XLV - Takuto

Kuin's POV

I gained myself quite the reputation when our newest issue sold out almost as soon as it was published. Female readers totally dug the idea of having good-looking thieves, and by using the old phrase "stealing your heart", the theme was perfect.

I rushed everybody to get it ready in the afternoon after the photoshoot in the morning because just in case, even if it's a 0.01% chance that something will go wrong tonight, it's still a chance. I'd want to see how well my idea sold.

Now, I'm eating instant noodles while watching SVU.

(That is exactly what I did yesterday.)

"Oh, oh! I bet that girl's gonna get abducted by that guy!" Hiro calls out, he was sitting in the middle of the round table, eating popcorn.

"No, I think it'd be the younger sister." Takuto says, not sparing a glance up at the TV screen and just his stuff on his laptop. He's doing everything by all means to distract himself from the fact that he can't have pork noodles for another week.

"Takkun's right." I say. I watched as the guy handed the younger sister a small glass of some sort of drink. That drink has got to be spiked, but since he's being so nice to her all evening, she trusted him.

"Ohhhh! She drank it!" Boss dropped two cups of soda on the table and also sits down to watch.

I ignore the flame I feel behind Hiro and I.

Riki: "Aren't you three way too relaxed? Especially you, Kuin, since the mission is in four more hours?"

"Yeah, this episode is stupid. If it were me, I'd definitely find where the video feed was coming from." Takuto commented, a hint of showing off in his voice.

Kenshi: "I feel bad for all those victims...."

"It's a TV show, it's gotta be dramatic for people to watch it." I say, finishing my bowl of noodles.

All of a sudden, just when the younger sister was getting abducted into the trunk of the guy's car, the TV screen went black.

Atsumu/Hiro/Lillie: "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Riki stood, holding the TV remote, an irk mark on his head. "Now, with the disturbing distraction gone, let's discuss the details of tonight's steal."

"I thought we did that yesterday night, and the night before that." I whined.

Riki: "You can never be too careful."

I resist the urge to punch him in that pretty face of his.

He sat down, "Alright. Here's what's gonna happen—"

Takuto: "Hey Riki shut up for a sec."

He typed through his laptop, "Looks like we'll need to depart now, the shipment from London is going to arrive two hours early at this state."

"I'm saved! Anything but sitting through Riki's lecture!" I jumped up. I changed from my pair of blue converse into a pair of knee-high black boots with a little bit of wedge.

Dejectedly, Riki puts on his cut-finger gloves and heads out. Boss pat them all on the shoulder as they head out: "Good luck, I'll be heading back to my apartment to moniter."

With that, boss also left.

Takuto and I were the last ones to finish last-minute preparing. He gestured me over and mumbled, "The shipment's only arriving two minutes early, you owe me one."

I beamed at him, "under my genius teaching you sir have become a better liar."

His face went slightly less pale as he picked up his laptop case, "whatever, get moving, I'm locking up."

"Alright~" I skip my way towards the door, where outside, everyone else were waiting in the van. But he shut off all the lights before I could even touch the door.

"Lillie." My hand now resting on the handle bar to open the door, he called out to me. Since it was nearly 10pm, night's cloak completely hid him.

"I can't see a thing in here, you wanna talk outside?" This familiar feeling washed over me as I try to walk around the subject.

He was quiet for a while, "Yeah, you're right. And it's nothing, I forgot what I was gonna say, let's go. The others are waiting."

As he says, he pushed open the door from behind me, holding it open for me to walk out first.

Phew, that scared me for a second there. I thought he was going—

"Lillie-chan, Takkun, hurry up!" Hiro called out to us from the back seats.

As soon as both of us hopped on, the van started moving and Hiro slid the door closed.

"We'll be there in about two hours, which gives us one more hour to spare before action." Riki says.

"Hey Lillie, I have a couple of episodes downloaded, wanna keep watching?"

And so we did, much to Riki's annoyance.

Takuto's POV

I couldn't say it after all.

I've never had much interest in a romantic relationship, so I have no idea how to confess. Is it wrong to try to let the dark mask my blush and try to say it? She cut me off completely, I'm sure she had a small vibe of it.

Umm, then should I interpret it like a criminal confessing their offense? Wait no, of course not! Why must this be so confusing.

I pretended I was busy looking over information on my laptop, when I was just staring at a blank tab. I was buried in my thoughts until I heard her laugh.

"Lillie it's just like you to laugh when the girl is crying...isn't it...." Hiro deadpans as he watches that stupid show with Lillie.

Now that I think about it, have I ever made her laugh? Technically yes, but she doesn't remember....

With all this mess, the only one thing that's clear to me is that I absolutely fell for her, there is no way I'm letting anybody else—

"Hey, Takuto." Riki says from the shot gun seat, "make a hundred percent that there's only one possible entrance to the auction?"

I get back into work mode as soon as possible, "Yes, it is designed that way. The auction is entirely negative five floors. With one floor acting as a normal basement, that's a separate hidden elevator that goes down two floors, and then the actual auction hall takes up the space of two lower floors."

"Smart layout." Kenshi comments.

"Not smart enough." I say, "I can hack that elevator any time I like and it'll take Lillie directly to the auction hall."

"Great job." I shivered when Lillie says from beside me all of a sudden.

Kuin's POV

When the current episode ended and the insane guy got arrested, I realize Takuto was talking about the place where the painting will get sold off.

He's analyzing in detail but also very clearly, I guess that's one of his attractive points.

"Not smart enough," he says with proudness in his eyes, "I can hack that elevator any time I like and it'll take Lillie directly to the auction hall."

It felt nice to hear my name come from him since he really never says it.

"Great work, Takkun." I lean my head over to peer at his laptop screen, but it was blank. The unrefreshed time on the tab shows that he hasn't moved for as long as we've been in the van. So while Hiro and I were watching SVU Takuto was just sitting here staring at nothing?

"You can watch with us if you want, you know." I say to him, "the next episode is about an insane third wheel and the daughter who killed her."

"...There's always some sort of sad, broken family in every episode." He says quietly, so only I heard him.

...Family, huh? I fell silent as well. I guess I'm incapable of loving since I was never loved. The only person who truly loved me was my brother, and he's not alive anymore. He died for my sake.

I wonder if I ever will meet my biological family, how will I react?

To my silence, Hiro stopped loading the next episode and put his device away.

I looked into the rearview mirror and saw my eyes. My freak eyes. Whenever I see them I tend to understand a little bit why we were abandoned. I mean, even animals won't have this kind of dual eyes.

How did they even result as this? Did one of my parent have blues eyes, and another had red ones? Then how did my brother had purple and green eyes?

I unconsciously rested a finger over my red eye and closed it.

Just then, I felt a gentle knock by the side of my head. I looked over at Takuto, wide-eyed. He nonchalantly glanced at me before staring back at his blank page.

"They're beautiful. And that's final, don't think of it again."

I didn't get what he was going at until I examined his facial expression. This tsundere was trying to get my mind off of my self-consciousness. That was...somehow sweet.

Just then, the car flew a little bit due to a bump in the road. I assumed my quickened heartbeat was because of that.

I keep my gaze focused on the road ahead since I sat in the middle.

The stars were aligned.

(I'm sorry I just had too much of Romeo and Juliet these past months XD)

"We're here." The second Riki states that, we all got into our mission modes.

The van was parked in a shadowed place, where Hiro already changed into his disguise.

Hiro offered me a dress that's elegant as an evening gown but also flexible enough for me to move around freely in it like in pants.

"As we discussed, we will all go in disguised as customers. And twenty minutes before one am, Kuin will go to the elevator while Takuto, who stays here, hacks it and it will lead to the auction hall." Riki summarized in as less words as he could, "are we ready, team?"

"Ready as we'll ever be, leader." We all say, confidence in our voices.

"Alright. Show time!"

The auction hall is covered up by a five-star restaurant that's six floors high. It was a must to come here if ever one visits Japan. I bet there'd be celebrities here.

I let a strand of my elegant bun down just enough to cover my red eye, so it didn't seem suspicious.

The waitress greeted us with utmost respect as she gestured us to a private room on the third floor. Only the ground floor had open tables, the above five floors were all private rooms. It seems that some of them even have karaoke machines or poker tables.

Although the plan was just to order some basics, I ordered everything I thought looked good.

The guys understood my intention immediately, there was no way they, a group of 'gentlemen', can let a lady pay in front of a waitress. Therefore they have no choice but to pay for every single expensive dish I ordered.

"Might as well taste what this restaurant is such a big deal of while we're here." I said as I finally put down the menu.

"Yup, you will have ten minutes to do that before the painting arrives." Riki says.

Dang it.

The food was definitely heavenly, but I can name a handful of places that can rival its food, so it still doesn't explain why this restaurant is in every food magazine ever made.

"Alright, it's just been loaded off within boxes to the elevator. It's disguised as being carried to the basement to put in food storage, but they're going to below floor five for sure." Takuto's voice rings in all of our earpieces.

"I'm off." I took a breath, and stood up.

Hiro: "Break a leg."

Riki: "Best of luck."

Kenshi: "I know you can do it, good luck."

Takuto: "...Good luck."

I nodded to all of them, then head out the room.

Takuto's voice rings in my ear as he guided me through the floor to the elevator. He killed the elevator surveillance camera and replaced their image with a normal elevator tape he'd pre-recorded. But it'll be quickly found out, so I had to be quick.

As soon as the double doors closed in, Takuto worked his thing, and soon the elevator began moving downwards.

I swallowed again as it descended slowly and soon came to a stop.

Takuto: "...You're there."

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2075 words :3

Awe I missed my birthday on this book XD Welp it was January 11th

Sowwy for the late update..... I try... And I'm actually quite free that it's exam week :D there're no projects and assignments YEESSS

I'll study tmr ^o^

Thnx for reading :D And remember, I still need ideas for Hiro's route! So don't be afraid to comment chur idea

-Lily

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