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“Everything set?”
“Y-Yes, sir!” From behind him, Tachihara squeaks out an affirmation. Chuuya sighs as he surveys his surrounding again, watching people milling about in the packed exhibition hall, the jewelleries softly clinking on the glass as they change hands, the few police officers that he can make out among the visitors scattered in the nearby buffet lounge.
Truly, if he had any say in the matter, this thing here wouldn’t be happening right now, much less for him to be a part of it.
It’s been several days into this year’s International Jewellery Tokyo Autumn Fair, an annual event to exhibit the most celebrated (or outlandish, in Chuuya’s very humble opinion) creations from the best jewellery makers in the Asia-Pacific region. The focus of everyone’s attention this year is the 30-million-yen sapphire ‘God of Light,’ famed for its place in Emperor Hirohito’s imperial treasure before it disappeared in the war, only to resurface recently in the personal collection of a Chinese curator. And tonight, the final day of the fair, the gem is finally brought out for public display, after one of the bigger players in the market has successfully made the purchase.
As if such a thing could really attract half the crowd here. Chuuya eyes the people around him again, scrunching his nose in distaste as one young girl gleefully squeezes past him to get to what seems like a very popular pearl shop.
The real reason, as he, the police force, and frankly, all of Yokohama, know, is that today’s centrepiece is supposedly the target of the Phantom Thief, the slimy bastard that has to his name over thirty heists in the last four years and has embarrassed the police for just about as many times.
Here, Chuuya takes a deep breath to remind himself that he of all people can’t start a commotion now. Not when it’s bound to happen later on anyway.
Today is the day he’s gonna make that fucker regret ever crossing paths with him, damn it!
“Erm, Chuuya-san.” Tachihara squirms behind him. Still, the boy soldiers on. “You look… tense.”
No shit.
He does will his shoulders to loosen up, in any case. “It’s been a long day, that’s all.” Turning toward the junior officer, he offers a smile that hopefully could pass as just crooked instead of feral, and said, “Let’s do another round, you and I. Brief me again on how the prep is going so far.”
“The Special Assault Team just arrived to be stationed outside, Mori-san’s orders,” Tachihara starts rattling off facts beside him, as they head toward the nearest exit. “Two officers per entrance, ready to barricade upon signal, plus a team of four to patrol the premise every half hour. Two additional security stops to prevent anyone from leaving in case of a lockdown. Backup generator tested and ready to run. Elevator service shut down since the morning and all stairs blocked off, as are all the rooms attached to this hall.”
“And the people guarding the jewel?”
“Two from the elite team will be joining us right after they report back from the drug chase earlier today, sir,” comes the response.
“And they are?”
“The Akutagawa siblings.”
“Mm,” Chuuya nods. Stopping just short of the entrance, he peers up to the suspended ceiling, nearly twenty metres overhead. “And has the ceiling been checked for explosives?” He doesn’t really think the Phantom Thief will go that far—there’s been no casualty in his heists so far—but there’s no telling if his theatrical tendencies didn’t get dialed up a notch for this special occasion.
“Thrice, sir,” is said in an eager tone, as they exit the hall for one last sweep around the venue. “As per your order.”
Chuuya grimaces at the reminder.
Because other than Tachihara and perhaps a couple of others more familiar with him, no one else really answers to him in this police force.
After all, the only reason he, an investigator, was brought into this case is that he’s the only one who can consistently crack the clues left behind by the Phantom Thief each heist—a poem that once solved will reveal details about the next heist the thief will attempt.
Those clues are the only things they can work with in the chase that’s been going on for more than four years, despite having nothing to show for it.
The fact that he and the thief have such… affinity (here, Chuuya takes another moment to retch inside his head) also triggered lots of suspicion in the early days, suspicion that the two of them were actually working together in a big fat charade to fool the public. Squashing down those accusations to maintain his reputation was a headache all on its own. Chuuya, for his part, couldn’t imagine any universe where he can actually work with that stinky ass instead of dropkicking him into Yokohama Bay, but alas, human imagination is really limitless.
In any case, he doesn’t fault the police force for not answering to him. Not that he has authority over them in the first place, anyway.
Giving one last once-over to the doors that connect his exhibition hall to another, Chuuya checks his watch. Fifteen to eight. He still has time to check up on the officers guarding the main entrances, before returning to his post for the jewel reveal.
He must be scowling again, because next to him, Tachihara just clamps his mouth shut from whatever it is the boy wanted to say. Chuuya sighs.
“Alright, what is it?”
The junior officer jumps a bit. “Um, e-even if,” he stammers. “I mean, even if—and it’s a really big ‘if’, really, because with Chuuya-san here there’s no way that ‘if’ is gonna happen—but even if. Ehh. If. If we don’t get him tonight… pleasedon’tfeelbad.”
Tachihara really is a good kid.
So young, so hopeful, so full of what he used to call ‘energy’ a few years back but can only associate now with foolhardiness… but a good kid nonetheless. Which is the sole reason why Chuuya reaches out to—very gently—pat his shoulder, and says the following words with as little venom as possible: “You’re right about one thing, you know. There’s no such if.”
Not on his life, damn it!
…also, because it’s not like he has much of a choice, as Chuuya mournfully reminds himself, storming away from a very dazed Tachihara to get back to the exhibition.
The police have always been intent on catching the thief for making fun of them, but the pressure to put him behind bars from the higher-ups is enormous these days. This so-called ‘Phantom Thief’ (a stupid nickname, Chuuya still insists) used to make a sport out of stealing artefacts, artworks, and other collectibles of high values, and apparently his (annoyingly) ingenious ways of getting away from the police made him into somewhat of a public sweetheart. Chuuya remembers again all the young girls who very openly spoke about hoping to see the thief tonight in the exhibition. He bets one whole month of his salary that at least one of them used to send that fucker something along the line of, ‘if only the dashing you could come steal this maiden’s untouched heart’.
(Dashing, his ass. Chuuya thinks back to the photo hung on his office wall—for absolutely no other purpose than a target practice, alright?—and spends a moment of silence for the poor souls who actually think that hideous mug is anywhere near attractive. How little hope they must have for the male population, really, to be gunning for someone so slimy, he doesn’t understand.)
…But that’s not the point.
Point is, he really needs to catch that thief tonight.
Because, the Phantom Thief, for all the nuisance he gave them, always returned what he stole. Until recently, that is. No one likes being made fun of, but they like it even less when actual property loss is involved.
Tachihara catches up with him just as he rounds the corner for the entrances. A total of four entrances and exits on this long side of the hall. All manned by two officers each, as Tachihara has reported, and they’re all faces that he has at least some recollection of, except for…
“You new here?” Chuuya cocks his head at a young officer at Door 4, who just now was watching the crowd inside the hall with obvious interest.
“Y-Yes, sir!” the young man immediately straightens up. Uneven grey hair, eyes of the most curious shade he’s seen. “Jouno Saigiku and Suehiro Tetchou, sir!” he introduces himself and angles his head slightly at his partner, a shorter man (but still taller than him, Chuuya bitterly notes) with black hair and slanted green eyes.
“I haven’t seen you around,” Chuuya coolly observes, hand outstretched in a wordless request.
“No, sir, it’s our first time here.” The smile that the grey-haired boy gives him is goofish. He hands Chuuya his ID and gestures for his partner to follow suit, who acquiesces with much less enthusiasm. “Investigator Nakahara, isn’t it? I’ve heard lots about you!”
“And who sent you?” Chuuya isn’t about to get distracted by something as silly as a praise. Although, admittedly, the boy’s earnestness does make him feel just a bit warm.
“Inspector Fukuchi, sir,” the boy—Jouno?—replies, scratching his face. “From Kamakura Central.”
“Fukuchi, huh? Wait here.” Chuuya fishes out his radio, taking a few steps away from the men. “Mori-san? Mori-san, this is Nakahara.”
A slight buzz, before, “Chuuya-kun?”
“I have two men here claiming to be sent by Fukuchi Ochi, from Kamakura Central.”
“Ah, yes, Fukuchi-san did say he was sending a few our way. Just two? I was expecting more.”
“They’re all I’m seeing here,” Chuuya glances back at the pair outside the door, at the raven-haired brat who doesn’t bother to hide his yawn and the other kid who looks very much eager to… simply be in his presence. It’s weird. He checks the IDs again, carefully scrutinizing their features. And it’s weirder for him to be feeling this, but seeing the goofy kid does remind him of…
“Chuuya-kun?”
“Right, Mori-san. There’s nothing else. I’ll report back.”
“Good. Keep up the good work. We rely on you.” The radio cuts.
Chuuya paces back to the entrance, returning the men their IDs. “Mori-san said Fukuchi was supposed to be sending more of you guys here.”
“Ah, about that,” the Jouno guy looks sheepish. “Fukuchi-san did say he regretted not being able to expend more manpower tonight. The drug chase is getting ruthless, and the two of us…” he gives a nervous laugh, “are probably of more use here than to him.”
Great. Chuuya reins in the desire to roll his eyes and maybe catapult these two back to wherever the fuck their Fukuchi-san is. Give me fucking greenhorns to work with, why don’t you!
No matter, he’s just gonna take things into his own hands.
Just as Chuuya raises his radio again to request for extra personnel, applause resounds from the hall. Above it all is a voice announcing, “And now—”
“The jewel reveal!” Tachihara exclaims.
Chuuya glances down. Three to eight. It wasn’t supposed to be now!
“What’s your time?” Chuuya barks. The two of them push their way into the crowd that’s only moving gradually toward the other long end of the hall, where the gem will be displayed, although he already has a feeling of what the answer will be.
“Twenty hundred and one, sir!”
Fucking hell, he’s gonna strangle that asshole with his socks just for this.
Chuuya barely makes it back to his post when the gem is wheeled past him from a door right to his left.
The man wheeling it out has red hair and a redder rose tucked into his breastpocket.
Chuuya’s heart stops.
No fucking way.
Before Chuuya could alert anyone, that man turns to look at him, smiles, and darkness floods the hall in a blast.
Even in retrospect Chuuya can’t tell what happened first: something exploding that cut off the power, shootings near the entrances at the remaining lights, smashing of glass at one end of the hall. There’s the piercing shrill of someone screaming. People pushing at him to get out.
“Barricade all entrances!”
“Start the generator!”
“Venue ready for lockdown!”
“No one leaves! No one leaves!”
Trying to gain his footing, Chuuya finally manages to raise his radio. “Requesting for backup! Requesting for backup!” he yells, blindly reaching toward the pedestal with the gem. “Mori-san! The thief is here! Requesting for backup!”
Not even five feet in front of him, there’s a sound of glass being smashed. And—Chuuya’s sure he’s imagining this—a chuckle amidst all the noises.
“Mori-san? Mori-san?!” Chuuya yells again, struggling not to get pushed away from the pedestal. Suddenly, he realises his radio isn’t blinking red.
Fuck.
“Tachihara? Tachihara!” he pitches his voice above the muddled cries.
“Here, Chuuya-san!” comes a voice from somewhere behind him.
“Keep talking! I need to find you!”
Once he finally gets to where Tachihara is amidst the crowd that wants to choke him to death, Chuuya snatches the radio from the junior officer.
“Mori-san! Requesting for—”
“Attention all units: Entrance 4 is breached. I repeat, Entrance 4 is breached.”
“Reporting sightings of people exiting the venue!”
Chuuya cranes his neck to see that one entrance has indeed opened up, a tiny door of grey light from a hall of complete darkness.
And that entrance was guarded by—
Fucking hell.
He has no time to waste. Think, think, what would that bastard do—
“Mori-san!” Chuuya suddenly exclaims. “Round the cars! They’re getting away in a police car!”
A long pause, before the chief inspector speaks again, voice barely audible. “…Special Assault Team, no police car to exit the premise.”
“But—”
The answer from the Special Assault Team captain is swallowed up by cheering sounds as light floods the exhibition hall again.
Squeezing past the crowd now a lot more docile, Chuuya crosses the hall, crushing shards of glass under his feet.
A sweeping look across the corridors shows no clue as to where the thief might have disappeared to. On one patch of grass right next to the building, only lies the red wig that the annoying man has worn.
“Chuuya-san…” Tachihara eventually comes up to him, sounding unsure.
“What,” Chuuya snaps.
“On the pedestal, there’s something…”
Heaving a sigh, Chuuya cuts through the exhibition hall yet again, which seems endlessly deep now, compared to just a few minutes ago.
On the pedestal where the jewel was, among the broken remains of the box that was reportedly unbreakable, are a red rose and an unassuming cream-coloured card in between its leaves.
The card is blank.
-
It’s not until two in the morning that Chuuya reaches his apartment, exhaustion woven deep into his frame. Scouting the premise after the heist reveals that the bastard actually did not escape in a police car, something Chuuya’s sure the Special Assault Team captain isn’t gonna let him live down any time soon. An extended search within a one-mile radius returned nothing other than the real Jouno Saigiku and Suehiro Tetchou loudly snoring in an abandoned warehouse, along with one more team member probably also sent by Inspector Fukuchi.
He’s about to open a bottle of wine, but then decides against it, and heads for the bedroom instead. There’s something better taken care of earlier.
As expected, the moment he turns on the bedroom lights, there’s a soft knocking sound coming in from outside the balcony door.
So he does the only reasonable thing, really.
Yanking open the door so the bastard leaning on it falls unceremoniously onto the floor.
And the stinky, bandage-wasting, cheating, sleazy—and did he mention stinky?—mackerel-ass now sprawling on his floor is none other than the infamous Phantom Thief, enemy of all women, professional lockpicker and even more adept heartbreaker—Dazai Osamu.
“Why the hell are you here?” Chuuya crosses his arms.
“Chuuya!” Dazai pouts. Chuuya kindly doesn’t tell him that from this angle, that pout only makes his face look fat. “That’s no way to talk to your beloved!”
“It is when you’re involved,” Chuuya tells him. “And stop calling yourself that, urgh.”
For all his dexterity and grace when it comes to heists and thievery, Dazai resolutely chooses to remain in that rather awkward position. “If you keep doing that, chibikko, people will start to think that you really don’t like me, you know.”
“I really don’t,” Chuuya says, then sighs and extends a hand to help the bastard up anyway. Only because the pout was getting annoying, damn it.
“You really don’t?” There’s a lazy smirk on Dazai’s face. “Then why don’t I see you protesting…” two hands leave butterfly touches up his thighs, past his hips, to draw his waist close, “as I do this?” and Dazai leans in for a kiss.
Ah, yes, the actual tragedy of his life.
He, Nakahara Chuuya, proud public servant of the Yokohama Police Force, is in a relationship with the one man he vowed to catch.
He responds to the kiss anyway, melting in the embrace of the one he’s spent nearly all his adult life chasing—and managing to catch in the one way that matters most—to drink in the lingering rose scent, the taste of the wine Dazai must’ve swiped from his cabinet, and—women’s perfume, from the heist last night. He scowls, and breaks off the kiss.
There it is, that pout again from being pushed away. God, if only his teammates could see this now. ‘Phantom Thief, greatest threat to regional security,’ his ass. This piece of shit is just a brat, no more!
“Looking good for someone just barely escaping arrest, huh,” Chuuya intones, moving away from Dazai to take off his suit jacket.
“And you look short for someone just barely missing the greatest thief of all time.” Dazai follows him to the edge of the bed, throwing his head back for added effect. “Oh, the injustice!”
“Shut your trap,” Chuuya snarls. “And my height has nothing to do with that, damn it!”
“Your height has everything to do with it,” Dazai drawls. “Now maybe if you were a bit taller, you wouldn’t have to wait for other people to tell you about the breached entrance, huh…”
“Fuck you!” Chuuya shrieks, which, in retrospect, is very unwise, because he’s a caring neighbour and he doesn’t want his other, also very caring neighbours to realise he’s having the fucking Phantom Thief over for a visit. Urgh. Shit.
Unfortunately for Chuuya’s sanity, the fucker actually sparkles. “You mean now? Chibikko, you usually aren’t so straightforw—ow, ow, ow!”
After kicking Dazai off the bed—way less than what the bastard actually deserves—Chuuya dusts his hands off and looks at the man whining on the floor, feeling just a little bit satisfied. “Not using police cars? Didn’t think you’d let an opportunity like that slip.”
“Ah, Chuuya really does know me too well.” Dazai props himself up, eyes twinkling. “That was part of the plan. Right up until the point I realised Chuuya might be on it, too, so I switched it up.”
“I fucking knew it.” If only he can rub this to the Special Assault Team captain’s face!
…not that he can actually do it, without incriminating himself ten times more.
Fuck, this is all Dazai’s fault.
“Of course you did.” Dazai stands up now, rounding the bed to come closer and gently, almost reverently, brush his knuckles over the swell of Chuuya’s cheek. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be the Chuuya I know.”
It’s always been this way, this dance between the two of them. Ever since four years ago when Dazai was still a literature student and Chuuya a detective trainee, this unending tug-of-war that got more and more magnetic after each of their attempts to one-up each other in everything… has slowly, but surely, spiraled into an easy coexistence, with the two of them orbiting each other’s life, much as Chuuya would like to deny.
The same way he can’t deny that for all of Dazai’s shortcomings, the other’s (admittedly) ingenious ways of slipping out of Chuuya’s grasp, only to willingly lay bare his whole being to Chuuya later, like he’s doing now, have been a great part of the irresistible pull Chuuya feels whenever he’s in Dazai’s presence.
“So, when are you gonna introduce ‘the Chuuya you know’ to your newly minted lackeys?” Chuuya smirks. “Bold of you to assume I wouldn’t smell something fishy there. I was this close to calling backup on them, I’ll tell you that. And no thanks to you for messing with my watch!”
“Bold of you to assume I, with my non-slug intellect, wouldn’t have a backup plan for that,” Dazai teases, swaying the two of them down to sitting on the bed, Chuuya settling on top of his lap. His right hand comes up to run through Chuuya’s hair, and Chuuya does feel the tension from the day leaving his body by a bit. Then, Dazai’s lips again curve into a moue. “I really shouldn’t have used them, though! Chuuya made a way too good first impression!”
“And what does that have to do with anything?” An eyebrow cock.
“Atsushi-kun is smitten with you now! He wouldn’t stop talking about you on the way back,” is the mock-petulant answer.
Rolling his eyes, Chuuya makes to push himself off Dazai, but the bastard’s left arm immediately snakes across his waist to keep him in place. So he settles for punching Dazai’s shoulders lightly. “Whatever. Just don’t mess with my watch next time. You know how much I hate having my time wrong.”
“There won’t be a next time, if you just agree to it, you know.”
Chuuya stills.
In their position now, he can see almost too clearly the light inside those deep brown eyes, and the sincerity swirling in them, for once, is unmasked, unhidden. With Dazai like this, it feels like he can just reach in to pluck out the other’s heart—the most infamous thief in recent history, against whom no lock can withstand, choosing to entrust the key to the safe of his soul to Chuuya’s hands. Chuuya would be lying if he said he wasn’t feeling a bit intoxicated. “I mean it, I really didn’t plan for the next heist,” Dazai continues.
That’s right, the blank card.
There’s no poem on it, no clue, no next heist.
Except for the fact that—
“You know very well I can’t agree to that.”
“Come on, Chuuya!” Dazai whines, one-hundred-percent back to bratty mode. “I already said I wouldn’t steal again if you just married me! Why wouldn’t you let me propose?!”
“That didn’t mean you could just go steal things to propose to me, damn it!”
Except for the fact that this fucker, right here, wants to propose with stolen gems!
Fuck this all to hell and back.
That’s the entire reason behind the Phantom Thief, oh-so-gentlemanly before, not returning his loot recently. All one-of-their-kinds jewels for his grand scheme of a proposal that Chuuya like hell is gonna accept.
“But Chuuya,” the bastard has the gall to snuggle into his collarbones, “did you see how small they are? Only the smallest fairy like you has any use for them.” Then, with a shameless batting of eyelashes, “And only the best things in the world deserve to be with you.”
Conveniently leaving out the fact that it’s always Chuuya who’s tasked with catching him in the act, and who’s always going home exhausted and frustrated and bruised.
Chuuya wonders if him puking onto the bastard’s face would be any sort of justice. “Then buy them for me, maybe?”
“Eh, why waste the money though?” Just to prove that he really has no shame whatsoever, Dazai presses on. “Besides, even your bank account doesn’t have enough zeroes for them.”
What the fuck?!
He ends up saying that out loud, plus a: “Why do I have to pay for my own engagement gift, shitty Dazai?!”
“You don’t, though? Because I’ve already stolen them for you,” Dazai cheerfully replies. “See, I really am the most thoughtful boyfriend.”
Before Chuuya can fume some more and die from rage, his good-for-nothing boyfriend (urgh) has to fucking chuckle, pressing a kiss onto his nose. “You look cute like this, all mad at me.”
“Fuck right off.” This time, Chuuya does push himself off Dazai’s lap as punishment, rolling sideways to plop down on the bed.
It really has been a very tiring day.
Dazai, for his part, also lies down on his stomach next to Chuuya, propping himself up on his elbows. Then, he takes out something from his pocket. “I meant it. Look.”
It’s the gem that he was tasked with guarding last night, the God of Light.
Under the warm yellow light in his bedroom, the sapphire shines a brilliant blue, nestled in a crown of diamonds that twinkle like stars. It’s something he knew the Phantom Thief would come to steal, ever since the first moment he’s heard of its recovery. It’s something that Dazai himself, more than once, has talked about how lovely it’d look as a pendant, or a hairpin, tucked into red locks that curl right above blue eyes.
It’s beautiful, Chuuya can give him that.
“The name suits you,” Dazai murmurs, placing the gem on top of stray locks. “Only something like this would be deserving of you.”
Even so.
“You know I can’t take it,” Chuuya sighs, also pushing himself up on one elbow to stay at Dazai’s eye level. “Return it, else I’ll kick you out of that window, right now.”
“But—”
“Return all of them and maybe I’ll say yes,” Chuuya cuts in, only half exasperated.
The way Dazai’s eyes light up is something he thinks he’ll never forget, even years down the line.
Dazai surges over then, pulling Chuuya into a crushing embrace and rolling the both of them to the end of the bed, until Chuuya gets pinned under a mackerel that looks very touch-starved, very ready to devour him whole.
“Get off me, you leech!” With the way they are now, Chuuya gets reminded—again—of how unfairly tall this fucker is, how effortlessly he covers Chuuya’s frame and blocks out the light, making his eyes immeasurably dark. Making Chuuya squirm a little beneath him. When the other speaks again, his voice is soft.
“Will you really?”
There’s a touch of uncertainty there, as though this man in front of him, who’s faced everything flung into his life with nothing but confidence, for once seems hesitant to turn his hope into faith. As though there’s still an undercurrent of worry, barely making itself known, that whatever it is they’ve had between them for the last four years will still get stretched over their disagreements, and differences, and will one day break. For all his bravado and arrogance, he’s still such a stupid man, really.
“Maybe. Probably,” Chuuya relents. “Only if—”
“—I return all the gems, got it.”
“And never steal again,” Chuuya finishes. “Or I really will arrest you myself.”
Eyes full of mirth, Dazai does lift himself off of Chuuya then, giving a hand to help him sit up, but not letting his hands go. “Say,” Dazai murmurs, tugging off one glove that reveals slender fingers, slightly callused from years of dealing with guns and knives. “Did you really want to catch me then? Back in the exhibition hall?”
It’s just the exhaustion speaking, Chuuya tells himself. Or the wine he didn’t get to drink. Or the fact he isn’t used to staying up late. Definitely not the soft look that Dazai is giving him now, a mirror image of the look he once received all those years ago, in their first meeting, as the other tossed him a red, red rose from a balcony and smiled.
“…No,” Chuuya admitted. “But you know how much I want you to stop doing this.”
“Mm,” Dazai hums. His lips brush over Chuuya’s third finger, a butterfly’s touch. “I’ve already gotten my most precious here, after all.”
“And you better use your own money to buy something for me this time, damn it,” Chuuya whispers, as he finally, finally, leans in for a kiss.
-end-