Ever tried to act normal when you know someone you love is going to die today?

It's not an easy thing to do. For someone else, maybe impossible. For an accomplished performer like me...it's not easy.

My grandfather is going to die today.

Great-Grandfather Kaito--my Grampa, my favorite person in the world, my best and most skilled teacher and trainer, the man who's been like a second father to me in more ways than I can count.

To be honest...I've always known he was going to leave us. Sensed it somehow, even when I was a little kit. Ever since I was old enough to understand what made ningen and youko different--ever since I was old enough to understand how much he loved Gramma Aoko...I've known that he was going to die.

I know that. But all I can do is wait for the call to come.

I miss Gramma Aoko too, you know. I was just a kit when she died, but I'll never forget her. She was one of the few people--one of the very few ningen--who saw me for what I am and wasn't afraid. She loved me for it. She was never afraid to touch my ears or my tail, she never got a strange look on her face when she looked at me--she held me and told me stories about Kaitou Kid, and laughed with me and listened to me...

I miss her too. But Grampa Kaito misses her a lot more. He's loved her for almost a century now, and he's been lonely ever since she died.

He never really told anyone--not that he was planning to die. He never said it outright. But the things he did, like willing his father's investments and holdings to all of us, all his children; like putting the house under my name--like practically adopting me, like teaching me everything he knows, like telling me that all the doves are mine...like always saying that he needed someone to do all these things, because he wasn't going to be around forever...

We all knew it was coming soon. He hasn't gone out on nearly as many heists this year, leaving that duty to me. Instead, he's been spending a lot of time at home, a lot of time with us--with his family. He's given a little parting gift to all of us, a day here or there with all his kids and grandkids and great-grandkids...a final lesson in magic or a bit of advice, a meal shared together, a long talk that had this simple finality about it...

Just last week he spent the day with Grandpa Toichi, father and son, going somewhere to talk and share and...say goodbye...

We all knew.

I know he's going to die. But I can't say anything--or do anything. It's what he wants. I just have to wait for the call.

I couldn't hang around and train with my cousins for very long. My heart wasn't in it--not today. Not knowing what I know. I couldn't keep the shadows out of my eyes, so I ducked out of practice after only a little while, and headed home.

Part of me was hoping he would still be here, and I could beg him not to go. He's my Grampa, and I love him. I don't want him to be gone.

But I know I can't stop him. He wants to go; he's been waiting for this day for nine years. All I can do is wait for them to call.

The house was locked and everything was in order when I got here. And it was silent and empty--he had already left. Gone--to wherever it was he had planned to die. He didn't tell me; he wouldn't want me to see it. Even if I knew, and he knew I knew, that he was going to die one day, the specifics of his plans were something he only discussed with Uncle Shinichi.

Kudo Shinichi. Yeah, that famous detective. He doesn't work under that name or face much any more, but that's him. He's not really my uncle either--more of a distant cousin, but I fell into the habit of calling him that as a kid, and never dropped it. He's really nice, for a Shinigami.

Our family's resident God of Death--the most logical person for Grampa to talk to about that kind of thing. Strangely enough, despite that I know what he's going to be doing today, I'm not mad at him. Grampa asked him to do it.

I remember Grampa joking that for a Shinigami, Uncle Shinichi was awfully squeamish about Death. Uncle Shinichi doesn't like killing at all--and he'll get pretty mad if you so much as hint that he does; he never uses his powers unless he absolutely has to. If you think about it, he's really gentle for a Shinigami.

I'm not angry with him. It's not like Uncle Shinichi is any happier about this than I am. He and Grampa have been friends since they were my age--really really good friends, almost like brothers. And he's the one who has to do it.

All I have to do is sit here at the kitchen table and wait for the call.

The doves are really quiet out back; I can hardly hear them cooing. I wonder if they know too. They probably do; Grampa's been raising those doves for so long, even the oldest of them is barely a distant descendant of his first flock. They've been with him for generations, and they all know him. He has a way with them; they respond to him much better than to me. I hope they'll still work with me, now that he's gone.

No, he's not gone yet. Not yet. There's still a chance he might decide to come back. Just a chance.

Why do I keep hoping? I've known for years...and he told me this morning that it was finally goodbye.

If I leave now and go really fast, I might catch up with him before he gets to Uncle Shinichi's place. He'll be taking the ningen route, like he usually does, slow and steady with his old-man disguise on and everything. If I ran over the rooftops like I know I can, I could make it. I could beat him there. I could ask him to--to stay.

Stay with me. My Grampa, the man who raised me to be who I am, the man who taught me to be everything I could ever be, the man who gave me so much of himself even after half his soul died that night with Gramma Aoko...

He's not even old, for a hanyou. He could live centuries more. He doesn't have to die today.

Selfish. I'm being so selfish. He's been alone and lonely for nine years, all for my sake. For me. To raise me and train me the way my father and grandfather never could. And I'm a spoiled, selfish kit, wanting to ask him for a few more years...a few more decades...a lifetime...

But he's my Grampa. The only one I've ever known who's anything like me. Who understands me, inside and out--my life, my powers, my feelings. Everything that goes on in my head, inside this crazy mixed-up fox-boy brain. All the puzzles and troubles and pains and joys that come from being partly one thing, partly another--Grampa understands all that.

He understands me. Not even my Dad can do that, really. He tries, and I love him, but he's...not like me. Grandpa Toichi is the same--he can understand more, but still...somehow, only Grampa was able to get through to me when I was a stupid rebellious kit, too much for my father to handle with Mom gone. Grampa can match my powers--and more than match them; even now I can't measure up to him. He knows what I'm going through, growing up as what I am; he's been there--he knew all the trials, and how to guide me through them. He understands me, like no one else in the whole world.

Me--son of a red kitsune and a nearly-ningen man; not-quite-hanyou...and somehow I ended up a white kitsune on top of that--unique, rare, almost one-of-a-kind. But me and Grampa, we're one of a kind together. Two of a kind.

I don't want to be one of a kind.

Is it selfish for me not to want to be alone?

I know my Grampa is going to die today. That doesn't mean I want to sit here and let it happen. But I can't do anything but wait for the call.

I'm supposed to be Kaitou Kid full-time, once he's gone. It's what he's been training me for all this time--because the world still needs the phantom thief. The laughing white shadow, the enigmatic criminal and banner of truth that Kid is supposed to be. The one who moves in the moonlit night, carrying out what Uncle Shinichi can't do in the daylight. Somehow I'm supposed to carry that on for him.

He told me I'm ready...but I just don't see it.

I could do it with him beside me. I've done it before, when he's coached me--even when he's done little more than wait at home for me to arrive, tired but victorious. I knew what I was doing with him to guide me--and even if he wasn't beside me, just knowing he's there is enough.

Now I feel like I don't know how to do it anymore. I have to go out there alone next time--he won't be there to catch me when I fall. Even if he doesn't think I'll fall...maybe I'm not as confident as he is.

Grampa...he's the son of the senior Kuroba Toichi, the real white Kitsune, the first to become famous as a phantom thief. He was born to be Kaitou Kid.

I'm just a hanyou who happened to be born different. Really, most of my kitsune blood comes from my mother, an ordinary red vixen. How I ended up the way I am is a mystery to the whole family, but I know where this power inside me comes from.

I'm the great-grandson of Kuroba Kaito, and I'm proud of it.

I want to tell him that. Really tell him. Say the words. I never got a chance to--no, I had plenty of chances, but I didn't take them. I was too busy with myself. I never bothered to say those words. Even though I knew someday I was going to lose him--I kept pushing it back, saying it would be later, he wasn't going yet. Then it became today, and there's so many things I wish I said...or hadn't said...so many things I still want to tell him.

Maybe there's still a chance to. If I stop hesitating, stop waiting...if I stop sitting here and waiting for that stupid call.

I still want to tell him things. I don't want to be alone. I don't want my Grampa to die. There's so much left of his life, he doesn't have to die yet. We're hanyou, we've still got so much time--and I didn't have enough time. Not nearly enough time to know him, to really appreciate him and everything he's done for me. Not enough time to start speaking to him as a man--I barely had a chance to start growing up and now that there's so much we can do together, so much still left to share, he's leaving me. Forever.

I might make it in time if I run like the wind. I could stop him. Maybe if I asked him not to go. If I asked him to stay...if I begged him...would he? Or would he think I'm just being a selfish kit?

Am I being selfish? Grampa's been alone for so long, missing Gramma Aoko like that...missing the other half of his heart. But if he left, we wouldn't be two of a kind together any more.

I don't want to be one of a kind, Grampa.

I don't want to be alone.

If it's not too late...

Then the telephone rings and I know I am alone, before I even pick it up. I answer with a hoarse hello, and some officious-sounding, sympathetic voice on the other end starts up with "We regret to inform you..." and goes on about how something happened to Kuroba Kaito. My Grampa.

But I already know.

I don't even hear the rest of what the man says; I let him finish his schpiel and hang up. There's nothing to say. Nothing to do. I'm too late.

If I hadn't sat here and waited for the call...

I feel numb all over, and all I can do is sit here and stare at nothing. I knew, but it was like I'd walked into a dream. But now it's real--he's really gone. My Grampa is gone.

Just like we all knew he would be, one day. I just never wanted that day to be today.

I never wanted that day to come at all.

Fin.

Notes:

*sigh* Another sadfic. What is up with me lately? (Getting caught in a splatter of wonderful "fic shrapnel" again, that's what--right Icka? ^_^) My fics are getting really morbid and depressing.

Okay, that's it, Brain-chan needs a good smunking. And a humorfic...