Archive of Our Own

The rosy-cheeked angel slumps over the lute as Sae eyes security through his sunglasses. It's cocky, visiting a target before he snags it later that night, but he has a soft spot for this one, red wings frame its baby face and its awful posture reminds him of Rin. Besides, in the grand scheme of art theft, this one is low on the list for suspected targets, so nobody will bother to check the days security footage. Well, probably, that's what the mask is for. It may not be at risk of being taken, And yet, Sae's got a client who wants it and is willing to pay a pretty penny for it, so he stands in the Uffizi museum in Florence and ponders his target.

When he's sure the frame is burned into his retinas and he feet start to ache from standing still he huffs under his disposable face mask and starts walking away, slowly and leisurely, pulls his burner Phone out his jeans pockets, denim scratching his legs, Not his usual slacks, but anything to disrupt the paper trail. Canvas trail? The time is three in the afternoon and in twelve hours Sae will be a wanted criminal in Italy. In spirit at least, they'll never catch his face to put it to a wanted poster.

He walks through the rest of the museum tracking cameras, knows where they all are already of course, blue prints in his memory like a cave painting, but it never hurts to practice. Floats past portraits and cherubs and naked men. Eyes catch on a giant frame, almost two metres wide and just as tall, an angel stands in the back, different to the young one from angel playing the lute, adult and coated in shadow like a second skin, it holds its hand out, skulls and shadows around it that it gestures to, his breath catches on the way the light is thrown across the canvas, dimmed and murky yellow. It's been so long since he's painted…

"Vanitas," calls out a voice from next to him and Sae almost divorces his skin from his flesh with how it startles him.

The stranger, from what he can catch from the corner of his eye, is tall, bulky as hell and possibly the least inconspicuous person he's ever seen, with ash white hair and a complexion to match, all while succeeding to sneak up to him while managing the aforementioned and frankly impressive body mass. Sae hasn't been caught off guard in years, much less by someone almost half a foot taller than him, hence the jack-rabbiting of his heart in his ribcage. He justifies it to himself by supposing the painting, Vanitas, as this white haired freak so helpfully pointed out, must have had him in a trance.

Now more calmed down, he thinks, oh god an art nerd.

"It means empty," Art nerd continues on, oblivious to Sae's internal eye rolling, "Or frivolous, it meant to show how fleeting mortal values are compared to the divine."

He fights back the urge to turn on heel and leave this pretentious stranger in the dust, irked by the idea he could be lectured by this lukewarm random, but he stands still instead, the tourist who hissed at a stranger is a lot more memorable than one who just stood and listened. Went with the flow. Anything to keep his cover. Ugh.

When he's finally stopped talking, Sae finally dignifies Art nerd with a look, meant to be a standoffish half glare, only to stutter into slight awe as he realises, oh god he's hot.

Art nerd's face looks like it belongs next to the portraits, skin smooth and peachy now he looks closer, cheek bones strong enough to be admirable without warping into razor sharp and eyes relaxed and the prettiest shade of ruby he's ever seen, the colour could be plucked out of his face and put on a crown or smeared across paper to paint the blood of a battle, and the scar crisscrossing over his face only serving to make him seem more like some Greek hero pulled out of an epic.

Oblivious to Sae's moment of weakness he carries on, "It's from Spain actually, that's why I'm so fond of it," Art nerd turns to the frame with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.

"You're from Spain?" He scrambles for something to say and thanks god for small talk saving him from the urge to shrivel into the floor and die, whiplash from annoyance to attraction ringing in his ears.

Art nerd half nods, inclining his head so the cap he wears bounces slightly with the movement, "Barcelona, you?"

"Japan, but I studied in Madrid."

Art nerd raises his eyebrows and hums, speaking Spanish as he asks, "What subject?"

Sae blinks, and his heart flip-flops, answering back, "Art history."

He has the decency to look guilty as he coughs and flushes slightly, "So you let me say all that stuff and already knew?"

He fights to keep a straight face, watching from the corner of his eye as Art nerd grimaces in embarrassment before he says, "I didn't study this one actually," -Because he dropped out to become a criminal, but Art nerd didn't need to find that out- "So, thanks for sharing," He's going for a sarcastic jab, Injecting his usual mocking monotone back into his voice, fighting to regain composure.

Art nerd seems to take it sincerely though, "Anytime, My name's Bunny."

Dont care, Sae thinks as he says, "Saki," pre-prepared fake name falling easily from his lips.

"How long you in Florence for, Saki?" Bunny says his name, however counterfeit it is, like it's a hard boiled sweet he's savouring, winding it round his tongue.

"Leaving tonight," Comes his curt response, stuck somewhere between glad to be far from the place of this mishap and rueful of that same fact.

Bunny hisses playfully, "Guess I'll have to get your number now instead of later in that case."

He scoffs as he peels his gaze off the angel in the painting, body following, turning away from Bunny even as part of him swoons at the crappy pick up line, he's only human. Bunny's hand lands on his shoulder and the few paces it must have taken to catch him took no sound, something like unease curls in Sae's gut but it's so forward it's enough for him to look back into Bunny's pouting face, pouting lips, kissable lips…

Whatever. It's only his burner number he'll fork over anyway, Bunny and his sculpted jawline will be a thing of the past as soon as the painting is traded for the cash and he ditches the phone.

Bunny's smile could be on a toothpaste advert as he types his number into the phone he's handed. He's pretty sure the way their hands brush as he hands the phone back is manufactured by Bunny, but he lets it slide, side of his hand burning.

Then he waves goodbye and leaves Sae in the middle of the gallery, decidedly not blushing, no, nope, definitely not.

He stops by the gift shop on the way out and buys a crappy fridge magnet with cash to look more like a tourist. The fact that it's a print of Vanitas has nothing to do with anything.

The middle of the Italian night is not as warm as advertised on commercials, Sae curses internally as he regrets the thin hoodie he sports, It's black, as is cliche. The case he carries under his arm makes his shoulder ache, but Angel playing the lute is painted on wood, so he can't roll it up like he normally would for canvas paintings. It wont be as annoying as it is right now when the money is handed over when he's done, but for now he allows himself to seethe silently as he slips round the corners of the gallery, cap sat low on his head, obscuring his face; not like he needs it, not a single camera has caught him, every footstep planned as he dances to his goal.

The angel is petulant as ever, face just as squished against its instrument as it was that afternoon. The alarms are all disabled almost as soon as he arrives. he allows himself to be smug at the devastating efficiency from years of experience as the art is lowered into the case. It isn't that heavy, Sae lifts it over his shoulder, sighing quietly, feeling like a child not for the first time, playing criminal in his face mask and gloves. Shrugs it off as he rounds the corner into the ,next room and freezes stock still, because-

Another person, also in all black, also in a mask, this one ceramic with a Rabbit painted across it, familiar in the way that lurks in the back of his mind but isn't clear to him, stands ten metres from him. Long cylindrical case slung over their back. He can't see their face but the way their wide shoulders hunch together Sae can taste the guilt from across the room in the way the saliva in his mouth grows heavy, jaw tightening, kid with his hand in the cookie jar.

They both assess eachother, gallery dead silent around them, like the subjects of the paintings are sitting in anticipation, waiting for one of them to make a move. The other person shakes off the shock before Sae can, relaxes and leans toward him slightly, "You come here often?" the thief stage whispers.

Sae stares, not planning to respond. Until he realises, he knows that mask, and before he can stop himself he breathes, "El Conejo," tone pathetically lukewarm and admiring, "I thought you were a myth."

El Conejo or The Rabbit is The alias bestowed on the man with the mask across the room from him. It's a stupid name, but the skill behind it is revered in deep web chat rooms. A criminal so good it doesn't matter if you know him, too excellent at his job to be caught, the list of stolen art accredited to him longer than his arm. Stories so wild nobody really believed them. Sae included, always a sceptic, until now, because he was standing face to face with the mask caught in blurry CCTV footage and reposted to hell and back on forums cawing over whichever painting had been snatched last.

"Nope," El Conejo responds cheerfully, maybe a little smug, "All flesh and blood."

He looks at where the painting had been hanging again and finds the name plate, Vanitas. Bunny and his stupid scarred face flickers through his mind. If he was more sentimental he would have been upset, but crime makes you cynical, he scoffs instead and presses on, dodging round El Conejo towards the exit, no way in hell is he getting caught and loosing what little good half a decade of theft has got him because of some cocky rabbit.

Said cocky rabbit falls into step behind him silently, "We must be headed the same way, window with the manual lock?"

Sae grunts in affirmation despite himself and sticks to a wall. He's not trying to loose the other, per se, but he wouldn't complain if it was a side effect of his fast pace.

Still, irregardless of his obvious attempts to avoid conversation, El Conejo presses forward, "Hey, you know my name, can I get yours?" He has the audacity to ask as they glide on silent steps to the exit. His voice weighs on him, tone just a little too smug to be genuine. He ignores it.

"I know your name because your an arrogant rodent who doesn't appear to fear god or the police," he spits back, "You don't have mine because I actually want to get away with this shit," It strikes him as he's saying this that he's very complacent with all of this, and it itches under his skin.

He hoists himself up to the window, streetlights bleeding in, a life line. El Conejo follows, "You don't like the name?" is he pouting?

"No," he snaps back, reaching a hand to help him off the floor on instinct yet reeling when the other actually takes it. His hand is big enough to engulf Sae's own, it's a miracle he fit through the window.

"Ah, well" he flaps his hands at his side as he backs out the alley, "You'll change your mind, when you do you know where to find me," And then him and his stolen painting are gone into the cold night. He blinks into the empty air El Conejo left, bemused. What was that supposed to mean? 'you know where to find me?' what was that supposed to imply?

That stupid rabbit, Sae scowls to himself, stupid rabbit, stupid Bunny-

He gasps when he makes the connection, actually gasps, eyes wide and spine suddenly straight. Then feels grateful That nobody else is around on the cobbled street to hear it.

Ten minutes later he's in the back of his getaway car, silent as his fingers hover over the keypad of his burner, Eventually he settles on:

[Sae]

- Is your stupid code name seriously just your actual name

-Lukewarm.

Bunny, El Conejo, Art nerd, whoever it is, responds Seconds later.

[Bunny]

- you like the name now?

He scoff's and the driver glances back at him.

[Sae]

-Hate it even more.

[Bunny]

-shame.

-you'll come round, Sae ;)

His heart stutters so badly he thinks he's having some sort of aneurysm.

[Sae]

-How did you know that

He shoots the message back before he can realise it might be a mistake, be confirmation that that's his name and not whatever fake one he gave him earlier that he has already forgotten.

[Bunny]

- i have my ways

Sae switches off the phone, heart thundering in his ears. Whatever plan to be rid of his number is lost as his mind spins in search of an answer.

The Painting is kept in a water tight box inside a reinforced suitcase. Sae rolls it to the rendezvous point the next morning. Holds his head high as he walks past newspaper stands, headlines professing the double theft. He would laugh if only he wasn't still shaken from being cracked open and exposed like a walnut.

It's a sunny day, hot air warming Sae's cheeks as he weaves through crowds. The sun is the only reason he is red, he thinks as he holds his phone, text chain increasing as Bunny send him a string of stupid little emoticons, all featuring rabbit ears because he is, as Sae is discovering, a narcissist.

A narcissist he is replying to at every opportunity, he notes begrudgingly. Something magnetic about him that lures him even as he grinds his teeth whenever he reads a poor attempt at flirtation.

Case and point:

[Bunny]

-thought about you alllll night… ૮₍_ ̫ _ ₎ა ♡

He ignores it to save his sanity and pulls the suitcase up to the drop off point. The meeting place is a diner, American style with the checkered floor and all. Sae slides into a booth at the back and fixes the person waiting for him with a glare. Oliver Aiku looks back at him, pausing his flirting with the waitress to asses the bag next to him. Sae leans over and orders a black coffee, dismissing her before she can start twirling her hair again.

Once possibly prying ears flit away, they both start, "Went on a shopping trip did you?" Aiku smirks at the same time Sae hisses, "There was someone else there."

His green and blue eyes flare open for a second, recalculating "You didn't take the other painting?"

"No!"

"Then wh-"

"El Conejo," he feels stupid as he says it.

Aiku clearly agrees, laughing openly, "You're kidding."

"No."

The waitress returns with their drinks and a slip with her number on Aiku ignores as he blinks wide eyed at him, cornered into silence by the possibility of being overheard.

When she leaves he leans forward, tone hushed, "He took Vanitas and disappeared as soon as we were out," He leaves out the other parts of the story, Aiku absolutely doesn't need to know that he's been texting the most infamous thief of the decade all morning.

He also doesn't need to know that he knows his real name, somehow.

Aiku whistles low, "What was he like?"

He scoffs a little, Of course he's more concerned with that, rather than the fact he missed the detail of someone else being there when he sent Sae the job.

He answers anyway, "Annoying, " burns his tongue on his coffee, scratching it with his teeth and trying not to sound dreamy as he adds- "and efficient."

"High praise," Aiku hums, "Anyway, you've got angel right?" Attention span so short he can't even focus on the most novel thing to happen to Sae in his life for more than a minute. He sighs and rolls over the suitcase under the table until it nudges Aiku's shin, he nods in acknowledgement. He feels another identical suitcase slip across, switching places unnoticeably.

"The amount we agreed?"

"You know I'm good for it," Aiku smirks as he stands, "or my client is at least."

He finishes his coffee, lips puckering as the bitter drink sticks to the back of his throat. and asks, if only for the principal of it, "Isn't it sad? this thing is going to get locked away for the hell of it."

"Sure, but you should be happy with the bag full of money," Aiku isn't saying it to be callous, just realistic. He turns fully and walks out, painting in tow.

Forcefully sighing, he watches his back shrink and disappear out onto the Italian street. He pulls out his phone, feeling the vibration of a new message;

[Bunny]

-where are you headed next?

Like he's actually going to put that in writing, he rolls his eyes, does Bunny think he's some type of amateur?

[Sae]

-London

(He lies, and then realises theres a non zero chance that Bunny knows that already)

[Bunny]

-i'm going back to Barcelona, You're welcome to follow ;)

[Sae]

-Didn't ask.

If anyone tells you he considered it, sitting in a fake American diner at ten am, suitcase full of cash between his legs, they are a traitor, but not a liar.

Rin's wearing an apron when he answers the door with a scowl. It's covered in acrylic paint, some dried and years old and some still wet, wiped of fingers when he heard the door bell.

"Was that you?" he asks as Sae pushes past him, ignoring the question, his flight was too long and too recent to allow him the strength to deal with Rin's disapproval.

There's an easel is set up in Rin's kitchen, he's painting the garden in its soft morning light. "You should use more blue," he call's over his shoulder, lifting his bag up onto the table and pulling out a wad of bills.

"Shut up," Rin snaps petulantly, "You haven't painted in years, don't tell me what to do."

He's already going through his brothers cupboards, digging past bread and bags of grains and jars of spices, "You have the least organised kitchen I think I've ever seen," until he finds the bottle of Kombucha he's looking for, twisting the cap and sitting on the kitchen counter.

Rin's eyes squint, darting between Sae and the money on the other side of the room, "So it was you."

He rolls his eyes, "Half of it."

"Which one?" he presses

Rin doesn't actually want to know, gets in both of their heads about the moralities of Sae's job. Takes everything personally. Sae tells him anyway because he doesn't care about bubble wrapping his little brothers morals, "Angel playing the lute."

Rin frowns, looking down at the table, "I don't want your dirty money," as he counts the bills, making no move to hand them back.

all that effort to keep his bills payed and this is what he gets as a thank you?

Sae snaps, "How's work going?" more an insult than question, and Rin flinches accordingly.

"Whatever," he says bitterly, hackles raised and brow furrowed as Sae observes him from half closed eyelids, jet lag like a dumbbell pulling them down. He wouldn't be so mean about it if Rin was a little less ungrateful.

He can't resent him too much for it, he hates his profession enough for both of them, so of course he understands Rin's complaints. Despite hating the fact, He is adult enough to know that painting doesn't pay. Rin has proved his point all his adult life, painting canvases he can't afford on his own, telling Sae it's his calling every time he shows up, cash and doubt in tow. All while he puts food on his table Because at the end of the day, despite his protests it was Sae and his stolen painting's that's kept the roof over his head. They're not called struggling artist's for no reason.

The guest room Sae stays in is different every time he crashes at Rin's house. different paintings move around the room, sheets thrown over halfheartedly. there's a poor neglected houseplant on the windowsill, more wilted each time he stays. This time there's an entirely new coat of paint, navy blue replacing the hideous turquoise the previous owners had left, clumps of the paint are all over the carpet, Rin may be a painter, but not he kind the walls so desperately need seemingly. It isn't even smooth, thick brush strokes streak across the walls, raised divots that scratch Sae's hand as he runs his hands across the walls. It ticks him off and he tells Rin as much the next morning, facing him from the other side of the dining table the way they've sat since they were kids.

"That wasn't even me!" Rin's offended squeak when Sae accuses him of being a poor house flipper, "Isagi painted that room while I was out."

Sae's ears prick up, "Isagi? soccer Isagi?"

Rin goes as red as the perpetual paint stain on his knuckles, "No."

"Yes," he insists, hand coming down on the table between them.

Rin looks down through his lashes, quietly, "Maybe," and just as soon as he softens he seizes up, half out his seat, leaning forward, "But you aren't going to tell a soul, got it?"

Tell a soul? Tell a soul that Rin not only painted his house with Isagi Yoichi, the kid he used to fist fight on a regular basis in high school, but trusted him enough to leave him in his house with a bucket of paint?

"Nope," he snorts, "Not until the wedding speech, at least."

Every capillary in Rin's face appears to spontaneously combust as his mouth opens and closes like a goldfish. Sae laughs in his face, maybe a little too meanly.

Rin seems to not to do with himself, arms moving up and down and half formed words escaping his mouth in single syllables, he abandons his unfinished breakfast and stands, turning on his heel and rushes out the kitchen, "It's not like that!" he yells over his shoulder like a child.

Sae openly laughs again into the empty room.

Then his phone flashes with 'Bunny' and he stops laughing.

[Bunny]

- i miss you :(

[Sae]

-You are actually pathetic.

There's a long gap between that message and the next, he stares at the chat, the fixation on a man he's met once has him by the throat. Luke-fucking-warm.

[Bunny]

-i know you're not in london

It's not a surprise he knows this, given his uncanny ability to know things about Sae he has no right to, but discomfort still writhes under his skin at the fact he decisively does not have the upper hand here.

[Sae]

-Congratulations sherlock.

[Bunny]

-you're making me blush ˚ ⋅૮₍ › ˕ ‹ ₎ა ⋅˚⋅

A month ago he would have cringed at anything close to that, now he finds himself smiling at it from behind his hand. He realises what he's doing and slams his phone down. No, no, no. Absolutely not.

Despite his constant insistence that he is 'just a friend' Rin tells Sae the next morning as he varnishes a painting- "We're seeing Isagi later."

"We?" his tone incredulous, "I don't want to see your lukewarm boyfriend."

"Not my boyfriend," he grits out, "And you have to, he has a… thing," waving his hand around illustratively.

"A thing?"

"Yeah, he needs some help" he sighs uncharacteristically fondly, "He's picking us up."

An hour later, Sae is dragged into Isagi's car like a cat into water. He watches the suburbia roads slip past and give way to countryside lanes as the other two bicker in the front seat.

"it's my turn to pick the music!"

"no."

"you cant just say no!"

Isagi drives them to a random empty field off the side of the road, marshy and cold. The type of place you see in true crime documentaries where murder victims get stabbed and buried. It seems his day has finally come, he stole one to many precious items and now his little brothers boyfriend-not-boyfriend is going to kill him in a field in the middle of bumfuck nowhere-

"Sae would you mind helping with the goal?"

"What?"

"The goal, I can do it on my own but it's easier with two people," Isagi isn't holding a machete like in Sae's imagination, but instead a collapsible football goal post, stupid polite little smile on his face and stupider little sprout of hair swaying in the brisk morning wind.

He shoots a scathing glare at Rin, who is setting out cones further into the field as he takes half the goal from Isagi, "Did you bring me here to play football?"

"No," Isagi grunts as he snaps plastic together with much effort, "I'm coaching this youth team and I need three adults to supervise, Bachira and Hiori normally help but they were busy this week."

Sae neither knows nor cares who either of those people are, but he knows the look on Rin's face at the mention of them, scowling at a neon green cone like it's just spat at him. Rin being the jealous type had never occurred to him. He files that away in his mental cabinet of things to push him on later.

They finish laying out the parameters of the mock pitch just as cars start rolling up, noisy, sticky ten year old's tumbling out and already Sae has a headache at the shouts of, "Coach! Coach!" that get louder and louder the more arrive, all clamouring for attention or a different position on the pitch.

"I hate kids," He mutters to himself and Rin stamps on his foot.

"What?" he hisses, hopping up and down to keep his balance as he clutches his other foot.

Rin looks like he's fighting back a laugh as he watches Sae stagger back and forth, "Isagi works hard on this, don't ruin it."

"When have I ever ruined anything?" he mutters quietly, and receives a hit on the back in return, coughing and groaning as he accepts defeat.

Isagi appears to be in his element, Shouting encouragement and instructions as he directs twenty of the most uncoordinated but enthusiastic preteens in history, the better part of an hour passes and Rin and him leave Isagi to it, perfectly capable of wrangling all of the kids when one bowls over and cries foul.

The sun has crept up the sky, letting a little warmth into the air, the two of them stand away from the noise and fuss and watch, soaking the tiny bit of warmth up as much as they can.

"He isn't like this when he plays," Sae squints at him, patting a boy on the head and smiling, polar opposite of the teenager he used to know who damn near curb stomped someone for stealing a goal.

Rin is leaning on the hood of his car, also watching, he says wistfully, "Yeah, he's different like this."

His lips curl in mocking disgust, "You can tell me you're dating, I promise I'll only judge you a little bit."

Fighting the school girl crush out of his expression, he snaps, "Shut the hell up," and pushes himself off the car to go make himself useful somewhere out of earshot of Sae's needling. He sighs, watching him walk over to Isagi, who practically drops the kid who's rolled ankle he was inspecting in his rush to divert all his attention to Rin.

'not dating' my ass, he thinks boredly.

The kids play a mock match in ratty yellow bibs, falling over and yelling like it's the world cup. Sae cuts the tip of his fingers slicing the oranges Isagi had tasked him with and swears loud enough for a baby faced kid on the sideline to look at him in awe. He's sucking on the wound when Isagi walks over during half time.

"Aren't they great?"

He meets his gaze, "There is literally nothing I could care about less."

Isagi chokes on the words, spluttering. He obviously is under the impression that he is coaching the next Japanese starting eleven for the world cup and has never been told otherwise.

He gets quieter, Sae watches him shuffle on the grass and throw a look over his shoulder to across the field where Rin is throwing the ball back onto the pitch every time it rolls off, "Well, I, uh, have something to ask you that I think you will care about," as he says it he gets quieter and quieter, loosing confidence in whatever it is. Sae squints and gestures for him to continue, unmoved by his display of sheepishness.

"I'm planning on proposing."

It's Sae's turn to choke now, yet again dumbfounded, all he can eek out is a wide eyed, "To Rin?"

Isagi tilts his head to the side like a dog, "Who else?"

He blinks and turns back to the oranges, combing through what he knows, which isn't much, before he lands on an half laughed, "Rin wont even admit you're dating," expecting Isagi to be either scandalised at the idea he and Rin aren't together or admit this is some joke.

Instead he says brightly, "Oh! we aren't, but it's been a decade of pining and I'm getting sick of it."

"So… you want to jump straight to marriage?" He asks, baffled.

He nods enthusiastically, "With your blessing of course."

Sae remembers the way Rin looked at Isagi earlier, how he flushed every time he was prodded on the subject. He remembers the god awful paint in his spare room.

"You're insane," Isagi's face falls momentarily, but he isn't done, "So you two are perfect for each other, good luck," Sae holds out the hand he cut to shake his hand and Isagi's face resembles the sun as he breathlessly thanks Sae, Scampering back to the pitch with a spring in his step.

Sae is about to go back to oranges when Isagi whirls round and stage whispers, "Don't tell him, I want to surprise him."

He rolls his eyes and dismissively motions him away.

Naturally, he tells Rin everything when Isagi drops them back home.

"Propose?" He leans forward, "What the fuck?"

Sae is sifting through a sketchbook discarded on the arm of the chair he perches on and noticing a pattern, "You've drawn him an awful lot."

He makes no move to deny it, "I've been head over heels for him since I was 16, yes I draw him a lot," Rin stands and begins to walk to and fro in the narrow space between the sofa and coffee table.

"That's changed since this morning," He quirks an eyebrow over the top of the paper, "When it 'wasn't like that'" He exaggeratedly air quotes.

Rin flaps his hands exasperatedly as he paces, "Yeah, well so has a lot else! Proposal? marriage?"

Sae's burner buzzes and he's reminded what a hypocrite he is when he is severely disappointed that Bunny isn't the contact that comes up on his screen.

[Aiku]

-Why haven't you lost this number yet

Aiku's blunt conversation skills strike again, he's a little annoyed but then again the only thing worse than Aiku and his failure of an excuse for social etiquette is someone who is unendingly chatty and wont leave him alone, so he doesn't complain. Regardless, he cant tell Aiku the truth here, He would never normally keep a number for this long, but theres one question on the other end keeping him from throwing it out.

[Sae]

-Haven't got round to it.

[Aiku]

-Whatever, makes this part easier at least, I have a job for you

[Sae]

-Go on

[Aiku]

-The lovers ii, national gallery of australia

[Sae]

-Magritte?

[Aiku]

-idk, idc

He bites the inside of his cheek and tastes blood, the urge to deny hits him before logic can grasp him.

[Sae]

-Whatever, I'm not taking that.

"Can you pay attention to my break down?" Rin snaps his fingers in his face.

"I don't need your lukewarm melodrama, just say yes, problem solved," he shoots back.

He blinks like he hadn't factored that option, before asking with a hesitant tone, "Do you want to be my best man?"

He thinks of the painting Aiku proposed he steal, its creator Sae's favourite artist if he deigned to submit to sentimentality. It's surrealist, Two people covered in fabric, fighting to kiss, to make contact in any way.

He says yes to Rin, both absentmindedly and with all the thought in the world.

Bunny Tries to call him that night. He denies the call and then regrets it.

[Sae]

-What the fuck is your issue.

[Bunny]

-i miss your voice

- i just want to see you again :(((

He can imagine the whining tone of the message, the pout of someone who always gets their way eventually and knows it.

[Sae]

-Not a chance in hell.

[Bunny]

-i'll find a way

-and you haven't blocked my number yet, so something must be working

[Sae]

-Creep.

-You would probably find me another way even if I did.

[Bunny]

-you know me so well! ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა

He stares at the ceiling and thinks of the job. The lovers II. He thinks that going to Spain doesn't sound awful right now if it was a way to breach the fabric obscuring his eyes.

Two days later Isagi shows up and proposes. Predictably and after some argument Rin says yes; or he assumes he says yes because Rin leaves him alone in the house to chase Isagi across the city when he leaves. He wouldn't know for certain though, having locked himself in the bathroom when he heard Isagi's car outside to avoid the mess.

Alone and half annoyed, half relieved, he can scratch the itch that's been plaguing him since Bunny tried to call him. He digs out his phone and stares at the contact, debating if he will.

He does, of course.

Bunny picks up on the second ring with a smug, "Knew you would call."

He clicks his tongue and turns on speaker, spreading out on his back on the twin bed, and deflects "Isn't it like two Am in Spain?"

"I'm not in Spain, Silly."

A childish urge rises in him, pissed off at not knowing something, at being outplayed yet again.

"Where are you then?"

"I'll tell you if you tell me," He can hear the victory in his tone.

There is a choice to be made. He could give in to the inevitability that Bunny will not rest until he sees him again, or he could go on defence. Sae is a creature of habit, "Don't you already know?"

"Where you are?" He replies with mock offence, "I would never invade your privacy like that, Sae," the 'but I could' goes unsaid in the way he sing-songs his name, laced with mockery.

"Tch, lukewarm."

Bunny laughs but doesn't say anything more.

The suspense is killing him, "Why did you call me?"

"You called me, Sweetheart," He responds instantly.

"You know what I mean, Asshole."

There's the sound of shuffling paper from the other end of the call and Sae imagines Bunny hunched over a desk, blue prints spread around him and phone snug between his cheek and shoulder, "I told you, I missed your voice."

Sae considers his tone, cottony and soft, sounding like he's smiling and begins to find that Bunny is being genuine and not the condescending asshole Sae has had him pinned as.

If, and it's a big if, this is true theres one thing Sae needs to know, "How did you know my name? On that first night?"

The sound of the paper stops and seconds later he hears a chair creak back like Bunny is leaning back against it, "Your ah… manager has some loose lips, I already knew you were the same person I met in the museum when we saw eachother again, and theres normally just enough chatter online to figure out who is connected to a theft, but that guy, Aiku, I think it was, he talks."

The reveal isn't as grand and sinister as Sae expects it to be, Aiku is reliable in some ways, and awfully shaky in others, sacrifices have to be made, but something still escapes him, "How did you know I wasn't in London then? Even Aiku doesn't know where I go after jobs."

He hears him consider his answer, sighing guiltily, "I flew there and searched for you when I thought you were going to be there, when I couldn't find you I figured I'd call you on your bluff."

He sits up, heart picking up as he visualises Bunny chasing round a capital city looking for a mirage, "Where did you look for me?" He almost calls him a creep again, but it would be disingenuous to the giddiness he feels at the concept.

"Galleries mostly," he hums and the chair whines again, "I've never met a thief who admires the paintings they're going to steal."

"You were."

Laughing softly, he says, "Kindred spirits."

He bites his lip. Smoke curls in his throat. There's something awful and wonderful all at the same time about the idea of being the same as a man so renowned for his criminal career he has an alias.

Sae watches the paint on the ceiling and after a sweet silence- "My brother got engaged today," He isn't sure why he says it, but the paint smiles down at him abstractly as he does.

"Are you close?"

"Sometimes," Sae considers his answer, rolling the truth around his mouth and bares his truth to the near stranger on the other end of the call, "He hates my job, he pretends to tolerate it, sometimes, but I know he does."

Bunny is quiet. Chair. Paper. Pencil scratching.

"He invited you to the wedding?" He doesn't try to sympathise, skates over the confession, it doesn't feel callous.

"Yeah," sighs into the still room, "The best man."

"Well," Sae can practically hear the crooked, flirtatious smile, "If you need a plus one you know who to call."

And then he hangs up.

It's anti-climactic, after all the fuss he made in his head, to he hung up on, But he categorically will not be the one in their weird little arrangement who calls first. Apart from five minutes ago. But that's different, he reasons aloud to himself pointlessly.

The sound of his own breathing lulls him to sleep and he dreams of weddings and London.

Aiku gets a stern text the next morning, Sae threatens to sell him out if he lets his mouth get ahead of his brain again. He has no idea what he is talking about, probably forgot about the job at all, but tries to pacify him anyway, entices him with a painting in Beijing, 'moving to fight in Shanbei'. He turns him down because he wants to piss him off mostly, but also a little bit because he's fishing for something he's too mortified to admit, something that lives in Barcelona.

Rin comes back home two days later, He had said not to worry over text, so Sae assumed it was something to do with he gold band on his hand when he got back.

He asks to see some of Rin's latest work in an attempt to avoid asking Aiku for a job in Spain and gets barbed with a remark about finding his next target. But he shows him anyway. The waves roll across the canvas, every bit as fluid as the real thing. It's oil, which isn't Rin's preference, but he commands the pigment like an army general either way. It's excellent, and Sae mourns its inevitable lack of recognition.

"Where is it?" he can't place the shape of the bay, the angle of the sun.

Rin fumbles with the pan somewhere over his shoulder as he tries to cook, "Kamakura."

"Really?"

"It's mostly memory," he concedes, not looking up as he cuts an onion, he can smell the sting on the air, "I couldn't look up reference pictures, the power was out when I painted it."

Eyes moving with the tide, "That's impressive."

"Thank you."

Both of their voices sound a little stilted, exchange of praise foreign on their tongues.

Sae takes it back to the room it was kept, tucks it under a dust sheet like he used to tuck Rin in when they lived inside that painting, childhood memories filtered through swooping arches of brushes.

When he comes back into the kitchen Rin is crying slightly, a tear or two leaving shining, salty tracks behind them on his cheeks. It's from the onions, they both silently agree.

The cycle continues. Aiku gives him an offer, he catches Rin's eyes as he considers it, turns it down. Trails after him and Isagi to amateur football matches and art sales in the countryside, watches people smile and coo at Rin's paintings, consider buying one, and-

And nothing.

He stands behind the table Rin sets up, leaning against his car, squinting into the sun and scowling at the backs of every person who gets Rin's hopes up. Both their hopes up. It's the longest he's been with Rin in a while, on account of his turning down every job that's offered and not in Spain, so it's the first time he really sees what, who, he is doing all this for, standing in the bleeding summer sun and trying to sell his soul to every passer by. Each time someone stops to peer at his portraits he leans forward, hands resting on the table propping him up as he tilts over his table to talk about what has caught the strangers eye. Sae can see how his voice picks up, uncharacteristic in how his tone shifts to be the most friendly and open he's heard since he went to university, only to fall as the person shakes their head. Then he watches Rin turn around with a full body sigh, only to fix his dejected expression by scolding him, "Stop glaring daggers at every person who doesn't buy something, it scares the rest of them off."

He listens to him sometimes, keeping his distaste stapled behind his usual cold expression, but there's only so many times he can watch Rin's throat bob as he swallows rejection.

"I don't do it for the money." Rin tells him one night, TV muted as they halfheartedly beat this particular dead horse.

The worst part is that Sae believes it. Rin walks round the house with a pencil behind his ear and sketches birds and hands and buildings as he eats. He doesn't do it for the money, he does it because he'll die if he doesn't have acrylic under his nails.

Not like he needs money, Sae has him covered in that aspect, some penance for the cloud of shame over his head.

He's holding a canvas as Rin leads him round a store when he says, "It's not healthy."

Rin looks back at him, confused.

"You throw your whole life into this, you keep telling me you would die without it."

He gets handed another canvas in response, "You used to say the same."

Sae watches his brothers back drift further away down the aisle. Under the florescent lights the colours of his outline blurs into blotchy watercolours. He keeps up, just behind him. The cashier knows Rin, asks him how his latest piece is going. She smiles at Sae behind his shoulder, tells him she can see the family resemblance. Rin cringes like he used to when he was sixteen and Sae's insides are a thick tar. Nods and smiles and asks Rin to drive when they get to the car.

Aiku messages again on the way back. He says no without even clicking the link.

Rin goes over to Isagi's flat two nights later, tells him not to wait up for him. Sae has never particularly wanted to be in love, but Rin looks lighter every time he talks about Isagi, so maybe it's something to aspire to. Or maybe it's the part of him swayed by Bunny talking.

Every room in the house has at least one painting hung up, landscape and still life, a portrait in the kitchen of a boy with hair down to his thighs, Isagi and another person hovering above a torn up football field mid jump, the ball the focal point, unnatural white. He could make a timeline of all the parts of Rin's life he missed with the tiny dates in the corners.

Sits and stares at a sketch of a rabbit, not even framed, hung up with sellotape along the stairs. His back hurts from a step digging into his vertebrae. It's inky black and meek looking. He can make an educated guess on the intended muse, but interpretation is a two way street. He considers his burner, still thoughtlessly kept. Pulls out his actual phone. Types in Bunny's number to a new contact and stares down at it, has he stooped so low? The rabbit on the wall stares at him blankly, expectantly.

[Sae]

- This is Sae. My real number.

Sends it while biting his knuckles hard enough to bleed, eyes squeezed shut in a sort of defeat.

The response doesn't come in for another hour, during which he bangs his head on a table so much he thinks he gets brain damage, more than he already has anyway if he is wasting his time on this, says to the empty house, "What am I doing?" and almost expects an answer.

[Bunny]

-proof?

He absolutely does not dive across the room at his phone when it buzzes. Instead he reads the message collectedly, and sends a photo. He does not hold his head in his hands as he waits for another reply, Because that would be lukewarm.

[Bunny]

-cute

[Sae]

-Weirdo

The text bubble pops in and out of existence for a few minutes.

[Bunny]

-why the real number?

Even he can't really say, so he takes the easy route:

[Sae]

-Had to get rid of my burner.

Mercifully, Bunny doesn't call his bluff this time.

Rin's bills come in. They aren't bad, considering his house is the nicest one Sae could find in the area. Then the mortgage gets paid and they both sigh.

Rin would never ask him to steal something, but he doesn't complain when he tells him he has his next job.

He doesn't even look at what he's taking at first, Just says yes when he see's the location, close enough to the one he has been waiting for. Madrid is just a four hour train from Barcelona. It's juvenile that it's what makes his decision, But now Bunny has a contact on his phone and he has to live with the consequences of his moment of weakness. This consequence just happens to be letting him dictate his career decisions.

He messages, lets him know not to show up the the same place as him again, teasing is a language foreign to him, but it gets a response, Bunny tells him to come see him outside a job and he spirals a little further, agrees and books a train ticket.

The next morning Rin drives him to the airport and wishes him luck with a tone like a mouthful of lemon juice.

The Complutense University of Madrid was a bitter taste in his mouth, and had been for half a decade.

The happiest day of his life had been the day he received an international study place, The adrenaline sky high as he imagined a future. Eighteen and wet behind the ears. Safe to say it didn't meet expectations.

His classmates hadn't exactly liked him, too standoffish and rude to be anything other than a peer, but they asked him for notes on lectures and eyes went wide when they saw his artwork. His professors, who had so eagerly welcomed him, praised his grasp on Spanish, backslid into calling him satisfactory when he handed in assignments. To say he excelled would be untrue, but he was keeping up.

He had submitted a painting to be displayed at a pop up gallery the arts department held, and one teacher smiled at him enthusiastically and accepted it. People had gazed at it as they walked round, praised it. He cant even remember what it was now, but he remembered the too wide smile of a third year student who came to inspect the exhibition. He had tilted his head at Sae's, asked him if this was up to standard. When he told him yes, he had laughed sympathetically and told him he was sure their expectations had fallen for everyone, not just him.

Red faced and stranded next to his work as the student walked away, it was just enough to rattle him without breaking anything.

But it happened again, and again.

He gained a stalker, who sniffed him out every time he had a painting on him and demanded to see it, check if he was improving and ruled he wasn't with all the power of the judge, jury and executioner. Bit by bit, Sae became less and less taken with his art, each brush heavy to lift as he scanned for every imperfection that had been pointed out by jabbing fingers and nasally voice.

He didn't even know his name at the time, just despised the straw yellow hair and the haughty laugh that followed him and his unwanted critiques. He picked apart every brush stroke methodically. Told him his subjects were trite and his medium was to advanced for such obviously inexperienced hands, hands that shook first with indignant anger and then defeated embarrassment as time passed.

A girl who sat next to him in one of his classes asked him how he knew Leonardo Luna in awe, her eyes shining in the florescent lights of one of their lecture halls. The name was so unfamiliar he just stared at her blankly as she giggled about him maybe putting in a good word for her. I don't know him, he had told her faintly, hands twisting in his lap. She had asked what he was talking to him about then, and his mouth was full of spiderwebs as he failed to explain.

The straw that broke the camels back wasn't even Luna in the end. It was his own course, the thing that only a year earlier he had rearranged his entire life for. He had taken a long look and his life plan, Nineteen and alone in Spain with his art history textbooks spread around him, and realised that There wasn't a single figure in the syllabus who was alive when they became relevant. Sae wasn't like Rin, this wasn't pure enjoyment anymore, He wanted something seemingly unattainable, a product tangible and secure. In the end, he decided he was unwilling to be in a business that could lead to him cutting his ear off, and if that made him weak then so be it.

So he had dropped out, over email, couldn't look anyone in the eye except his student debt staring at him from a bank statement, already more money than he could ever think of paying off. How he landed in his next occupation was lost in his memories to the subsequent nervous break down that had snatched him by the throat, But he got there, stumbling and almost setting off alarms, But never quite.

So, here he was again. Here at the Place where it had started and ended and started again, staring down a hall of the most important paintings produced by students of the arts programs. At some point, he thinks bitterly, he had had one hanging here. Probably taken down the day he dropped out.

The target sits at the end of the hallway. It's an awfully pretentious, awfully beautiful, technically brilliant self portrait of smeared but pinpoint precise cool tones, cold yellow and hissing green. 'The scion' reads the label above it, and if it wouldn't leave DNA evidence, Sae would spit on it, because from a gaudy golden frame, the image of Leonardo Luna leers down at him. The plaque to the right touts its 'artistic excellence and thrumming emotion' and Sae debates whether narcissism counts as an emotion as he lifts it off the wall into its case. Still, he doesn't attack the image of the man he despises, because he reasons that taking it from its throne here should be enough revenge for him. And he would like to be payed.

The Universities security is lacking, which is for the best for him, really, but still frustrating as he regards the rest of the paintings. They hold no real value other than the pride of the school, unlike the one he slung over his back, wanted for some reason which is beyond him , but if someone so desired, they could be plucked from any sort of relevance and stowed away in a hoarders home, Resigned to a fate of dusty rooms and careless audiences. Not that he sympathised for this particular painting, Luna and all his works could spontaneously combust and Sae would save the memory to cheer himself up at a later date - but it was the principal. That stubborn beaten down eighteen year old painter inside him clutching his oil paints and mourning for things that would probably never happen.

He knows the campus well enough to slip out an alleyway there are no cameras in. This does mean theres a group smoking the most weed he has ever smelled as he darts past, but they're so beyond gone they probably imagine Sae as a sort of 2D fractal and don't even bother to call after him.

He winds down the sides of roads and tucks himself in a hard shoulder, waits for the receiver to show up. And when they do Sae feels like crying. It's the only person less tolerable than Aiku himself, Sendou Shuto. He gets out of the car, a ford he thinks, fucking lukewarm, with the same bumbling, heavy steps that had introduced him six years ago, when he was still trying to pass of as a thief despite being the least stealthy person Sae had ever laid eyes on, now he has been relegated to a role of ferrying around goods after extraction, some type of humiliation Sae cant help but laugh at every time he is reminded by Sendou's foul attitude to him when he collects the paintings he has taken.

"You got it?"

He might kill this lukewarm moron, it's an ideal place to bury a body, a random road in the middle of the night, "No, I came here for fun."

Sendou's face twists, and even in the near pitch black other than the headlights of the car, Sae can tell he's getting under his skin.

"Right."

Sae slides in the front seat without another word, hears Sendou spluttering in protest and ignores it. The painting is sat on the Passenger seat so He is forced to the backseat. He looks back in the rear view mirror and see's his scowl and stupid haircut, smirks as the car heads off towards the train station.

It takes Sendou a solid thirty minutes before he even thinks to ask where they're going.

"There is no 'we' here," Sae tells him, bored, "I am going to catch a train and you are going to take the painting to the next hand off."

Sendou looks like protesting again, but in the handful of times they have met on jobs, he seems to have learned that this isn't an argument he will win, and gives up on arguing, which is excellent news for Sae's brewing headache.

The train is an early morning commute. Sae shuffles in with various people in suits and unimpressed expressions, holding newspapers and black coffees. Sae sits in the seat he booked and sleeps until it reaches its Barcelona stop, which is an uncomfortable four hours crammed between a man in a suit hissing in rapid Spanish into his phone and a woman chain smoking the cheapest cigarettes in existence, scent of the ash permeating the fabric of his clothes as he tries not to gag.

He peels himself out the seat as the train pulls into the station and exits the station at a near inhumane rate, Head down and hands in his pockets. His phone weighing heavy in his pockets every time it shifts and Sae feels a phantom vibration.

He never visited Barcelona when he lived in Spain, and emerging from the station onto a sweaty, rammed street, he doesn't regret it. Every way he twists another person converges from foot traffic and attempts to dislocate his shoulder by barging into him like it's their god given right to occupy the exact same space as him. This might be hell, he decides, almost getting clipped by a teenager on a bike as he tries to cross a street.

Bunny had given him an address, a little over half an hour out from the heat spot of activity that was the city centre. He snakes through blocky Mediterranean style apartment buildings, sun glinting off of red tiled rooves and assaulting his eyes. He thinks he finds the building and then has to struggle through Catalan with a woman old enough to be his great grandmother only to realise he's three streets over, the dialect is close enough to traditional Spanish to be familiar, but he has to ask her to repeat what she says at least three times before he gets what she is telling him.

He follows his new directions and his heart thumps louder with every step he takes closer to Bunny, he becomes more and more aware of the fact that he is both the idiot who has been harassing him over text and a world class thief, El Conejo is still a stupid name, but it's intimidating now as he picks his feet up to climb the stairs up to his apartment at the top of his building.

When he finally gets there he seriously debates going home, even as he stands opposite a clean white door, number nineteen on the tag next to it. But he knocks anyway, because his rationality had been lacking more and more lately.

He doesn't expect the effect of his knocking to be as immediate as it is, the second he finishes the door swings open and behind it is the object of his confused fixation.

Seeing Bunny again is bizarre. Time and the unreliable force of memory had warped his face into bleeding red and white. His scar is on the other side and he's not as tall as he is in the blurry memory Sae holds at arms length. But he is every bit as solid as he was once, hoisting a painting over his shoulder and staring at Sae from under a ceramic mask, and Sae thinks not for the first time that he might be in too deep.

Bunny only looks at him awestruck, mouth parted, shoulders tight and almost up to his ears, his spine straight as he murmurs hello, surely having his own internal dialogue if his tensed form and frozen expression told him anything, Sae replies in turn, greeting him under his breath, loud enough for both of them to only just hear.

Looks away. Regains his composure. Lukewarm, lukewarm, lukewarm.

Then, emboldened by seeing Bunny clearly affected, he asks, "Are you going to invite me in?"

There's a long silent moment, Bunny's hands flex at his side, and then he blinks and his shoulder droop back into the same unbothered posture he had held the first time they met and leads Sae through the threshold, Sae thinks of Pandora's box and wonders what terrible things will come of this.

He walks into the apartment with his head down, silently debating taking his shoes off, but decides not to, in case a getaway is necessary.

Then he looks up and sucks a sharp breath of air in.

Every wall is covered in art. Gaudy frames, oil, water colour, black and white, abstract, simple and the most elaborate symbolic thing conceivable. All ones he can pinpoint from a theft in the last ten years. He feels a little sick, and then a little euphoric, and then a little jealous. He can see a Picasso from down the hall. It's obnoxious, it's tacky. There's a Renaissance facing some modern art that's all lines and squares. There's no cohesion, just stolen art upon stolen art. The most vile museum he has ever stepped into. Its curator stands next to him Grinning, eyes glinting with something like pride. Like a dragon showing off its hoard.

"Like it?"

He's slack jawed, unable to even squeak in response. It's every part the thing he's spent nights cursing, but face to face he only musters up sick admiration.

Bunny's smile is like an oil slick, he sidles up to stand shoulder to shoulder with him and sighs self appreciatively, "I'll take that as a yes."

"How do you not get caught?" He finds his words, picking them up from a metaphorical floor where a scrabble board has just been flipped.

Bunny grins, "Beats me."

Right, doesn't fear the police or god, Sae is reminded from their first meeting. It's difficult to fight the flutter of his traitorous heart.

Bunny pulls him out as soon as he stops staring at the paintings, Out onto the streets, hails a taxi when he sees one, gives an address in rapid Catalan Sae vaguely understands.

He asks where they're going, gets no concrete reply, only a crooked smile and a request to 'wait and see'. Taken out the car hissing and complaining like a cat, dragged by his wrist Into a 24 hour laundromat, Bunny waves at the guy behind the counter and takes him into a room in the back.

"What are you doing?" he squints at him as he is handed a bundle of slate grey cloth.

"Put it on," Bunny waves his hands dismissively, holding a matching parcel.

It's a uniform. A janitor's uniform, embroidered logo on the breast pocket.

"What are you doing?" He repeats dumbly, as he gets passed a tattered blue baseball cap printed with the same logo.

Bunny smiles so brightly Sae scowls to balance it out, "It's what are we doing actually, which is stealing a painting!"

Sae might climb into one of the washing machines and drown himself, "Sorry?"

"There's an auction in town tonight, a painting I've had my eye on for a while, you're going to help."

His eye twitches, "Am I?"

Bunny pouts, he's fond of that, "You don't want to hang out with me?"

He isn't quite sure that this counts as 'hanging out' but he tugs on the tracksuit anyway because he is quickly becoming familiar with the fact that, yes, he would like that.

He agrees with an eye roll, and Bunny takes him into the street as late afternoon approaches. They head towards wherever it is Bunny wants to rob at a pace that can only be described as a stroll, Bunny has his hands stuck deep in his pockets and is rambling about something he barely hears. The sun slips over his face and he squints into the sky, wondering if this is worth it to be around Bunny for one more day.

They turn a corner and Sae sees some grand hall, stained glass windows and columns. Before he can see anything more Bunny shoves him unceremoniously into an alley between two houses.

"What the hell?"

Bunny ignores his protests, "There isn't a lot of security," He stretches his arms over his head, continues explaining some semblance of a plan Sae barely listens to, still too indignant from his manhandling.

He's handed a bucket and a name tag. It reads Saki, which fights its way through his memory as the name he first gave Bunny. He purses his lips, "Was this on purpose?" he flicks his eyes up to Bunny, grinning and not denying it. Smug bastard.

Then he's grabbed again and pulled out into the light towards the building.

Even with Being told before hand, getting into the auction house is painfully easy, Sae would be bored if he didn't have Bunny next to him, walking shoulder to shoulder and whispering as they slip in the back, holding yellow buckets that don't even get checked.

"Look, That guy's asleep," Bunny nudges him as they stroll past a guard, head down and snoring, "They're practically asking for it."

Sae realises belatedly as they mooch into a backroom, that twenty four hours ago, he was complaining about stealing a painting by a man he despises, and now he follows someone he hardly knows into another heist. He tries not to think about how easily Bunny has distracted him from his own thoughts.

Bunny takes the painting from its space in a storage room, flips the case in his hands and reads the tag, Sae reads over his shoulder, 'Portrait of a woman inspired by Lucretia'.

He vaguely knows it, a scornful woman holding a crumpled note, "Where are you putting this one?"

He hums, "Kitchen probably, have a nice spot next to a window, lots of shade."

Nice to know he cares about preserving the paintings, in a way, he thinks feebly.

They walk past a couple dressed in silks as they exit, portrait hidden away in a case under Sae's arm. They tut at them and their fake uniforms, marching on faster. Bunny snorts when they pass, mumbles some insult so low Sae doesn't care for understanding it, just thinks he wants to lick the timbre of his voice up like honey. Then he bites his tongue to kill the train of thought.

They practically waltz out the back door and into another taxi. It takes less than forty five minutes to be in and out and Sae's never loved his job more as he fights the urge to stare into Bunny's eyes in the run down seat on the drive back.

The evening passes in beats of Sae's heart, snapshots he blearily remembers, too caught up in a brewing feeling in his gut he cant put a finger on but suspects anyway.

They stop off at the Laundromat again, the same guy is there, smoking something foul smelling, he barely looks up when Bunny takes him into the backroom and hands him back his clothes.

He's dazed in the cooling night, One hand on the painting and one in Bunny's, It's all so brazen he almost laughs at himself. If Rin could see him now, Either an aneurysm or Sae committed to a mental health ward. The street lights frame Bunny's silhouette like a halo and he thinks he would much rather be here.

Once they've crossed the city and traipse up to Bunny's flat the grip of the case in his hand grows heavy, But he doesn't say anything about it, doesn't say anything really, chewing his lip as he watches Bunny's back and allows himself to ask how long he will let this last.

Bunny sits the case in a crawl space in the floor, when he asks why he hides it there he reply's, "Just for a few days, until this blows over."

"Oh sure, because all the other stolen art won't tip anyone off," He bites back.

Hes met with a sardonic smile in return, "Now you're getting it."

In an attempt to be a good host, he is offered dinner. Bunny doesn't seem like the type to cook, as proven by a bare bones kitchen Sae follows him into and a frozen meal he pulls out and puts straight in the oven. Sae would be scandalised but he doubts another option exists, and he hasn't eaten all day, so he keeps his mouth shut.

He looks up at the walls again as he eats, transfixed by the sheer volume of art and asks, "So, you steal for yourself?"

His tone is conversational, if a little cold, but Bunny looks at him confused, Scar crumpling up as he scrunches his face, "You don't?"

It catches him out. Steal for himself?

"No."

No, I could never. No, it's against everything I believe in. No, I don't deserve to.

Bunny doesn't push, for a moment at least, just Looks at him, bemused. Sae feels the invisible communication between them stutter, lagging as it translates sluggishly.

"Why not?" He's leaning closer across the kitchen counter, Face's as close as they've ever been. He could lean in, he's done more extreme things to avoid questions, and he already want's to kiss Bunny, really.

He answers anyway, "Why would I sink to the level of the lukewarm millionaires who pay me?"

It's rhetorical, Bunny prods anyway, "But they pay you?"

He understands the silent challenge, the recognition of his hypocrisy. He doesn't rise to it, just nods, "I have bills to pay, and a talent for this… work."

Sae feels Bunny's eyes on him, even as he ducks his head down to escape the scrutiny. The food is bitter in his mouth, not necessarily because it's been in a freezer for god knows how long.

At least, he thinks, this conversation didn't end in a shouting match like it did every time with Rin.

"If you kept one, what would it be?"

He looks up again, Bunny's eyes unmoved, but his tone is as soft as he's ever heard it, like he's trying not to scare a wounded animal.

Sae feels like that animal, cornered and bleeding. all his defences down, so the question hones in on his exposed heart. He stands but doesn't move to leave the room like Bunny clearly expects him to do, standing in tandem, eyes flicking to the door.

"I haven't thought about it," and it's true, mostly. Then he turns and Bunny follows on his heels.

"Really?" He Guides Sae to his living room, dozens more paintings, theres even one hung on the ceiling, Bigger than the rest of them and strapped down at all the corners.

It slaps Sae in the face, Vanitas.

"Really," But his head isn't in the answer, he thinks about Angel playing the lute, They're linked in Sae's mind, despite there being no real connection other than that night in Florence, "You kept this one?"

"That shouldn't surprise you," He shrugs, and then unprompted, offers his soul on a silver platter "It makes me think of you."

"So you hung it on the ceiling? Quite inconspicuous."

Bunny steps in front of him, wordlessly, and Sae pulls his eyes off the painting, meets Bunny's.

"I like thinking of you."

Sae is breathing the same air as him, makes no move to pull away. Teal meets crimson.

"Why?"

He shuffles closer, almost imperceptibly mumbles, "I wish I could figure that out," And then he kisses him.

One by one, lights flicker on inside Sae, start in his lips, the point of contact, and then at his waist as Bunny rests his hands there, then in his own hands as he returns the gesture, cupping His face, and then light diffuses out across every synapse in his body. It's not magic, He isn't twelve, but it's something similar.

Pulls back, eyes opening, and looks up at Bunny. This is it, he thinks vaguely, the point of no return. He already has one foot off the side of the cliff, takes a step off and kisses him again. He can feel Bunny smile under his lips as his hands pull him closer.

The next morning when Sae wakes he is disoriented and too hot, Spanish morning sun mercilessly burning the air, making it thick to breathe. The day before slips through his head. Train, painting, kiss. Ah shit, he has to talk to Bunny now, It shouldn't be as mortifying as it feels but it's enough to make him consider jumping out the window.

Instead he slogs out the bed, (which he would assume was Bunny's but he really didn't have the energy to think through the implications of that yet) and wanders through the hall of the apartment. It's not particularly big, if anything the paintings upon paintings make it feel borderline claustrophobic. Still, he takes in every one. Recognises most, could even tell you the date some were stolen. Wonders how many people have seen them since they were snatched away.

He asks Bunny when he emerges in his kitchen, trying to avoid the elephant in the room.

(Well, one of them, there's a water colour painting of an elephant hung over the doorway that he spots out of the corner of his eye.)

"Nobody."

He expected as much, but it still makes him frown. Hypocrite, he tells himself as he says, "So nobody's been in your house, or do you just turn them around and hope nobody asks?"

Bunny is staring emptily into an equally barren fridge, He's wearing a football shirt and his Hair is mussed by sleep, it's doing things to Sae's resolve to ignore the kiss, "The first one."

"Doesn't that get lonely?"

Bunny turns round and meets his eyes, something in his expression raw and exposed. He isn't quite sure what nerve he hit, but he doesn't back down, stares into scarlet.

"Yeah, sometimes," Bunny relents, finding the words he was looking for, "But it's worth it."

He thinks of Rin picking him up from the airport, eating breakfast opposite him even as he frowns, dragging him to Isagi's games and showing his paintings off. Thinks of navy blue smears of paint, "Is it?"

Bunny's expression of sincerity flickers away, into an old illusion of ceramic flirting, "It is now I've met you," Winks like a dick and turns back to his cupboards, "I have eggs, but you might get food poisoning, or I can order something?"

Sae blinks, unimpressed.

"I don't stay here for that long at a time," Bunny defends pointlessly as he raises his hands in mock surrender, Before his face lights up, "I have Soup in the freezer!"

So, Sae finds himself eating microwaved tomato soup at ten AM sitting across from a renowned criminal, who he kissed last night when he says, "Magritte, The Empire of Light."

"Hm?" Bunny inquires through a mouthful of tomato.

He really doesn't want to elaborate, He's filled his vulnerability quota for the next decade in the past twenty four hours, but Bunny's eyes are round and confused like his namesake, so he clarifies, "If I could have any one painting, that's the one I would pick."

The painting he's talking about is the first in a series, surrealist, a street cast in darkness despite the sunny blue sky hanging over it, unnerving and paradoxical. He's always thought of favourites as childish, but something about this one keeps his attention on it, between its creator and its contrast between the two lights, just enough to make him want it despite himself.

Bunny stares for a moment longer. He definitely doesn't watch his throat as it bobs when he swallows.

"Didn't that go for a hundred million?" He's talking about the last time it went on auction, sold to a museum in the US, the only time he had ever let himself consider anything close to this before had been when he read the article announcing the sale.

"One hundred and twenty," he corrects, "And I'm not talking about buying it, idiot."

He laughs at him, bright as the late morning light filtering through the slatted blinds, "Expensive tastes."

He scoffs, "Good tastes, Magritte is a genius."

Tilting his head tot he side and scrunching his nose, Bunny taunts, "Overrated."

Sae is silent on principal, He will not debate whether or not Magritte is overrated with a man in an FC Barcha T-shirt.

Instead he deflects, "I would ask you the same question but one, I don't care, and two, I suspect you already have it somewhere in here."

Bunny throws his head back and laughs, and Sae realises his mistake coming here when he finds himself thinking he could get used to this.

He tells Bunny he has to leave when he finishes eating, He's offered a ride to the airport that he turns down, but accepts a shower. (mournfully, separate from Bunny.)

Bunny gives him a shirt to wear, white and a size too big. It feels like a gesture too intimate, but he takes it, so he tries not to think about it. Until Bunny drops another kiss on him on his way out and he doesn't fight it.

They still don't talk about it, It will be easier over text, he supposes.

When he Leaves Bunny's flat the street is sort of busy, a few people milling about, languid and hot with the unhurried air of late morning Saturday, nothing like the war zone that was the city centre. Sae walks to the same tempo, sun falling over his shoulders like molten glass. He reads an article about the painting they stole standing on the metro, the journalist speculates jokingly it will show up in the British museum in a few months and Sae bites his tongue in an attempt to kill the smile that starts to rise.

[Sae]

-The internet thinks we're agents of the crown.

[Bunny]

-??

He forwards him the article and messages Rin he's coming home while he waits for the reply. (When did he start waiting for Bunny?)

Bunny sends him a picture in reply, the portrait hung on a wall, notably not the spot Bunny had mentioned before. He doesn't think about it untill he realises the girl is a foot away from where they kissed. He blinks and tries to ignore this fact.

[Sae]

-Thought you were keeping her in storage?

[Bunny]

-had to commemorate something ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა

Sae knows he's smiling at his phone when an elderly woman clears her throat across the train, and when he looks up she smiles at him knowingly. He doesn't know if the blush that rises to his cheeks is from humiliation or affection but he doesn't fight it either way.

When he arrives back in Japan, Isagi has moved in, which he should have expected really.

"I was only out the country for three days," He elbows Rin where Isagi can't see them.

He has the decency to look guilty, "We're getting married, I think it's normal."

"You're getting married without ever dating, none of this is normal."

He sighs dramatically and turns back to the easel he sits at, pondering.

There's already a new painting in the kitchen. Two golden rings stacked on each other. It's sweet in a way that makes him miss something he barely grasped.

He doesn't message Bunny, which is normal. Bunny doesn't message him, which is also fairly normal, but it has him on edge. He hasn't kissed anyone in years and the first person since then ghosts him? Fantastic.

It doesn't help that his brother is deliriously and obviously head over heels for his fiancé. It rubs in his face every time they kiss one another on the cheek, the forehead, the hands sometimes, which is the corniest thing Sae has ever seen, but the look in Rin's eyes as he holds Isagi's hands keeps any snide comments in check. Snide, because he's jealous.

It's not an unusual feeling, being jealous of his brother. There is a long list of things Rin has triumphed over Sae at, school, art, sticking to his morals, Football when they both still played a decade ago. He would never admit any of it out loud of course, but the burning feeling licking up his oesophagus had always been there. What was unusual was the type of envy this was, not the green eyed monster of his childhood, but a swooning, simpering, lukewarm romantic, hit by cupids arrow and frozen in time, in Bunny's apartment, face in his hands.

He decidedly does not mope. It's below him. But he jumps whenever his phone vibrates and he can't deny that his mood is snappy at best. Rin is still in his honeymoon phase, so either doesn't notice his scowls or deigns not to pry and ruin his good mood. Either way Sae is grateful to not have to explain his predicament- How mortifying it would be to tell him how he got here.

A month passes with no word. The buzzing in his chest doesn't subside and the resolve to not text first strengthens. Maybe it's unhealthy, but communication was never high on his list of priorities, if Bunny wanted to reach out he could do it himself.

(Maybe he got what he wanted already, the cynical, never silent voice in the back of his mind whispers, maybe he kissed you and it was enough for him.)

Rin has no interest in an engagement party, Sae even less. Isagi is an unfortunate victim of an extrovert marrying into an antisocial family. Sae and Rin are unfortunate victims of said extrovert being the most insistent person they know.

The club is overflowing when they get there, people spilling out the doors and bass thumping from inside that Sae could hear on the pavement from outside. He sneers at drunk girls who tumble past them as Isagi pushes into the building. It's tempting to take advantage of the crush of bodies and slip out and home, but Rin has an iron grip on his forearm pulling him deeper into the throe so he decides that this can be their wedding gift, keeping Rin sane at his own celebration.

Isagi orders beers for them, knows the bartender by name. Sae shoots Rin a look.

He's halfway done with his drink when he turns around to be met with the sight of at least ten other people, all talking at the speed of sound directly at Isagi and grabbing at his left hand. At which point he elbows Rin and asks loudly and perhaps tactlessly, "How many people are going to be at the wedding?"

Rin looks away from the person on his right who has Icy blue hair and the most volume control of the lot and replies tiredly, "It's an ongoing discussion."

He wouldn't call the steady supply of drinks in his hands drinking his problems away, but as a heady, thumping pop song pours out the speakers on all sides of him, leaning against a wall, sticky with sweat, the intoxication hits him hard. He's been bought a cocktail by some stranger who's has already wandered off into the tangle of limbs on the dance floor after he resoundingly ignored them, the syrup in the drink hurts his teeth. Going to flag down the bar for another, he turns, but before he can order he sees Rin almost fall over his own feet, so sighs and asks for water instead.

His efforts to sober up pay off in the end, even if it makes him contemplate bashing his head through a window, because nobody else is clearheaded enough to order Ubers. There's a moment that he thinks it would be funny to leave them without a way to get home, but Isagi, ever the people pleaser, suggests they all come home with them. He's never intercepted an idea so quickly in his life.

Once all of Isagi's friends have been sent off he is prescribed the herculean task of getting the three of them back home. Rin has his heart set on walking, For some reason, "It's inspiring," he slurs when Sae tells him he's an idiot.

Isagi almost veers into the road enough times to have him considering letting him stay there and Rin is a sentimental drunk, holding onto his arm with the force of a bear trap, the two of them fall over at some point trying to kiss, Sae plans to invest in backpack leads for the wedding.

It takes almost ten minutes to get into the front door, fumbling with the keys and pulling it the wrong way, which may be a world record. Sae falls headfirst into the sofa and refuses to move to help either of them, hears them stumble across the house knocking into furniture all the way and falls asleep.

Despite his best efforts, the hangover is awful.

Isagi is up first, and is the loudest thing Sae and his painful headache have ever heard. He half yells out from the living room when he is stirred, incoherent grunts that spell out murder if he keeps the coffee machine on. Then he makes pancakes for him as an apology for waking him and he lets go of his plans to kill him in his sleep — even when he bites down on an errant piece of eggshell. He resolves to never drink with either of them again as he chokes down paracetamol.

Rin wakes up last, and still looks asleep as he scowls at Isagi, "If you ever get me that drunk again I won't marry you."

Isagi has the decency to look distraught, spluttering apologies as Rin grabs the TV remote and turns on the news. Sae distantly gazes as Rin sits next to him and blearily watches on. There's reports of western politicians cheating on their wives and speculations on new sea life somewhere off the coast of Brazil, all gritty white noise while he curses his own head as it reels.

The news switches to the arts and culture spokesperson, a seedy looking man Sae doesn't recognise but Rin clearly does, stretching a foot out an kicking the side of his knee, "That's who tells me what you've done when you're at work," his tone as he says the last word sardonic and dragged out but mostly petty, he sticks his tongue out, hangover making him docile. He pays closer attention though, interested in all the fragments of Rin's life he steals from himself as he steals everything else. It's really a good thing that he starts to listen, because the man stands in Brussels in a pea coat and announces with a professional amount of emotion, "At some point over night, Rene Magritte's work, The empire of light was stolen by an unidentified individual."

Rin makes a wounded noise next to him, shakes his head and leans further back, casting his eyes skyward. The reporter goes on, but he can't hear it so much, something stirring in his hazy memory, fighting through headache syrup and fractured conversations in a kitchen he can't fully recall, all fragments of memories a hairs width too far away to grasp, encumbered by his condition. Then he can place it, he can place it and who he was talking to and why it was the conversation topic and the night before and the months before and the contact in his phone that's been silent since. There's a buzzing in his chest that ignites with a vigour, like it knows something Sae is to stunned to voice quite yet, not to Rin and his awful habit of being a sore winner, 'I told you so's bursting out of his lips since he learned spite. To Rin who doesn't even know who El Conejo is, let alone that he's been one track mindedly focused on him since he snatched a red winged angel from its perch. He reaches for his phone, discarded on the ground from last night, paralysis dissolved like sugar in water as he makes his mind up.

Flat.

There's vomit edging up the back of his throat and Rin is looking, talking at him, questioning the way he lunges, he's sure. Pays it no mind, he has to explain this to himself before he can to anyone else, has to understand the things that have slipped by his clueless, lovesick observations, so dulled by a whirlwind he spun with instead of against like he should have, like he would have if he had had any sense.

He stumbles to the kitchen with ringing ears, sitting next to the charger while he waits for his phone to wake up. Rin follows him, asking questions he can't hear. Isagi looks perplexed, as is his tendency. He doesn't even know what Sae's job is, will probably have to be told soon. Worry about that later, Switch on phone, go to messages, Bunny, Bunny, Bunny.

[Sae]

-Was that you??

There is nothing for a beat before an automated response.

[The number you are trying to contact is no longer active]

He feels sick, Fringe plastered down to his forehead, he doesn't shake, Hands catatonic still. Rin is talking louder, grabbing his shoulder. He can't rationalise it. Skull shattered and bleeding from an imagined head wound.

Oh to bear your soul. Oh to lower age old defences and be sieged by an enemy that looks like you.

Sae sits for what could be seconds or could be decades, then drops his phone from his hands and lets denial make way for anger like a river carving out the land and joining the sea. Rose coloured glasses desaturate and the buzzing fills his whole body, thousands of hornets whose nest has been caved in.

El Conejo has burrowed his way through his defences and snatched something he didn't expect to hurt him away. He tries to breathe through his nose and fails miserably. It's karma. A cosmic punishment for everything he's done. Served to him on a silver platter with a garnish of red flags a mile wide he blissfully ignored. Dammit.

Rin tries again, grabs his shoulders, eyes blown wide in panic and quick breaths just as shallow as his own, what a vile mirror to look into.

"-never seen him like this"

"-call someone?"

"no, no, just-"

The sky outside is split like curdled milk, part sun scalding the morning and part semi-committed rain leaking out of the sour grey clouds in long, thin drips. Sae can see them colliding with Rin's double glazed kitchen windows, splattering out into tiny supernovas. He imagines them really getting going, a biblical flood. Saturating the greens and gardens of Rin's neighbourhood with waterlogged sorrow. Breaching the roof when the water's climbed sky high and pouring in, ruining all of the painted walls until Isagi's awful workmanship is eroded down to the brick foundations and drowning him, drowning them all, choking words and worlds from his lungs like the news that had throttled the budding hope from his chest. Still, the tsunami wouldn't be enough to kill the twisting, fuming thing emanating from his veins, corrupted and amphibian, it would only thrive in the flooded delusion Sae envisages.

The surface tension of the water He's under snaps, and he splutters out a hollow, raging laugh, "I know who did that, And I'm going to kill him."