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Once, when she was very small, the time in her life only Keiji knew about to any real extent she picked up a copy of an old comic book, the colours faded, the pages dog-eared but oh there was something so beautiful about it and the art within that she adored. Catwoman, a classy cat burglar and well perhaps Kasumi had fallen in love just a touch with that sort of grand idea, being a masterful thief on a variety of adventures and mixing with the crème de la crème of high society, in slinky little black numbers. She did love old noir tales too. No femme fatale for Kasumi unless it was part of the game but there was always something so alluring about that, about a woman who knew what she wanted and would go to all sorts of lengths to get it, dramatic in her swishing fabrics, bold hemlines dripping in expensive gems.
Of course she knows just how impractical so many things are but she adores reading because it is her great escape from a life that has been calculated down to the last millisecond, everything precise unless something went wrong. Even then there were back up plans, always another route, another way. Together she and Keiji had it all down to a fine art until...
No, a bad train of thought. She tries not to let herself get bogged down in the bad things, Keiji wouldn't want that for her, he loved to see her smile, especially when he would appear with a book, watching her run her fingers over it, holding it close to breathe in the smell of paper and lignin and leather if it was particularly old. Sometimes he would read to her, his fingers running through her hair, oh he had a beautiful voice and she would lie there rapt with attention. Other times it would be her, Keiji on the floor with his head tipped up as she whispered, her voice hushed unless the dialogue dictated otherwise, a private narration where she did all the voices. Sometimes she does that for children, if she has spare moments. She loves getting to be dramatic monsters, gallant knights, wicked witches and virtuous princesses.
Her favourite heists with Keiji though were the glamorous when they were pretending to be other people with the most impeccable manners in fancy clothes (she loves a man in uniform and a man who looks good in a suit, she teasingly called him Bond because they both loved those ridiculous old films.) It was like getting ready for a play, or so she so often thought, when Keiji would zip her dress up, kissing the back of her neck or a shoulder, whispering the most obscene things about what he would like to do to her (not that she was any better, adjusting his tie, up on her tiptoes with her lips to his ear) and they were two strangers against the world. No one knew who they were. She was never too ostentatious if they had to show their faces but elaborate hairstyles helped transform her face along with dramatic flicks of the eyeliner and a bold slash of lipstick that would end up on Keiji's collar at the end of the night when they were breathless with exhilaration and adrenaline with their loot.
Even now she loves when she gets to see someone dressing up. Shepard has broad shoulders, perhaps a little too broad for the dress Kasumi provided but no one else would carry it off the way she had that night when Kasumi went to and fro with her cloaking, always watching or listening. She likes that Shepard was not self-conscious for a moment, cool and assured the entire time, as classy as can be. She should dress up more often and oh Kasumi would love to see her in a dress uniform (Keiji indulged her a few times when they played their own private games but Shepard is a friend, someone to admire and to treasure, still, a girl likes to look.)
Now the Reapers draw closer and Kasumi has stashed all her treasured things away as safely as can be save the graybox which she keeps on her person, her last piece of Keiji with her as he should be. When it's all over (it will be over, this is Shepard, there is no reason to doubt) she plans to take Shepard out properly so they can let their hair down and Shepard can wear a tuxedo this time, Kasumi knows what one she'll look best in and Kasumi has something special she hasn't worn in quite some time, elegant without being over the top, long evening gloves (always gloves, one of the best lessons Catwoman ever taught her) and a pair of sensible heels (not beautiful but one never knows when there will suddenly be a fire fight and a need to break into a run or a burst of acrobatics; she likes fanciful things but not everything translates well from the fantasy world to the real one) and they can go out and pretend to be whoever they want to be. She'll never get back what she lost, there won't be slow dancing, her and Keiji cheek to cheek as they whisper information back and forth to one another or planting bugs on people as they make their introductions but a little taste of the high life again, oh yes, she would like that very much and she knows just the place to go once all of this is over.
After all, Shepard just might have to track her down. She does have some very nice bits and pieces from the Crucible project stashed away after all.