He'd waited a long time for this; days, weeks, years—hell! His whole life! Maybe he knew that some day, deep down, he would find his lifemate, the woman he was destined to spend the rest of eternity with, however long that was. But even as he had given up hope in the past, he didn't realize that he nearly abolished his future. Kaito was thus only partially grateful for his overzealous and erratic behavior. Because if he hadn't robbed that one man, he would have never met Maia. And he shuddered to think what might have been his future if he'd never met her.
He remembered thinking of her often, from the time they rumbled on a rooftop to the moment the rumbled in the sheets. And he grinned against the moonlight, thinking of the first moment he must have loved her. He didn't know when it was. It might have been the moment he saw her, it could have been the moment she pressed her lips to the back of his neck, or even the time she cut a slit in his back. That last one really hurt but it had been a while since he last met a woman strong enough to willingly attack him. Kaito's life had been full of violence, from toil in the streets to the ring, and he wouldn't have been surprised. But girls never fought guys in the Underground; not that they couldn't have handled themselves but it was just something that he'd never seen done.
Kaito leaped from rooftop to rooftop after sunset and collecting the remains of his fortune. He snatched a bag from a local sweetmeats shop and used it to put his money in from the several hiding spots he had around the city. When he was sure he'd gotten everything, lest someone else found the coins, he headed off to Maia's apartment. He didn't have anything of value to take with them when it was time to leave, so he didn't mind taking anything less than the clothes on his back.
He reached the roof of the familiar, stalwart building and swung down to her window below. Seeing that it was slightly open, he grasped the ledge and shone himself inside. But as he looked around the bedroom, no one was there. "Huh," he said quietly and wandered throughout the apartment, trying to trace where she might be. It was stunningly silent, a type of peace he didn't want to break by saying her name even if it meant finding her. Instead, he traveled from room to room until he stumbled upon a familiar hole in the wall. Seeing the door was slightly ajar, he nudged it open with his shoulder and entered, spotting her figure strewn across the floor. He looked down at her and smiled, "Back on the ground, eh?"