justonetruth | [for pansbox and police

It was his little miss. His Aoko. The one who'd... yes, he'd broken her wrist, hadn't he? All pretty and painful.

1412 slipped off of the counter gracefu-- ungracefully, feet stumbling as he hit the floor, but straightening almost immediately and not holding onto the counter for balance. He wasn't getting off because she'd asked, he was getting off because he wanted to.

"Who is that?"

He smiled, head tilting to one side, expression perfectly cheerful. And dangerous, if you'd had any experience with him.

"Is it the Kaito?"

-the boy that did this the bastard with his face and his dear rival's face and he couldn't let that go unpunished stealing facies wasn't nice now was it-

The sudden change in demeanor (from guarded to cheerful in a matter of seconds) wasn't surprising-- the motion was entirely too familiar. How many times had Kaito himself slipped seamlessly from emotion to emotion, wearing each one like a throw-away mask? It was a similarity, at least--

No.

Don't compare yourself to him.

He's not you. You're not him.

"Kaito Kuroba," he answered for Aoko calmly, and as he spoke he notably didn't move to heed Aoko's request about closing the door. There was no way he was locking them both alone in a room with an assassin. Not to mention... he had no idea how 1412 would react if he thought they were trapping purposely him.

"He's my Kaito," Aoko added hurriedly, not liking the way the assassin had used 'the' in his sentence. Who was 'the' Kaito?

But while they were talking, he was still bleeding, and door or no door, Aoko was going to do something about that. She began slowly approaching 1412, worried but calm but cautious. "You need to get those bandaged."

Hopefully he'd let her help.

Her Kaito.

Her Kaito.

1412 is moving away from her without realising it, turning a shift of his feet into a step back, not letting her get close.

"...not." He wants to rage at her, drag her away from him, but it's the Kaito-child, and he did this and he could hurt him again... He did this? There. He can use that, can't he? Steal her back. People are always saying he should be stealing.

"Kaito did this to me." His eyes are fixed on Kaito, and his tone is accusing - gaze flicking to Aoko briefly to gauge her reaction.

"What?"

His expression turns flat and annoyed at the false accusation, his grip on Aoko's shirt tightening as he steps forward with her.

"I didn't do anything to you."

He couldn't. Not only was inflicting this kind of bodily injury on someone beyond him, but he had been incapacitated for nearly two months.

So what was 1412 trying to do by accusing him....? Unless...

It was another Kaito who had hurt him.

And of course, Aoko knew that as well as Kaito. She'd been with him for the entirety of those two months. It couldn't have been him.

She was more concerned with how 1412 was backing away. She remembered that from her last encounter with him, how he'd kept drawing away from her like a wary animal. Now, like then, she cautiously pursued him and kept trying to catch his hands. He needed to stay still, not make the bleeding worse-!

And the way Kaito kept holding onto her shirt and restricting her movement wasn't helping.

"Which Kaito?" she finally managed, doing her best not to sound frustrated. What kind of Kaito would do this to him? He looked like he was cut all over with knives... "Please, just let me help!"

Wary animal was right. 1412 moved a little faster, and put the counter between him and them, hissing under his breath. And the stupid Kaito was still holding onto her. Mine.

"Kaito. Which Kaito. Maybe not this Kaito, but a Kaito. Stupid Kaito-people." 1412's words were coming out fast and choppy, flicking from one set of meaning to another. Door was over there, they were there, and he was injured - can't run can't hide, I'm going to get you - and they were between him and his way out.

A sudden, sharp grin, directed at Kaito.

"Might have been you, how do I know it wasn't, hmn? Might be lying, like the little chibi who twists the world around him and makes people think he's so good."

Kaito didn't like that grin.

"I'm not lying," he stated again, firmly, "Aoko knows that." For the first time since they entered the room, his gaze shifted from the bloody figure hiding behind the counter to Aoko, then back again.

"She wants to help you. I'm not going to stop her." But I'm not going to let go, either.

Aoko stopped advancing -- 1412 was only running away from her, and he needed to stop moving. "Kaito's been with me since we went home. It couldn't have been him."

Dammit, she needed to convince him before he bled any more! But how?

"We aren't going to hurt you," she insisted. The words sounded painfully inadequate, but they were all she could think of. "I promise."

"So sure," he murmurs in response, but the words are half-automatic, his gaze fixed on Kaito.

Maybe it wasn't him. But it was still a thief of faces, stealing his and his rival's. Still a stupid Kaito.

1412's expression is considering, one corner of his mouth quirking up in an odd smile.

"Little miss is lying." His words are casual, gaze fixed on Kaito as he speaks, searching for a reaction.

"No she's not," his response was automatic, without hesitation and without reaction (not anything beyond a twinge of annoyance, anyway). Aoko wasn't a liar. If either of the two were, it was definitely him.

"You're wasting time, y'know. Do you want to bleed out over the counter?"

Aoko flinched ever so slightly at that statement, not needing the mental image. "I'm not lying!" she snapped. "Just sit down! We'll help you get bandaged and then we'll go, if that's what you want."

Much as she disliked the idea.

"Don't. Need. Your. Help."

1412's words are steady, but he puts one hand on the table as he glares at them both. He's paler than he should be - his cuts are trying to clot, but everytime he moves, they break open again, making him lose more blood.

"Doesn't need it, and most certainly doesn't want it."

At this rate, 1412 was going to pass out from blood loss before they could help him with his injuries. They couldn't play this avoidance game forever. Something had to give, and Kaito really didn't want to have to leave 1412 to himself in this condition (even if he didn't like him).

Unwillingly, Kaito released his grip on Aoko's shirt sleeve, allowing her to move freely so she could get the assassin to comply with her requests. Once she did, the next thing they would need was bandages. With half his attention still focused on 1412 and Aoko (just in case) he moved quickly to the cabinets to fish for bandages of his own.

He would have picked up the ones 1412 had been using, but he wasn't sure he could without moving toward the other and startling him even more.

Aoko shot Kaito a grateful look, then took another measured step towards 1412.

"You're getting it anyway, even if you don't need it," she said firmly, crouching to the floor to pick up the trailing end of the gauze still wrapped around the assassin's chest. He'd been trampling on it as he pulled away from them, and Aoko could see half-clotted cuts breaking open again as the gauze was torn away.

She started rolling up the dirty end, drawing closer to him as she did so. It was going to have to be cut away and then continued with a clean roll.

"Did you disinfect any of those?"

1412 gives the Kaito a wary look, then edges towards Aoko. He tugs on the bandage with a sharp movement, taking it out of her hands. His.

"...No..." he mutters, acting like a child with his hand caught in the cookie jar.

"Don't need your help," he repeats, then sticks his wrist in his mouth, watching her suspiciously over his arm as he sucks at the cut across the outside of his arm. Disinfected was clean. He was cleaning. He could cope fine by himself, thank you.

Thankfully, the search for clean, non-trampled on bandages and antiseptic didn't take long. He pulled them out of the cabinets and shut the doors with his elbow, turning back to 1412 and Aoko and taking a step forward.

"... look," he started as he watched the assassin move, "We can do this the easy way, where you sit still and let us help you before we leave. Or we could do this the hard way."

He didn't elaborate on what the hard way was.

"Kaito," Aoko said warningly, shooting him a look as she took a pair of medical scissors from him to trim the dirty bandage. They didn't need threats right now! 1412 was being difficult enough as it was.

Rather than trying to snatch back the gauze, Aoko tentatively reached in to where it was trailing from the assassin's chest, intending on cutting away the unusable part and anchoring it to the rest of the wraps before she tried to add more.

1412 made a noise of protest in the back of his throat, shifting from foot to foot slightly as Aoko cut away the bandages. He drew back a step, then shifted forwards again, like he couldnt' decide whether standing still was a good idea or not.

"Nasty Kaito," he muttered, finally taking his arm away from his mouth, a smudge of blood at one corner. "Hard way isn't being friendly." He grinned sharply at him for lack of anything better to do, the grin one of the more disturbing he had in his repertoire.

This time, Kaito managed to bite back a sarcastic retort, though it was mostly due to Aoko's insistence that the situation didn't call for threats, and his silent agreement with her statements. He tried to ignore that grin, which was entirely too manic and entirely too malicious for him to be comfortable with (especially since it was on his features), and focus on the situation at hand.

He took a few more steps toward Aoko, bandages clutched tightly in his hands as he watched 1412 shift. "If you keep moving, you're just going to make it worse," he pointed out.

"You aren't being friendly either," Aoko muttered under her breath, but quietly enough that the assassin probably wouldn't hear her. She quickly anchored the bandage and turned slightly to reach out and take the antiseptic and some cotton from Kaito, never fully turning away from 1412.

Then she hesitated.

"This is going to hurt," she warned.

"...going to hurt? Hn."

His gaze flicked from Aoko to the Kaito, pausing there for a moment. Then he poked his tongue out at him, and looked back at Aoko, smiling cheerfully. "Okay!"

Stupid Kaito thing had got told off by his miss Aoko. Even thought she loved him. He must be being naughty. Or bad~

"I lo-" he murmured under his breath as he watched Aoko work, voice shifted to match hers.

That gesture almost caught Kaito off guard, if only for its childishness. He regained his composure quickly, however, as he helped Aoko as much as he could by handing her bandages and gauze as she worked (thought he didn't reach out to help patch 1412 himself).

At least he was cooperating now.

His gaze flickered from Aoko's steady hands to 1412 once the assassin slipped into the girl's voice, though it didn't linger.

The mimicry caused Aoko to twitch, and she glared up at 1412 through her lashes. What was he trying to do?

...Probably trying to get to her, she decided, soaking the cotton and carefully applying it to the worst of the scrapes, doing her best to keep the cleaning quick and light so as to cause him the least amount of pain. He'd tried to scare her last time; this time he seemed to be trying to piss her off.

She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

"Of course I love him," she said matter-of-factly, carefully leaning in to clean a particularly nasty wound on his shoulder. She bandaged as she went, applying gauze padding after each cleaned wound, and then bandaging to hold it in place. "We've been together a long time."

1412 was curious.

"How long? Since roses and towers and little children waiting for daddies?"

He doesn't realise that he normally would have said 'daddy', that he would have avoided even alluding to his own father.

All through this, he has been twitching under Aoko's ministrations, eyes firmly locked onto what her hands are doing, even if he has to crane his neck uncomfortably to see properly.

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