oceanicbutterfly | RL with Kaito

When Kanzeon had told him that the world-hopping mirror would transport him to someplace random, she wasn't kidding. Kaito hadn't expected to end up in Karen's bathroom, of all places. It was a little awkward.

After managing to escape from her house without alerting the housekeeper, Kaito headed towards the gazebo to find Karen waiting for him.

"Hey..." Kaito greeted rather weakly. He gave her the best smile he could muster at the moment (which was a pretty bleak smile) and decided he wouldn't tell her about the bathroom excursion. "Hope you weren't busy today or anything..."

"Not at all," Karen said with a better, although not entirely cheerful, smile. Actually, she did have things to do, but they could wait. "Have a seat."

"Thanks..." Kaito said as he sat down. He sighed heavily and leaned back to stare at the gazebo ceiling vacantly. "I have no clue what I'm going to do."

Karen wanted to say something that would make Kaito feel better, or at least help him not feel worse. But... she'd never been able to do that. At a time like this, she was useless.

"I dunno, I guess I always knew she'd find out eventually," Kaito continued. Really, he didn't need any advice at the moment... he just needed someone to talk to. "I just figured it wouldn't be for a while..." he sighed again and crossed his arms over his chest. "And this is why I didn't even want to date her in the fist place! It would have hurt her a whole lot less if I was just a friend and not something else!"

"I don't think that's right," Karen blurted out before she could stop herself. "I think it's better for you to have been happy together for a while."

Kaito blinked and diverted his gaze from the ceiling to the blue-haired girl sitting across from him. He shrugged. "Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all? I dunno if I believe that. Funny thing is, if it weren't for those stupid viruses, we wouldn't have even been together at all." He mumbled a few obscure obscenities under his breath. "I don't believe in fate, but something is messing with me."

That was stupid, Karen thought. I said something stupid and made things worse. "I'm sorry," she said.

"But..." But what? She didn't know. Why was she the one who was here? Why couldn't it have been Nozomi? Nozomi would know what to say.

"Don't be," Kaito responded almost immediately. He had probably been a bit too harsh in the first place... she had meant well, she really had.

"But what?" he asked with one eyebrow quirked. When Karen didn't respond, he leaned over the table and addressed her with a curious look. "Something wrong?"

"I don't know." Karen sighed. "I'm no help at all. You should be with someone who knows what to say."

Kaito blinked, then grinned. "Don't be silly, Karen!" he said cheerfully (although it was all sorta forced). "You don't have to know exactly what to say... listening is enough."

Karen sighed, and gave a weak smile. "All right." But she still tried desperately to think of things she could do. Maybe things Nozomi would do.

Ironically, cheering someone else up was exactly what Kaito needed.

With a wide grin (this one a bit more genuine) he leaped up from his seat and grabbed Karen by the hand. "C'mon, remember how you said you had that greenhouse? Let's go see it! I don't think you showed me the last time I was here!"

Well, that certainly caught her off guard. Especially since she'd just remembered Nozomi getting everyone to hold hands that time.

"All right," Karen said as she put her other hand on Kaito's and stood up. "To the greenhouse!"

Kaito clutched Karen's hand and allowed her to lead him to the greenhouse. He remembered, first time they had ever met in person, the trick he performed with the flower and the bird... and the joke Karen had made afterward.

It may have taken a while to set up, but it would be a good trick! He just knew it.

Karen led Kaito to a large... look, we all know what a greenhouse looks like, right? Right.

"Here we are," Karen said with a smile as she opened the door. She was actually pretty proud of the flowers here (although it would have been nice not to have to worry about them).

[...He didn't. :O ]

Kaito released Karen's hand and grinned. "Remember that one time, at the beach, when I turned the flower into a bird and back again?"

((He might have :3))

Karen blinked. "...yes..."

[:O :O :O]

Kaito turned away from Karen and held out a hand. "Well, you wondered what it would look like if it happened on a much larger scale, so..." The magician snapped his fingers, and suddenly every single bloom turned into a snow white dove, until the greenhouse was full of them.

Kaito snickered. "S-sorry, I wanted to try it!" He gave Karen a sheepish look.

After a second or two, Karen regained her senses. "Amazing," she said quietly as her brain struggled to decide how he could have possibly done that.

It was another second or two before she realized she was clinging to Kaito as if he was a suddenly-moving magic carpet.

[Which is, of course, a type of clinging that is less like "romantic cuddling" and more like "that incoming hurricane won't get me!"]

"'Course it is!" Kaito responded cheerfully. It was the happiest he sounded since arriving.

He watched as the doves finally managed to find their way out of the greenhouse and fly away towards the horizon. "Now to put everything back..." he snapped his fingers again, and the flowers reappeared.

Kaito let out a deep sigh. "That one took me forever to figure out. I've been working on it ever since you gave me the idea back at the beach." The magician turned to Karen and grinned, although his smile faltered slightly when he realized exactly how close she was. With a conspicuous cough (and an even more conspicuous blush) he tugged at his arm. "D-don't cut off the circulation in my arm now..."

((XD But of course!))

"Well, it definitely paid off. Ah... I'm sorry." Karen... merely backed off a bit and loosened her grip, as it turned out. She had intended to let go, but then she'd noticed Kaito was blushing, which simultaneously brought back more memories of the beach and reminded her of learning about the secret he'd posted and somewhere along the way she forgot what she was doing.

Kaito sighed. "Well... now that that's over..." He smiled at Karen, "I feel a lot better now! And you have feathers in your hair." With an amuse smirk, he reached out to remove them.

Karen blushed at his touch. For some reason, she suddenly felt very aware of how close he still was, and of how she was still holding onto his arm, and somehow she didn't quite want to move away or let go.

Kaito had only managed to remove about half of the feathers from Karen's hair before he finally noticed her blush. He blinked. "Eh? Something wro--" he started, but stopped short when it finally clicked.

Oh.

His own blush intensified, and he hesitated for a moment as he thought about Aoko... but Aoko was mad at him, and not talking to him, and she'd never forgive him anyway so...

It couldn't hurt.

And that's how Kaito Kuroba ended up placing his hand behind Karen's head, leaning forward and kissing her.

Some part of Karen's brain was shouting He's Aoko's boyfriend! This really isn't going to make things better if she finds out! And imagine if Masuko-san happened to see this?

The rest of her, however, couldn't care less. Her arms shifted from Kaito's arm to his body, pulling him closer, as she kissed him back.

Although one of her feet did kick towards the door, in a halfhearted attempt to shut it so they'd at least be a little less visible.

Hello. Karen was actually responding. Well... that was a good thing, but he wasn't quite expecting her to be okay with this.

Which made him briefly wonder why he had kissed her in the first place. But now wasn't the time to think about that!

One arm shifted to her waist and the other to her shoulders, as he held her tightly against him and continued to kiss her. He didn't think, he just moved.

Thinking meant coming back to reality. Reality meant facing the fact that Aoko hated him, and-- despite what she said-- would probably tell her dad and Hakuba about his less than legal career.

He'd much rather stay here.

Karen's heart was beating quickly already, but it sped up even more as Kaito took hold of her. You've lost control, shouted her instincts. You can't get away.

She just squeezed him tighter. Why would I want to?

And then it hit him.

He shouldn't be doing this. Even if he did care about Karen a lot in that way. Because in the end, he still loved Aoko.

Kaito broke away from her and was across the room in seconds, blushing and stuttering madly. "K-karen! S-sorry! S-should have done that! Really shouldn't have done that! It's just... I mean... what I'm trying to say is..."

He flailed at her helplessly.

Karen blinked as the rest of her mind came back into focus.

Thus allowing her to realize what she had been doing.

"K-Kaito! I don't--why did--that was--what--I--I--" she babbled.

"I-it's fine, it's my fault!" The magician stuttered helplessly, "I'm sorry if I invaded your personal space! Sorry!"

"--personal space?" Karen asked incredulously. "You're worried about my personal space?"

Kaito flailed. Again.

"What else would I be worried about?!" He asked incredulously, "I just... I just kissed you when I really shouldn't have, without even asking you if it was okay!"

Smooth Kuroba. Real smooth.

"I know that and I should have stopped you and but you call that personal space?!"

If she'd been in any condition to look at this calmly, Karen might have noted that she was blushing in a way that put Komachi to shame.

"What else would you have me call it?!" He cried. His own blush matched Karen's in both shade and intensity.

"You could call it what was that?!" The idea of actually making sense had completely left Karen's mind.

"What was that?!" Kaito asked. He gulped and fumbled into his pocket for the mirror Kanzeon had given him. "I... I think I need to go..." he grumbled.

"I--I think you should!" Karen stammered. "Yes!" She turned around, hoping to see something to occupy herself with. There! That flower! It needed... um... inspecting!

Kaito stared helplessly at Karen's back. Already, that oh-so familiar feeling of guilt was beginning to settle in his stomach.

... how was he going to explain this one?!

He muttered another apology to Karen, before he used the mirror to worldhop back to Aselia.

Was he gone? Yes, he was gone. Karen immediately dashed back to the mansion, speeding past a very startled Jiiya, arriving in the kitchen where she proceeded to drink entirely too much grape juice in an effort to calm herself down so she could figure out what the hell just happened.

She was still blushing so heavily that it felt like her face was on fire, and she felt tingly. Very tingly.

RL with Kaito

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