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Title: The Grey Agency, chapter two: Thomas Wolfe
Author: Icka! M. Chif
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 2,341
Author's Note:
Summary: "Perhaps Thomas Wolfe was correct, you can't go home again."

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"I'm home." Saguru called as he walked into the kitchen of his father's house. It was strange sometimes, after the past year of travelling, how one of the houses he had lived in most of his life did not feel like home anymore. It should have -felt- like home, but somehow all it felt was vaguely familiar. He did know where the bath towels were at least.

Perhaps Thomas Wolfe was correct, you can't go home again.

"Welcome home, Botchama." Baaya said, her face dourly pinched like she had just eaten a lemon. While he was glad that the relative she had been attending had gotten well enough that she could return to their service, she had not been very pleased with his sudden change in behaviour after returning from overseas. "How were classes?"

"Boring." He said succinctly as he investigated the refrigerator. He was currently enrolled in a full course load of basic classes, nothing interesting to grab his attention. Baaya gave a disapproving sniff at his language. She had trained him to talk about the goings on of the people in class, to better train his detective abilities.

But he was not a detective anymore.

And he really missed Kaito.

The magician would probably have teased him about the stupid teachers and the boring lectures and then distracted him with some outrageous tale of what had happened during -his- day, some of which might have actually been true. And he could watch the sparkle in Kaito's eyes grow with every strange twist of the story, enjoying spinning the story as much as Saguru delighted in hearing it. And maybe kissed the grin on Kaito's face before settling down to finishing his work as Kaito took a nap or fussed at some magic trick before they worried about dinner.

He didn't smell right anymore. He and Kaito had been living in each other's back pockets for over half a year, and in extremely close quarters for the last part of it. It was strange to put on his own clothing, sleep in his own bed and not smell anything other than himself and soap. It didn't feel like his own skin anymore.

But he hadn't seen Kaito in days. Closer to a week, actually. Since he had started classes at the local college instead of one of the more prestigious universities farther away from town. Father and Baaya had not been pleased about that either.

He did appear to be letting them down a lot lately. In their eyes anyway.

Finding nothing that struck his appetite in the refrigerator, he closed it and fixed a cup of tea instead. "Any mail for me?" He inquired.

"None." Baaya shook her head. "Maybe if you started requesting cases again. Ezomatsu-keibu has an interesting one that's stumped everyone who has come along so far-"

"No, thank you." He cut her off. "If you need anything, I'll be up in my room, working on homework." Saguru left before she could continue her tirade about his lack of enthusiasm in looking for cases to solve, like he had heard every day since his return here.

Some days, he would have welcomed confronting the Mysterious Organisation again rather than dealing with his father and housekeeper. At least the people in black would only kill you, and then it was over.

He sighed as he made his way back up the stairs. It was also a little galling, to realise that no one was going to -ask- for his assistance, like he was now bound. Everyone just assumed that he would be all too eager and happy to solve their tangled messes, and then step back and allow them to take the credit for themselves. Like he had before he had gone undercover and then overseas for a year.

Because no professional would think to ask a teenager for assistance. It just wasn't done.

Although they did seem to be startled in the height he had gained. Over six feet wasn't as unusual as it once had been in Japan, but it was still uncommon. And slightly intimidating to people. Especially when they were used to thinking of him as the -little- blond boy playing dress-up in a ridiculous Sherlock Holmes mock-up.

Saguru closed his eyes as he shut the door to his room behind him. He needed to stop thinking about this and work on his homework. He had advanced calculus to do tonight. And then he got to face dinner with Baaya, because Father wasn't letting Saguru out of their sight except for school. Joy.

He sat down at his desk and pulled out his books, papers and pens, setting them on his desk in preparation to work.

And promptly got distracted by the sound of his window opening. Adrenaline kicked in, automatically seeking out Kaito's presence in the room to keep him safe from the intruder-

-Only to realise that Kaito -was- the intruder. "Yo." His boyfriend said, raising a hand in greeting from his seat on the window ledge, his clothing wrinkled and worn.

Saguru remembered to breathe. "Kaito." He breathed, glancing around. That was right, they did not have to worry about people barging in on them with the intent of killing them anymore. And he and Kaito were now in different houses on opposites side of town, instead of always tripping up over each other's company.

Kaito gave him a concerned look. "You all right 'Guru?"

"Yeah." He gave his boyfriend a shaky smile. He could suddenly completely sympathise with Kaito's high-strung behaviour last autumn. "What are you doing here? Come on in." He scolded, standing up and walking over to give Kaito a hand. Not that the acrobatic magician needed it, of course.

"Got myself off work early." Kaito said with a grin, untying a pair of construction boots and sliding out of them, wiggling his toes with obvious relish. "I bring sushi-?"

Saguru's eyebrows went up. Kaito was both allergic and phobic of fish, yet he was bringing sushi? "Vegetarian." Kaito amended as he pulled a small wrapped bento out from his backpack. "Help yourself to the futomaki, I call dibs on the inari."

"Are you sure you're not a Kitsune?" Saguru teased. Inari was made from stuffing sweet rice into fried tofu, the goddess Inari's messengers' favourite food. He got a toothy grin in return that promised nothing and everything at once. Saguru could never resist that smile. He smiled back and leaned down to kiss Kaito. His boyfriend hummed happily as he kissed Saguru back.

"... Hi." Kaito breathed as they broke apart.

"Hullo yourself." Saguru smiled. "Fancy running into you here."

"It's the strangest thing." Kaito agreed, letting Saguru pull him upright and holding on to his hand. "Sushi?"

"Bed?"

"Perfect."

And people wondered why Saguru loved this man. "You smell like freshly cut wood." Saguru commented as they shifted things over to the bed. "Your new job?"

"Carpenter." Kaito nodded, sitting cross-legged on the mattress, setting the food between them. "I picked up the basics a while back, for camouflage while setting up a heist. Turns out there's a high demand for skilled people to help construct houses."

"You've been busy." Saguru admired as Kaito grabbed a piece of inari and popped it in his mouth.

"Eh, a little bit." Kaito shrugged in the way he did when he was already bored with his appointed task. "How's life treating you?"

Saguru took a deep breath, preparing to tell a polite fiction and found the words pouring out instead. About how Father regarded him with suspicion now that Saguru knew about Mum's side of the family, how Kaito was now persona non grata in the house, all of Saguru's changes in behaviour being blamed on the ex-theif instead of experience and growing older.

That he missed travelling, even though he'd been sick of it after several months and wanted nothing more than to come home. He missed their adventures and excitement and it felt stifling here.

He was able to control his mouth enough not to mention -some- things, like the fact he wasn't sleeping well because he kept reaching out to grab Kaito and the brunette wasn't there anymore. And that Mum's side of the family wanted him to move to England permanently and be nobility while and Father wanted him to stay in Japan. Which was where Kaito lived, and he didn't know what to do.

... He did mention that he missed Kaito's company, however. As vaguely as possible. Because it wasn't like he -needed- Kaito around to function, he just was used to having him around. A lot. It was strange, not finding his clothes disappearing.

The flow of words eventually trickled down and he realised that the two of them had managed to finish all of the futomaki and the inari. He was about to comment on it when Kaito suddenly tensed up, like a cat, eyeing the door. The ex-theif gave Saguru a slight shove off the bed before disappearing.

Saguru quickly dashed for his desk chair, plopping down in the seat just in time to hear footsteps tread quietly towards his door. Baaya. He scribbled his name on his notebook papers, pretending to be concentrating on his homework.

The door opened quickly, like the housekeeper was expecting to find him doing something else other than what he had said he was going to do. "Something wrong?" He inquired, raising a lofty eyebrow.

"No." She said, glancing suspiciously around the room. "Dinner is in an hour and a half."

"Thank you." He said, carefully -not- looking around the room trying to spot where his boyfriend had hidden himself. Especially since she'd already checked the ceiling corners. "Anything else?"

She look at him from down her nose. "Why aren't you wearing your contacts? You look better without the glasses."

He shrugged in return. He didn't feel like disguising his eye-colour anymore, trying to blend in. He was who he was and he'd learned to be happy with it. Acceptance did that to a person. "Less headaches." He said simply. It was better answer than 'My boyfriend thinks I'm sexy in glasses, nyah nyah' anyway.

Although It had taken quite a few months to get comfortable with the idea of not attempting to blend in as Hakuba Saguru. The whole 'changing identities every day or so' thing had been a definite help. So had Kaito hiding his contacts lenses several times. Hence, less headaches.

Baaya sniffed, closing the door behind her as she left. Saguru glanced around the room. No construction boots next to the window, no sushi box on the bed, no Kaito in the corners of the room and he knew there wasn't enough room under the bed.

Then he looked again, and there was Kaito sitting in the middle of the bed like he'd never moved. "You have got to tell me how you do that one of these days." Saguru said dryly.

"It's my elite ninja skills." Kaito answered modestly, flashing him a decisively un-modest grin before holding his hand out in invitation.

"I'm sure." Saguru drawled, doing as he had been bid, walking over to the bed and sitting back down. He was mildly surprised when Kaito pounced, pushing down on to the bed and straddling his hips. Saguru grinned up at him, putting his hands on Kaito's hips. "Hi."

"Hullo." Kaito grinned back, leaning down and covered him like a living blanket before distracting him with a slow lazy kiss. Saguru happily responded, sliding his hands down Kaito's back before sliding them back up again, slipping his hands inside Kaito's shirt, petting the bare skin at the small of the back. Kaito made a pleased sound, arching into the contact like a large cat, and Saguru lost himself in the mindless pleasure of making out with his boyfriend.

The kisses became slower, more languorous as they relaxed, Saguru feeling a pleasant lassitude creeping on him, before he drifted off, wrapped up in Kaito.

He woke up to a sharp knock on his door, jolting him out of a comfortable sleep. "Yeah?" He called as the door opened. About an hour had gone by while he had been asleep, according to his internal time sense.

"Dinner has been ready." Baaya announced in disproval. Saguru groaned as he sat up, reaching onto the night-stand for his glasses that he didn't remember taking off. "Are you all right?" She questioned, a touch of concern colouring her tone.

"I am fine." He said, putting on his glasses. "Merely have not been sleeping well as of late. I will be down shortly, Baaya."

"Of course." She nodded, shutting the door behind her.

Saguru stretched, feeling better than he had for a while. He looked around for Kaito and failed to see him. He did however, find his calculus homework already done, written in Saguru's own neat hand. He did some quick mental checking of the answers and found them all to be correct. He wasn't sure if he found it amusing or not, he was the college student, not Kaito.

He did a perfunctory glance around the room, checking for his boyfriend and half expecting Kaito to appear out of the shadows. While Kaito did not appear, he did discover that Kaito had forgotten something when he had left. Saguru walked back to the bed and picked up the over-shirt that Kaito had been wearing like a jacket when he had first arrived.

Saguru shook the shirt out, preparing to fold it when he realised that it smelled like Kaito. The magician had probably been wearing it to work in, it also carried traces of sweat, fresh cut wood and a touch of metallic grease. He smiled as he folded it neatly and stuck it under his pillow, where he could find it when he went to sleep later.

... He was totally pathetic.

A quick glance at his dirty laundry basket as he went into his bathroom to wash his hands revealed that the shirt he had been wearing the day before was missing. Kaito had most likely exchanged it for the shirt he had left behind.

Okay, so maybe he wasn't quite -that- pathetic.

+ Fin +