yeah."
Aoko wondered what they were talking about for a moment, then she remembered the dancing body and decided that she didn't want to know after all.
"Oi, Aoko-san." The Kid looked at her out of the corner of an eye. "Why don't you go sit up front with your Tousan?"
"Huh?" She glanced up at her father, who looked back at her through the rear-view mirror before nodding. She hesitated, looking back at the Kid. He had slouched down, arms wrapped around himself, his hat tilted over his face, apparently fast asleep. "Ah, okay..."
Feeling rather awkward, she climbed over the front seat and sat back down, buckling her seat belt. Her father glanced over at her, giving her a re-assuring crooked smile. "Don't worry about it." He said softly, motioning to their white clad companion in the back seat. "It's been a long day."
She smiled back, somewhat re-assured with her father's easy acceptance of the thief's presence. If he was alright with it, then there must be a good reason for it as well. It was his job to catch the Kid anyway.
Following an urge she didn't quite comprehend, she leaned over, resting her head against her father. He didn't comment on it, shooting her a fond look before turning his attention back to the road.
-tbc-
Plus side, we still have all the old notes for it! Huzzah!
Was very cool talking to everyone on chat last night. Sorry about being distracted.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-03-12 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-13 12:10 am (UTC)That should result in a few solid hours on the crapper.
Anyway, Henna Rocks!!! always make my friends buy a few tubes when they go to India. I usually use it on my hands tho. Tried it on my hair, makes it really soft too. Guess the herbal stuff helps. Oh yeah, tried chemical dyes once too. Turned out pretty bad. It was s'pose to be a dark redish brownish black, but ended up orange in some parts and yellow in others >_< last time I'm doing that.
Anyway, coolo plunnie!!! feel slightly bad for the dancing body.