Archive of Our Own

Work Text

“You know what your problem is?”

“Do we have to do this right now?” Hyojong says. “Keep your voice down.”

“I’ll tell you what your problem is: you’re just not all that ambitious,” Hyuna continues. “I mean, sometimes it really feels like you go along with whatever I want to do because I want you to, not because you care about it at all. Do you ever think about that?”

Hyojong makes a stressed noise. “Hyuna— it’s seriously not a good time.”

“Why not? We need to talk about this,” Hyuna insists. “Your problem is that you’re not ambitious.” She pauses for a moment, thinking. “And another thing. Your split ends are getting pretty bad. You should let me give you a trim soon.”

“Don’t make it personal,” Hyojong mutters.

Hyuna waves that away, then wriggles out of his hold. “Your ambition, though, that’s the real issue. Like, do you want to keep doing this? Because if you’re not feeling it anymore, you’ll start resenting me, and I don’t want you to resent me. Do you resent me? I bet you resent me already, right?”

“I’ll start resenting you in about ten seconds if you don’t—”

She finds a foothold on the scaffolding and pushes herself higher than Hyojong could reach when he’d been trying to lift her in his arms, and she smoothly, noiselessly pushes open a window on the second floor. Although the window itself is narrow and old, she’ll be able to get through, and once she’s in, she can open the one adjacent to it from within; that one will be more accommodating of Hyojong’s broad shoulders.

They’d spotted the opened window a few weeks ago, and further research had indicated that the museum curator who occupied the office to which said window belonged was a 67-year-old woman who was very sensitive to the unseasonably warm temperatures this spring and summer had brought to Paris, hence keeping the window open all night in an attempt to cool down her office. The building itself being cleaned in some places and restored in others was a serendipitous coincidence; the plan before the scaffolds went up had been to learn how to free-climb and scale the wall. Hyojong does have some Spiderman-like tendencies, but Hyuna has no interest in parkour, so she’s glad the scaffolds are there. And it’s a foggy night, perfect for some spooky late-night activity — no nosy neighbors of the Musée Marmottan Monet will be able to spot them from afar. Everything’s coming up Milhouse, as the poets say.

Hyuna’s in. She holds onto the top of the window frame and propels herself inside the room, narrowly missing landing right on a desk and knocking everything off of it. It’s not quite a cinematic jump-fall-roll combo, but it’s a damn near thing, and she’s pretty pleased with herself as she makes her quiet way over to open the other window and let Hyojong in. He’s got a sour face on as he clambers in, even though he takes her hand for support so he doesn’t collide with any desks, either.

While Hyojong prowls around the office to confirm no one is there, Hyuna adjusts her hat on her head, and, talking quiet just in case, goes on: “You’re obviously super gifted, and I’d hate for you to waste your talents on something you don’t care about, you know? But it’s always me suggesting we start a job, me finding the buyer, me making the connections… I’m not complaining, though! You know I love being, like, the kingpin. All I care about is that you’re being the best version of you and having fun, Dawnie. You’re still having fun, right?”

“Yep,” Hyojong says. “Let’s go.”

“I’m trying to talk to you,” Hyuna huffs, but follows him, in the meantime removing her teeny-tiny backpack, much heavier and much more useful than it looks. They stand in the doorway leading out of the office as she ties a black silk scarf around the lower half of Hyojong’s face, being careful not to tangle the knot in the hair wisping down to his nape, sticking stubbornly out from under the end of his beanie, as he leans his head down to ease her way. She ties her own next as Hyojong retrieves two small flashlights from the belt bag Hyuna’s wearing (“don’t you fucking dare call it a fucking fanny pack” has been her mantra over the past five years), handing one to her and returning the backpack to her shoulders. “You ready?”

Hyojong nods, and together they turn and go out of the office. The office was carpeted, the stairway is marble, and the first floor of the museum is hardwood, but their footsteps make barely any sound at all. Hyuna switches her flashlight on and counts her steps, not lifting the beam of the flashlight up to confirm the painting’s location until she absolutely has to. No point in startling the security guard on late-night camera duty with a lens flare, right? (He’s drowsy, anyway. A couple of days ago, Hyuna swapped out the Keurig pods in the museum’s staff room with decaf. No stone unturned: that’s one of Hyuna’s rules.)

“It’s in here,” she says, catching Hyojong by the elbow with one gloved hand, and tugs him to the side, stopping in front of a narrow grey wall in the center of which hangs one solitary painting, barely visible in the dim light of the gallery.

Claude Monet’s Impression, soleil levant, painted in 1872 and first displayed in 1874, is arguably the origin of the impressionist movement and, indeed, of the term ‘impressionism’ itself; it’s also in a very silly gilded frame and surprisingly easy to remove from the wall. Hyojong does the lifting, Hyuna the steadying, and when she’s sure Hyojong won’t drop it, she helps him turn it around so she can unscrew the offset clips keeping the canvas attached to the frame one by one, then cut out the dust covers and moisture barriers and backing board with a utility knife she’d taken out of her belt bag. Finally, after two excruciating minutes of testing the give and pressure of the blade against the backing and of Hyojong standing very still, watching her over the top of the frame, Hyuna exhales quietly and finally pulls all the excess off, leaving just the painting and the glass in the frame. Then it’s a matter of cutting the painting from the canvas, and since it’s so old, it goes pretty easily — Hyuna’s holding her breath the whole time, though, knife work slow and careful so she doesn’t puncture the painting itself.

“I wish I had another set of hands,” she mutters, holding the painting in place with one hand as she rummages around in her belt bag with the other until she finds a carefully rolled and folded segment of plastic cling wrap, which she drapes over the front of the painting once she’s pulled it back from the frame. Hyojong hangs the empty frame back on the wall just as a courtesy, then helps Hyuna roll Impression, soleil levant up slim, the surface of the paint protected by the cling wrap. Hyuna worked fucking hard on this deal, after all, and no way in hell is she missing out on 3 million euro cash just because of some fucking chipped paint.

Hyuna takes off her backpack, unfolds it, and shakes it out until it transforms, as if by magic, into a decently large — if thin — duffel bag. Hyojong deposits the rolled-up painting into it, and that’s that.

“We’re good to go,” Hyuna says, checking her watch, but Hyojong hesitates, glancing around. “What? You okay?”

“That,” Hyojong says. He points across the room, and Hyuna follows his point to see a similarly-sized work, a muddy and vague still life of some flowers in a bowl. At first she thinks he’s pointing to a small portrait hanging next to it, but when he starts walking, the still life is the one he approaches. The nameplate by its side reads Bouquet du Fleurs, 1897, Paul Gauguin.

“What about it?” Hyuna says. She’s more interested in the little portrait, which is important enough to be on the same wall as a Gauguin but not important enough for her to be able to recognize the artist’s name. And that’s saying something, considering that she’s a very pretentious professional art thief and therefore knows a lot of artists.

“You think I’m not ambitious,” Hyojong shrugs. “Get your knife back out.”

Hyuna doesn’t understand for a second. They’re supposed to be professionals, and being professional means not changing shit up in a perfectly-planned heist for the sake of being spontaneous and impressing their partner-in-crime. She is impressed, though. God damn it. “Okay,” she says, standing back as he takes the painting down from the wall and flips it around for her so she can cut it loose.

After she’s pulled the backing off and started wiggling the canvas out of the frame, she adds, “We can’t roll this one up.”

“Figured,” he says. “But it’ll fit in the bag. Grab that other one you were looking at, too.”

She raises an eyebrow at him, amused, and goes over to lift the little portrait off the wall. “We don’t have a buyer lined up for these.”

“So you’ll find one,” Hyojong replies. He’s holding the canvas with the Gauguin, and she opens the duffel bag for him so he can slide it inside, accompanied by the one Hyuna had taken down. “Time?”

Hyuna checks her watch again. She always leaves them way too much time just to stay on the safe side, but even that’s running low. “We should go,” she says. “They’re changing shifts in two minutes.”

“Tight,” Hyojong says. He slings the duffel over his shoulder, careful not to jostle the contents too badly, and lets Hyuna lead them back out, not quite the way they came in but on the same side of the building. In the roped-off employees-only section of the museum is a small door leading to the staff parking, which is really just one glorified parking spot for the museum director. Hyuna and Hyojong wait by the door as Hyuna watches the seconds count down on her watch — the security guards’ shifts change at 23:30, as she learned in an unpleasant and somewhat sad flirtation session with one of the guards at a nearby bar a few weeks ago. His name had been Benoit, and he’d been so, so sweaty. Useful for information, though, so as Hyojong pushes the door open at 23:30 on the dot and they slip out into the cool night air, she sends forth a silent thank you to Benoit, his clammy hands, and his unfaltering trust in any pretty woman who dares approach him.

It really is too easy sometimes.

They might be out of the museum, but they’re not out of the woods, and they both pull off the scarves covering their faces so they don’t look too obviously like they just heisted their sixth museum in five years. At the end of the block is one of Paris’s most charming and robber-friendly features: an automated single-user public toilet. Ignoring the posted notice outside that insists that the stall is to be used by one person at a time, Hyuna and Hyojong both go in and wait for the door to close.

“You did great,” Hyuna praises immediately, coming over to side-hug him as tightly as she can without dislodging the bag from his shoulder. “You always do, you do so so great. You’re great. Wasn’t that great?”

“Hurry up,” Hyojong says, but he’s got a little smile on his face, like he always does when they’re done with the tense part of the job.

Hyuna beams up at him, then lets go of him and steps away, tugging off her hat and letting her hair down from the tight bun she’d coiled it up into. It tumbles long and dark down over her shoulders, and she puts the hat into the duffel before pulling her black shirt off, too, revealing the grey tee she’s got underneath. But that comes off as well, as does the tight compression sports bra she always wears when they go on their little nighttime adventures. After all, a co-ed art theft team is much more recognizable than a team with one short guy and one shorter guy.

While she changes, she hands Hyojong her things to hold, making a noise that’s both relieved and pained at her chest and ribs’ sudden freedom from restriction. “I hate that thing,” she complains, wiggling around tits-out and bracing one hand on Hyojong’s broad chest to stay steady as she pulls off the loose pants she’s wearing, underneath which are tight-fitting jeans. Back on with the grey tee, then, and the last thing to come off are her gloves, just for security’s sake. Her outer shell outfit gets stuffed into the bag, which she then takes for herself so that Hyojong can also change.

It’s not as heavy as she’d expected, and Hyojong strips off quickly; his clothes underneath are similar to Hyuna’s in how plain they are, neutral colors, breathable, and now that both of them have added their clothes to the duffel, it no longer looks stiff from holding three extremely expensive works of art. Hyojong takes the bag from her again and they look at each other for a moment, Hyuna’s smile not letting up, Hyojong as neutral as ever. She’s over the moon, warm and comfortable and confident. It’s such a high, pulling something like this off. She’s just glad she has someone to share it with.

That’s sappy, though, and sappiness is not on-brand, so she leans up and pinches one of his cheeks just a shade too hard. “What was all that back there, huh? Like, they’ll sell and everything, but what were you thinking? You don’t need to impress me anymore.”

“Just wanted to see if I could do it,” Hyojong says. “Are you mad at me?”

Hyuna considers this, pinching him again. “It was reckless, and we could have gotten seriously fucked, but I’ll decide if I’m mad at you or not after I find a buyer.” She leans up to kiss him on the cheek, but goes too fast and ends up missing the mark, lips pressing to the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t say anything or turn away, though, and she tries again, this time getting him square in the middle of his cheek where she’d been pinching him. “Now let’s go. Hui’s asleep, right?”

“Probably,” Hyojong says, pressing the button to open the stall door and stepping out onto the street with the bag. She watches him for a moment, then hurries after him before she can get trapped inside, slipping her arm through his free one when they’re walking side-by-side.

“And it’s good that we picked these up from the laundromat,” Hyuna adds, gesturing to the bag over Hyojong’s shoulder. “Like, who knows when my apartment’s gonna be done.”

Hyojong gets it, tilting his head in a small, knowing nod, but focuses on the grain of truth in her lie instead of confirming that he gets it. “Next week, maybe?” he says.

“Oh, so you don’t want me to stay with you forever?” Hyuna gasps, affronted, and gives his arm a squeeze. “I’m so hurt!”

Hyojong rolls his eyes and doesn’t even bother dignifying that with a response. He hasn’t said much about this temporary living situation, but that’s likely because it really is temporary — the building Hyuna lives in is getting major fixes done on the roof, so it’s too noisy for Hyuna to be able to get any kind of meaningful beauty sleep there. Luckily, neither Hyojong nor Hui minded Hyuna crashing at their place until the renovations finished, and Hyojong even nobly volunteered his own bedroom to the cause. It’s risky, though, and as soon as her building management informed her of the renovations, her first thought was of this planned heist and how now they’d need to bring the paintings back to Hyojong and Hui’s place, Hui unaware, uninvolved, and yet still harboring contraband and therefore at risk. But having her own room makes her feel way more secure — Hui’s too polite to just walk into her room without knocking. They’re not there yet, not really.

As usual, they take the metro back to Hyojong’s apartment, leaning on each other and chatting quietly like they’re a pair of tourists lugging their big bag back from the train station to an Airbnb. Hyojong never talks much, especially not this late at night after that much work, so Hyuna does most of the talking while he rests his head on her slim shoulder and curls one tired hand around her knee and while the bag, the contents of which cost more than the combined yearly income of everyone else in its immediate vicinity, sways from side to side with the motion of the train, on the floor bracketed by their legs.

After taking the spiral staircase leading up to his and Hui’s apartment, Hyojong unlocks the door and lets Hyuna go in first. Hyojong and Hui live on the third floor in an apartment with the strangest and worst layout in the world. It’s technically a one-bedroom, but the official living room is the exact same size as the official bedroom, so now both are bedrooms, awkwardly connected; to get to one, you have to go through the other. Hyojong’s room — Hyuna’s room for now — is the one furthest back. She pulls off her shoes, takes the duffel from him, and goes directly through the apartment to Hui’s room, and then through there to her own room. All she wants more than anything is to sleep this off, get her strength back in anticipation of what’ll likely be a tricky day of buyer coordination.

Hui works early, so he sleeps early, too, and she walks quietly like she had at the museum so as to avoid waking him up. But she doesn’t quite make it, maybe because she’s always been too pretty to sincerely want to be stealthy; he stirs in his bed, lifting his head from the pillows. “Hyojong?” he mumbles, or something that sounds very like it. “Hyuna?”

“Yes, go back to sleep,” Hyuna whispers. It’s not that she and Hui don’t get along, not really. They just don’t see each other that often. Which is probably for the best, anyway.

Hui hums, barely audible, and lowers his head back down, shifting to bury himself more in blankets. Hyojong’s right behind Hyuna in coming into the room, heading for the couch bed they’d made up for him on the other side of it, opposite Hui. The set-up reminds Hyuna for some reason of her days back at boarding school when she’d been painfully in love with her roommate, unable to sleep through the night because of the simple fact of hearing her breathing, and the intimacy of sharing a space with someone you don’t know particularly well is somehow very powerful and very strange. Hyojong knows Hui better than Hyuna does, though, so it’s entirely possible that Hyuna’s just projecting.

She goes into her room and draws the curtains over the window, then sets her alarm for 9 the next morning even though she has the day off. The bag goes into Hyojong’s closet just for security’s sake; she has to shove aside three oversized neon windbreakers to make room for it in the first place, then drape a jean jacket over it so it’s even more hidden. He’s really a parody of himself. Gauguin and Monet both deserve better than having their masterpieces concealed by this thrift store bullshit.

“Good night,” she hears Hyojong say from the other room, either to Hui or to Hyuna, possibly to both, followed by the sound of him falling into bed.

Hyuna gets into Hyojong’s bed, which fits her very well, much better than the daybed she has at her own place. Her eyes, tired, find the closet door, behind which she knows — despite any irrational surge of worry — her next paycheck waits for her.

It doesn’t matter if Dawn isn’t very ambitious, she decides as she starts to fall asleep in Hyojong’s warm, soft sheets, paid for by an 1894 painting of Jupiter and Semele. I’m ambitious enough for the two of us.

In the morning, after Hui has gone to work, she makes contact with the buyer, confirming that everything went according to plan and working out the details of the exchange. She doesn’t mention the additional two paintings that Hyojong had so spontaneously added to their collection; the offer they’d received for the Monet was generous, but she doesn’t want to make this deal seem like a buy-one-get-one-half-off kind of situation. While her economics knowledge is pretty limited, she does know that supply brings about demand, and since she has it, the buyer (and with the buyer, the money) will come.

This buyer sends an envoy by way of food delivery guy, whom she meets at the front door of the next apartment building over. The money’s stuffed in neat bands of 100-euro notes under two containers of penne arrabbiata and a greasy sack of breadsticks, and Hyuna hands the sullen delivery boy the tightly rolled-up painting, which he immediately puts into his insulated bag without even bothering to check that it’s all in one piece. Hyuna is honestly flattered by this level of trust in her operation, and also immensely amused and endeared by the inclusion of actual food in this sham delivery. The family that had put out an open call for this painting isn’t even Italian, so the choice of Italian food as cover is an interesting one, but Hyuna will never turn down pasta or 3 million euro cash (both equally good ways to start the work week), so it’s the best of both worlds.

In truth, she doesn’t know a whole lot about this buyer, or any buyer, really. But that’s deliberate. The less she and Hyojong collectively know about their buyers, the better — everyone would be a liability otherwise. Really, the only thing she needs to know is how much they’re willing to pay, and that’s it.

“You got food? I was gonna cook,” Hyojong says when he comes home after a long, hard day of sitting in one place and staring kind of blankly out of the window interspersed with thirty-minute bursts of poking strangers’ skin with a needle until they have a tattoo.

“It got delivered,” Hyuna says, choosing her words carefully since Hui, prim and proper and very tired from his own day at the office, had returned about half an hour ago and was currently showering. Another interesting and horrible facet of Hyojong and Hui’s apartment layout is that the shower is quite literally in the kitchen, and so Hyuna’s central location in the microscopic breakfast nook is nowhere near as private as she’d have hoped. “Half of it’s for you.”

Once again, Hyojong gets it immediately, and his face does its equivalent of lighting up, namely a slightly stronger blink than usual and a barely noticeable pursing of his lips. “Cool,” he says.

“You can have some whenever you want,” Hyuna adds, pleased that they can communicate so well without needing to say the words outright.

“Yeah,” Hyojong says, opening the bag with the breadsticks to see how many there are.

“It’s pretty good,” Hyuna says with a small, proud smile. They’ll split the money evenly, of course, and as long as they don’t spend it all in one place, they’re home free on this one, and they can take their traditional five to six months off, then do it all over again.

Hyojong nods, then leans in slightly over the table to get closer to her and whispers, “But what about the, y’know, did we get paid?”

Hyuna drops the pen she’d been twirling around onto the table with a clatter. “Are you fucking kidding me? Dawn— the— that was the delivery,” she hisses. “That’s what I was fucking implying. Did you really not get it?”

“Oh, okay,” Hyojong says. “I figured.” Hyuna narrows her eyes at him suspiciously, but he busies himself with the breadsticks and doesn’t try to defend himself any further.

“It’s in my room, you can get it whenever,” Hyuna mutters. “I can’t believe you.”

Hyojong shrugs, leaning back again and trying to be casual. He munches on a breadstick, wipes his fingers off on a dishtowel, and says, “Then… where’d the food come from?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Hyuna says, not bothering to keep her voice down by now. “How many braincells do you have? Are you fucking kidding me? The food was also the delivery. They came together. God. Why are you like this? When I said ‘I’m glad we picked these up from the laundromat’ last night, what the fuck did you think I was talking about?”

Hyojong, unperturbed by this attack, doesn’t answer, just shrugs again, mouth now full of bread. “You see the news today?”

Now that’s something Hyuna never likes to hear the day after a job, and it distracts her from her rage over Hyojong being ditzy. “No,” she frowns, getting her phone out to check. “Why, what happened?”

Hyojong swallows the bread and is about to reply when Hui emerges from the kitchen with a towel around his waist, his shoulders damp, hair spiky. For an executive assistant (read: secretary) at some stuffy corporate firm, he sure does have a tight body, but Hyuna doesn’t like him very much, so she doesn’t look for very long, either.

“Hi,” Hui says to Hyojong, and evidently he’s modest or something, because he vanishes into his room after a shy, polite smile Hyuna’s way, closing the door behind himself and leaving Hyojong and Hyuna free to discuss once again.

“What am I looking for?” Hyuna says, pulling up Google News and typing in ‘musée marmottan’ while she waits for an answer.

“Yeah, that,” Hyojong says, leaning over her shoulder and pointing at her screen with the breadstick. She yanks her phone away before he can make breadstick-on-screen contact, clicking to open the article and skimming it.

Holy shit. They’ve made the news before, but never a major site, and certainly not ever anything international. The New York fucking Times? If Hyuna had known this would be such a big deal, she’d have asked for more than 3 million for sure.

“I can’t see,” Hyojong complains, but Hyuna scoots away from him again so she can finish reading it first.

It’s pretty superficial stuff. There’s no description of the crime beyond a mention that the museum was robbed by two people, and the rest of the article concerns the fact that Impression, soleil levant has actually been stolen before, in 1985. The bonus Gauguin and portrait are relegated to a throwaway sentence near the end: “Along with Impression, sunrise, two other paintings, including one by Gauguin, are allegedly missing from the museum’s collection.”

“No reward?” Hyojong whispers, having somehow wormed himself into a position where he can read the article over Hyuna’s shoulder.

“Not yet, I guess,” Hyuna whispers back. She scrolls through the article again, then hands her phone to Hyojong so he can read it, too. He skims it, then shrugs, sitting in one of the other small, uncomfortable chairs at the table. “What do you think?”

“I think I want another breadstick,” Hyojong says. “No, I know I want another breadstick.”

Hyuna rolls her eyes and looks at the rest of the articles that had come up in her search, and one makes her stop and frown. “Uh-oh.”

Hyojong, once again chowing down on a breadstick, leans over to read along. “What? I seriously can’t see when you hold it like that.”

“Shut up, let me read,” Hyuna says, pushing him away and holding her phone closer instead.

This could be bad. They have a good amount of money saved up, so if they never heist again it won’t be the end of the world, but fuck, that would be a disappointing ending to their criminal career.

She finishes reading the article and starts thinking, planning. She’s good at covering for them; they always have their faces hidden and none of their buyers know their real names or anything about them, and all communication is done on burner phones. No matter how hard the police try, they won’t be able to trace any money back, either, considering Hyuna operates strictly cash-only. It’ll be fine, probably. And if it isn’t, she’ll figure something out, just like she always does.

“Gimme,” Hyojong says mournfully, and she finally hands the phone over so he can read it, too. It’s a fairly short article, French news this time, written around a quote from the current minister of culture, Françoise Nyssen. Françoise declares as emphatically as she can that this is a disgrace to France and that museums all across Paris should re-evaluate their security systems so they can stop embarrassing themselves by allowing thieves in. The article heavily implies that top museums are taking her words to heart and planning on close inspections of intruder detection and security staff to ensure no other museum has to go through this. Great.

Hyuna takes her phone back, sets it face-down on the table, and sighs. She also briefly puts herself face-down on the table, forehead pressed to the wood, for dramatic effect.

“Is it… okay?” Hyojong asks, hesitant. There’s a limit to how much they can talk about this with Hui in the next room over, but he’s sweet for trying, and Hyuna lifts her head.

“It’ll be fine,” she says and stands up. “Eat without me, I have some things to work on.”

Hyojong frowns, but doesn’t try to stop her. Instead, he eats another breadstick. It’s good to know that she can always count on her friends for emotional and logistical support until breadsticks are involved, evidently.

“I’m coming through,” Hyuna says, raising her voice slightly as she knocks on Hui’s door. “Get decent.”

“Oh— go ahead,” Hui calls back from inside. He still sounds tired, and although Hyuna will never be able to understand how the fuck a secretary job can be tiring (her brief stint as a secretary had mainly involved declining deliveries of flowers like she was Joan from Mad Men except much, much sexier), she figures he must be some kind of overachiever, so it makes sense.

She turns the doorknob and goes into his room, and he’s seemingly working, sitting in bed with his laptop open and a few papers spread out around him. His hair is drying all funny, sticking up at the back but flat in the front, dark blue-grey strands dripping over his eyebrows, and if he were Hyojong, she’d have no problem going over there and fixing it for him, but they’re really not there yet at all and probably never will be, so she lets him look silly without intervening.

“Everything okay?” he asks, smiling at her briefly again.

“Fine,” Hyuna replies. Something in her stirs and compels her to say, “Your hair’s all over the place. Fix it.”

Hui stops typing and lifts a hand to his head, feeling out the extent of the damage. “It is,” he agrees. “Thanks.”

For some reason, she stands in the doorway for a moment to watch as he pats down the parts where it’s standing up and ruffles where it’s flat. She’s not sure if it’s because she instinctively gets a thrill from men doing as she says, or if it’s just because he looks so cozy, but she feels something, which is unusual, considering that nine times out of ten when she looks at Hui, her head gets filled with TV static.

She looks away before it can get any worse, then continues through to her room, closing the door and pushing a footstool to block it from being opened by anyone else, just to be on the safe side.

If what she inferred from the article is really true, then she and Hyojong need to speed up their operation or else. Luckily, she pre-plans damn near everything, even when the thing itself isn’t even in the distant future. When she’d moved to Paris six years ago, she’d already had notes written about museums she was interested in, basic information from their security teams’ websites, possible buyers, what colors looked best with red hair (she’d been going through a phase). As a result, there’s no need to completely panic, and her notes for the Orangerie job are more than sufficient.

It’s a straight-forward one, neat and clean. She’s even picked paintings out already: three Renoirs, one Cezanne, all of fruit just because she was in a fun and fruity mood when she’d been scrolling through their online catalog. The only semi-unknown is the alarm system, which has no distinction between painting proximity alerts and broken windows. If Hyojong can disable it, most likely by cutting a couple of wires, then they’ll be good to go, but the only issue is that Hyuna hasn’t been able to find any information on where, exactly, the alarm hub is. They’ll need to case the museum the old-fashioned way, probably within the next couple of days before they “re-evaluate” their security system, whatever that means.

While she puzzles over this, she uploads the Gauguin and portrait (which has turned out to be a self-portrait by some very famous Swiss painter) to a private auction site, using fake listings and coded descriptions that’ll make it clear to people in the know what, exactly, she’s selling. It’s an American site, too, less likely to be checked or tracked by European authorities. This time, what she’s purportedly selling is one left shoe and a can of diet Pepsi that she’d found under Hyojong’s bed, but in the photos of the items, the paintings are barely visible in the background. Sure, there’s always the risk of making a deal with an undercover cop, but her alibis for robbery nights are always solid, and there’s nothing proving that she didn’t just find these paintings in a dumpster in an alley somewhere, aside from the fact that there aren’t really any alleys or dumpsters in Paris. Her priority is, as usual, getting the paintings out as quickly as possible so that she and Hyojong will have their money and nothing else to worry about.

Now that the listings are posted, Hyuna goes back to her planning. They’ll go during the day to check the place out, and then come again either that same night or the night after to make the magic happen. She checks to make sure the bids are getting to the kind of level she was hoping they’d get, and, pleased with what she finds, returns to her notes, flipping through them just to see what else she has. It really is a lot, with plans and ideas for just about every major museum in Paris that range from hyper-detailed to basically just “Musée d’Orsay ?? ???? lots of glass… fire alarms??”

At any rate, the Orangerie is ready to go as soon as they figure out what the deal with the alarm system is. Which is to say it’s pretty much not ready to go at all. Hyuna gets up from Hyojong’s bed, moves the footstool from the door, and sticks her head into Hui’s room. “Will you get Dawn to come here?” she says, and Hui looks up from his computer at her. TV static, thankfully, when their eyes meet, and nothing else.

“Sure,” he says, closing his computer and shuffling his papers around so he can get out of bed. God, he’s fit as fuck. He opens the door between his room and the teeny-tiny living/dining space that they’d had to drag a proportionally tiny table into upon Hyojong and Hui moving into this apartment, revealing Hyojong sitting there, methodically tearing a piece of fruit leather into shreds. “Hyuna’s asking for you.”

“Is she dying?” Hyojong asks, not looking up.

Hui glances back at Hyuna, a small smile on his face. “I don’t think so.”

“Hmm,” Hyojong says. He finishes with his fruit leather, stands, and heads on over, nodding to Hui as he goes. They have kind of a weird dynamic, somewhere between very close and very awkward, but that might just be Hyojong’s natural shyness and Hui’s natural warmth finding an uncomfortable middle ground. Hyuna can tell Hyojong feels comfortable around Hui, though, and she’s grateful for that, at least. As possessive as she is of him, she’s glad he has a friend besides her, even if that friendship is based on a pretty big lie.

“Step into my office,” Hyuna says, and closes the door behind him once he’s in. “We have a lot of ground to cover, come sit.”

“What is all this?” Hyojong asks, sitting at the foot of the bed and picking up one of her notebooks. She gently smacks at his hand until he lets go, because he definitely has the potential to wreak absolute havoc on her very organized layout. “Your plans?”

“Our plans,” Hyuna corrects. “We need to speed up our schedule. You get why, right?”

“Yeah,” Hyojong says.

“You sure?” Hyuna insists, narrowing her eyes. “After the whole delivery thing, I don’t know if I’m gonna just take your word for it.”

Hyojong frowns. “I get it!”

“Do you? Do you really?” Hyuna says. “Explain it, then.”

“Because they’re all changing up their security, and there’s gonna be time between the new systems and the old ones when they’ll be easier to break into,” Hyojong says, frowning harder.

She reaches across the bed and pats the top of his head. “You did get it,” she hums. Grouchy, Hyojong ducks away, and that only encourages her, makes her more powerful, cooing and reaching out further to poke his cheeks, pet under his chin, until he frowns at her so resentfully that she laughs and leaves him alone for now. By way of recompense, she hands him her list of notes concerning the Orangerie job, which he takes and begins to read. “This is what I have so far. When are you free during the day? This weekend?”

“Yeah,” Hyojong says, flipping to the second page. “Unless it’s a super easy system, we’ll have to come back after a couple days.”

“That’s fine,” Hyuna nods. She looks around on her bed for a moment, then gives him another sheet of paper to look over. “Here’s what I have of the layout, but that’s from four years ago, they’ve probably changed it around since then, they got a whole bunch of new Monets… I’ll check it out when we go back.”

“Security should still be in the same place, though,” Hyojong murmurs as he traces his finger over the drawn map, scribbled from memory hastily by Hyuna hastily as soon as she’d left the museum.

“I love old museums,” Hyuna sighs. “Nothing ever changes with them. It’s like they’re asking us to take their shit, you know? I mean, if you think about it, we’re helping them, since now they’ll be more careful and the real bad guys won’t be able to break in.”

“Uh-huh,” Hyojong says. He never listens to her when she talks, and she frowns, reaching across to pluck the papers from him and make him pay attention to her instead. “What?”

“Nothing,” she says, pushing her notes aside on the bed and scooting in closer to him, going back to tormenting him, petting through his hair, fingers smoothing over his eyebrows and cheekbones, poking his jaw, tugging at one pierced earlobe. “Are you excited?”

“I guess,” Hyojong says. He tries to block her touch, tickled when she gets to his neck, but he doesn’t try all that hard, so she keeps going, dragging her hand back up through his wispy blonde hair and messing it up real thorough. They’re both very touchy people, and if they really lived together they’d never be apart, stuck to each other like magnets, so even if she were to try and keep her hands off him it’d be a lost cause. Teasing him is just way too much fun, making him get shy, and he’s getting shy right now, leaning into her palms and hiding away from her in equal measure.

“Yeah? You are?” she croons, twisting a strand of his hair around her finger and pulling, being just a little cruel but making up for it in sweetness as she comes in close, kissing the top of his head and then his temple, and then his cheek, feeling him getting warm, warm and shy and totally helpless in her hands. There’s something about planning and carrying out a heist that makes her wild, and maybe Hyojong’s in the wrong place at the wrong time but she’s taking it out on him, kissing his cheek again and then, growing bold, the corner of his mouth, deliberately this time, her fingers tightening in his hair.

He squirms, and not in the fun way. “Hyuna,” he mumbles. “C’mon.”

“Sorry,” she says immediately, just as embarrassed as he is, and lets go of him to scoot back to where she’d been. She can’t quit cold turkey, though, and reaches up one last time to smooth down the hair she’d mussed. She knows she can get carried away with him, and while she does feel like they don’t have any boundaries — they’ve seen each other naked more times than she can count, and she’s kissed him plenty in the past, lipstick all over his face and sweet pouty mouth as soon as he’d gotten off his plane at Charles de Gaulle 5 years ago — she still knows it’s not fair to torture him like this. It’s not fair regardless of how she herself may feel, what she might want to do, because if he doesn’t want it (and he’s never given any indication of wanting it), then she doesn’t want it, either.

“Um,” Hyojong says, picking the papers back up, “so Saturday? What time?”

“Afternoon? Whenever there’ll be a lot of people,” Hyuna says, trying to move past it and tucking her hair behind her ears so it doesn’t get into her face. “Probably won’t take too long to do, we’ll be done by dinner. We can go to that udon place.”

“Cool.” Hyojong reads over the notes one more time, then glances up at Hyuna briefly. “Can I have a copy of these?”

“Totally,” Hyuna nods. It’ll be a pain to write it all out again, but taking a picture is too risky, and she doesn’t have a copy machine at work, so that’s her only option. “I’ll have it for you by tomorrow.”

“No rush,” Hyojong says and stands up, stretching his arms and rubbing the back of his neck. Hyuna hates that the atmosphere is verging on awkward, but she knows they’ll get over it after a night’s sleep, so she doesn’t try to keep him there, just smiles up at him.

“Sleep well,” she says, starting to gather her papers back up, leaving the Orangerie ones on top for ease of access. “I’ll trim your hair tomorrow, too.”

Hyojong rolls his eyes and goes out of the room without saying anything else, which she takes as a good sign that he’s not mad at her. He closes the door behind himself, but she can still hear his footsteps as he continues through Hui’s room and out to the kitchen.

She has work in the morning every day this week until Saturday, and what with being the manager, she has to be on-time for some fucking reason, so even though it’s barely past ten she starts getting ready for bed. Her pre-work nighttime routine is extensive, and each time she has to perform it in this tragic bachelor shoebox, she misses her own apartment more and more; as if it weren’t bad enough that she has to traverse her room and Hui’s room to get to the bathroom, the shower is in the fucking kitchen, which may be perfect for a quick (if soggy) breakfast but is nowhere near ideal for someone who has as many skincare products as she does.

She gathers up her nightgown and puts slippers on, trying to be as quiet as she can when she opens the door and steps into Hui’s room. But to her surprise, he’s still awake, so engrossed in his work or whatever he’s doing on his computer that he doesn’t even look up to smile at her like he usually does when she passes by. It really doesn’t make sense how he has so much work as a secretary, but it’s a big corporate place full of exploitation, so either he’s getting a promotion soon or he’s being very seriously overworked.

Well, fine. If he’s not going to acknowledge her, then she’s not going to acknowledge him. She shuffles along the smooth hardwood floor and out past Hyojong watching hot knife compilations at the table and finally into the teeny-tiny bathroom. It’s not like her place is larger — in fact, it’s significantly smaller — but this feels so cramped and tiny, and Hui has even more hair care products than she does, enough that he can’t keep them in the shower but has to store them in here. He’s kind of a strange guy, really. She doesn’t know him all too well, and all she heard from Hyojong before she’d met him for herself was that he was really nice and a little bit of an airhead, always busy doing something inconsequential and forgetting where he left his keys. Harmless for the most part, and he makes good breakfasts. Way better than the last guy Hyojong had roomed with, that’s for sure; he’d been noisy and aggressive, always calling Hyojong “man” and leaving empty cans all over the place. No, this is much better, almost peaceful, which is a luxury for Hyuna and Hyojong and what they do.

After about forty-five minutes of extensive moisturizing and self-care, Hyuna goes back to her room, and, once again, Hui doesn’t look up at her.

Why is that so annoying? She shouldn’t care if he says good night or not, and in fact she doesn’t. Plus, the spread of papers around him is so similar to the one Hyuna had had on her bed a little while ago that it’s clear he’s really busy, so. It’s fine. Whatever. She already has one friend, she doesn’t need any more.

Wednesday passes without incident, but Thursday morning brings some chaos with it. She’d had to call an early staff meeting to discuss flagging sales, and while she loves yelling at people (why become a manager of a middling jewelry store in the fucking Carrousel du Louvre if you don’t love yelling at people?), she loves sleeping in even more, so she’s starting the day off in a pissy mood already, rushing to get ready and find her other earring and pick out shoes that go with her outfit. Hyojong’s still in bed, the bastard, and he laughs to himself each time she rushes past.

Hui’s there, too, fully dressed for work and in the kitchen leaning against the counter, eating a two-egg omelette, minding his own business. Hyuna zooms in, says, “Hi,” grabs his mug of coffee, takes a gulp before he can stop her, then zooms back out, remembering that she’d taken her earrings off at Hyojong’s desk and so the missing one is probably hidden under a pen or snowglobe or old Kinder Surprise toy.

“Hi,” he calls after her, a smile in his voice, but she doesn’t have time for this, and she’s just found her other earring and is putting it on when her phone buzzes with a text from Hyojong, even though he’s literally fifteen feet away from her and could just talk out loud.

She glances at it reflexively, seeing a link to something or other, then tosses lipstick, spare bobby pins, her security keycard, and sunglasses into her purse. Fuck, even if she’d left five minutes ago she’d still be running late. She’s about to declare herself perfect and head out, but first she needs shoes, and so she wastes another thirty seconds on being indecisive before remembering that her Chanel heels go with everything and slipping those on.

“Check your phone,” Hyojong says from his room.

Hyuna huffs, and even though she has half a mind to ignore him, looks at the message again and taps the link. “See you later,” she says, waving her free hand at him as she click-clacks through his room and out to the front door.

“Did you check?” he insists.

She figures that since she’s late already, she may as well not rush, so she humors him and actually looks this time, reading the headline of the article he’d sent her. And she stops right in the middle of the entryway, frowning at her screen.

Police: ‘Insurance fraud’ a possibility in €70M museum robbery is what the headline says, which makes no fucking sense for multiple reasons.

First of all, if the paintings were really worth 70 million collectively then Hyuna’s gonna have to make some calls and demand a bigger payout. 3 is nice, but if 70 was what was at stake, then no way is Hyuna passing up all that Gucci potential.

Second, insurance fraud? What? Considering Hyuna literally cut the Monet off its canvas with her own two hands, it’s a ludicrous accusation, but it doesn’t exactly hurt Hyuna and Hyojong’s operation. In fact, if anything, it helps them out, since the police will be focusing on investigating an inside job, not an outside one.

But maybe she’s getting ahead of herself. As she unlocks the door with one hand, she scrolls down the article with the other to read why, exactly, the police are suspecting insurance fraud here. Something something the painting has been stolen before, changing management, disgruntled employees… ‘There were no signs of forced entry found, indicating that the building was intentionally left unsecured to facilitate a break-in,’ Hyuna reads.

Literally what? Is this article seriously implying that she and Hyojong did such a good job that it could only have been done by someone with inside knowledge or help? If so, that’s seriously flattering, but it could also mean that museums across the city won’t be changing their security at all and everything can proceed according to the slow schedule she’d planned for.

“Hyuna?” Hui says from not far away, and when she tears herself away from the article she sees him hanging out in the kitchen doorway. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

“Uh huh, sure,” Hyuna says absently as she looks back down at her phone again. There are a few more paragraphs left for her to read, and it’s important shit, she doesn’t want to focus on small talk right now.

“Great,” Hui says. Hyuna’s still reading the article: now it’s just getting to a recap of the theft itself, as well as the quotes from Françoise Nyssen about disgrace and protection of culture and other meaningless garbage like that. “So I was thinking… we’re all living together now, and that’s great, it really is! It’s been great having you here. But it made me realize that I don’t know you all that well, even though we both spend a lot of time with Hyojong. You’re really great, like, really great, and it’s kind of a shame that we aren’t really friends, you know, you and me, so I think it’d be nice to spend some time together, just the two of us. I mean, you’re probably curious about me, too, right? Like, who’s this guy that’s living with my best friend! And that’s totally fair, but it’s been two years of Hyojong and I being roommates, and I feel like I’ve never just sat down and… talked to you, you know?”

Hyuna has clicked through a couple of links embedded in the original article and is now learning about the current prefect and chief of police, as well as their duties. Apparently, police have to enforce that at least one bakery is open in each neighborhood during summer holidays, as if they don’t have better things to worry about. As a result, she’s not really paying any kind of attention to whatever Hui is going off about. “Totally,” she says.

“I’m glad you feel the same way,” Hui says warmly. “That’s such a relief. I think we’re very compatible as people, and obviously we both care about Hyojong a lot, so why should we be strangers? So what do you think, would you like to get lunch? Or dinner, if you prefer. Maybe on Saturday, if you’re free.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Hyuna says and continues to not look up from her phone. It’s not entirely clear who, exactly, is investigating the theft and potential insurance fraud, but it seems to be a combination of local police and the Ministry of the Interior. Serious stuff, but she’s not too worried; this is just a lot to take in, and she can’t help feeling a little proud of the quality of their work. It’s not like it’s hard to fool the cops, but still.

“Great! Which, then? Lunch or dinner? Honestly, we can do both, it’s not like I could have any better plans than spending time with you,” Hui smiles.

“Uh huh,” Hyuna says, by now cycling through responses.

“…So which one?” Hui says after a brief pause, and now that Hyuna’s finished her investigation, she can look up at him properly, and she finds him smiling gently, eyes all lit up like she’s just promised him something special.

Whoops. Did she just agree to something? What the fuck was it? “Could you repeat the question?” Hyuna says slowly.

As requested, Hui blinks and repeats, “Lunch or dinner?”

“When?” Hyuna says, narrowing her eyes.

“Saturday,” Hui says, and he sounds almost hurt that she wasn’t paying attention. “Did you hear anything I said?”

“Yeah, all of it,” Hyuna assures him. “Friends… Dawn… hanging out… lunch or dinner on Saturday.”

Hui, appeased, nods. “Does that sound okay?”

Well, fuck. Hyuna’s already said yes, but she’s also definitely got plans for Saturday. Her brain shorts out — the TV static volume is up too high for her to be able to think straight. “Let’s go to the Musée de l’Orangerie, they have all those new Monet water lilies.”

There’s a muffled squawking noise from Hui’s room, but Hyuna ignores it. Hui doesn’t seem to hear it at all, and his face is bright and open again. “Perfect,” he agrees. “Would you like to go together or meet there?”

“Meet there,” Hyuna says. What the fuck? Why can’t she stop talking? Where is this even coming from? “Look, I’m really late, I have to go to work…”

“Of course, of course, no problem,” Hui nods, stepping back. “Have a good day, and I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Okay,” Hyuna says. Each word she says only confuses her more, so before she can keep letting her brain and mouth continue with their divorce proceedings, she turns and goes out of the apartment, locking the door behind herself out of habit.

Jesus Christ, okay. While she and Hyojong are casing the Orangerie, she and Hui will also be hanging out to get to know each other better. No big deal, she’s great at multitasking. Her phone’s buzzing with texts from Hyojong (most of them are just question marks, since he could never stop himself from eavesdropping, nosy bitch), but she ignores the notifications as she walks to the metro.

This is a lot to take in. Technically, this Hui situation isn’t that surprising, considering they really have known each other for two years and she feels like she doesn’t know a damn thing about him; despite being very social and personable, he doesn’t talk about himself ever, as if he hates being the center of attention so much that he’d rather she and Hyojong knew nothing about him at all. All she knows, really, is that he’s also from Korea, came here on a student visa a few years ago and ended up staying once he got a job, but other than that it’s a blank. She’d trusted Hyojong to run his own background checks on his possible roommates (technically, the first guy had been Hyuna’s fault, since she’d been the one who found him and suggested they live together, so she was barred from the roommate search after that), so if Hyojong deemed him suitable, nothing too bad must have come up.

She’ll see for herself on Saturday, apparently.

She finally texts Hyojong back that she panicked but it’ll be fine and she’ll make it work. They can head over there beforehand, do a preliminary walk-around to look-see for some obvious vulnerabilities, and then she’ll go and meet Hui and somehow set off an alarm in a very non-suspicious, very chill way, and it’ll be totally cool.

She only realizes her mistake early Saturday morning.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Hyuna only realizes her mistake early Saturday morning, by which point she’s already picked out a dress and spent the better part of an hour doing her makeup. Hyojong’s been in a bad mood since Thursday for some reason — he must have figured out that they got scammed out of 63 million euro, and it’s making him crabby and even less talkative than usual — so he’s no help whatsoever, leaving Hyuna totally alone to pick earrings to complete her look.

The mistake is this: she’s starting to suspect that this is a date, and even if it isn’t, it’s still going to be a weird afternoon. Agreeing to it had been the initial mistake, and continuing to go along with it is the second. If Hui and Hyojong didn’t live together and if Hyuna didn’t have to see Hui fairly regularly as a result, she’d have backed out as soon as she’d connected all the dots, but now she has no other choice but to go.

It’s not like there’s any real reason for her to suspect it’s a date. She hasn’t seen Hui very much at all since he asked to hang out; when she’d gotten back from work on Thursday, he was out at a staff dinner, and yesterday morning, he’d been gone before she even woke up. It’s all in her head, more likely than not. There’s really no need for her to obsess over this, and she reassures herself of this over and over as she wriggles into one of her prettiest black bras and then shimmies into a blue sundress patterned with tiny white flowers, falling just barely to the middle of her thighs. Perfume goes on the insides of her wrists and gets daubed lightly on either side of her neck, below her ears, and her hair goes up into a loose ponytail with a few strands curling down by her temples.

Unfortunately, it’s totally a date outfit. She even wears high heels as a power move, even though she’s sure she’ll regret it after about ten minutes of stomping around the museum. But she was careful both when she was doing her makeup and picking out this dress, its scoop neckline deep but not plunging, not to overdo it. After all, it’s not really a date.

The real deciding factor will be Hui’s reaction to seeing her for the first time. If he’s shook, she overdid it, and although she’s way too important and pretty to ever feel shame, it’ll definitely be a little uncomfortable for a while. For Hui, that is. Hyuna’s never uncomfortable whilst wearing a short dress.

She and Hyojong set out at 10 precisely, since she and Hui are supposed to meet at 11. Hyojong will go to the back entrance of the museum and lurk around until Hyuna sets the alarm off and Hyuna will get the tickets herself as yet another power move. Everything’s going according to plan, even despite this unexpected plus-one.

“I don’t know how I’m going to restrain myself when I see them,” Hyuna sighs, leaning briefly against Hyojong as they both hold on to the same pole for support, swaying with the train.

“Who?” Hyojong says. He still sounds grouchy, and he leans away from Hyuna, nose wrinkling, when he smells her perfume.

“The fruits,” she explains. “You know, the fruits. Is that clear enough, or do I have to—”

“I know what you’re talking about,” Hyojong says, snippy.

Hyuna raises her eyebrows. “Jeez, okay. Please unclench.” She watches him for a second, but he’s looking elsewhere, reading an ad for H&M, so she gives up on trying to scrute the inscrutable and digs around in her purse for a tin of breath mints. “Want one?”

Hyojong glances down at the proffered mints, huffs quietly through his nose, and shakes his head. “Nah,” he says.

Hyuna’s eyebrows go higher, but she really doesn’t have the energy to deal with whatever mood he’s in right now, so she just pops a mint into her mouth and checks her lips out in the shiny reflective back of the tin. “If you’re going to be like this, just stay out of my way, then,” she says coolly, using the edge of her thumbnail to clean up the lower line of her lips and fix a smear of tinted balm. “I’ll text you when we’re done.”

“Fine,” Hyojong says just as coolly.

Oh, shit. That had been a test, and Hyuna hadn’t expected him to pass. Something must actually be up with him beyond them being underpaid. Is he mad at her? What could she possibly have done? When it comes to Hyojong, Hyuna has never done anything wrong, and everything she does is for him, even this not-a-date she’s about to go on with his zany roommate. Surely he knows that. But before she can ask or clarify, their train is stopping at Concorde and Hyojong is disembarking, and she has to hurry to catch up.

She won’t let him or Hui spoil her mood. Regardless of Hyojong being pissy and of Hui wanting to get to know her better, she’s still about to pull off the largest heist of her and Hyojong’s career so far, both in terms of number of paintings and said paintings’ name recognition. Heartened by this thought, she strides ahead, paying Hyojong no particular mind as they walk to the museum. It’s a beautiful day outside, too, which she takes as a good omen.

“See you soon,” she says when they’re nearing their destination. “Keep your phone on.”

Hyojong, clearly struggling with himself, nods. “Good luck,” he mumbles, which almost makes Hyuna feel bad for him. She knows that he hates being mad at her, so if he is, it can’t be easy for him. He’d better get over it soon, though, or else.

“Thank you,” she says, and, taking pity, reaches up to touch his cheek gently, then grasp his arm and give it a fond, reassuring squeeze. She’s off after that, heels clicking and hair bouncing, to go and buy her tickets.

She’s one fucking year too old to get a free ticket for herself, but batting her eyelashes and providing a hastily constructed sob story about this being a first date with a boy she wants to impress wins a free ticket for Hui, who, as a 25-year-old with a visa, barely makes it within the freebie parameters. Yeah, Hyuna makes between two and ten million euro a year on average, but that doesn’t mean she wants to drop a whole extra nine euros on a museum ticket for a museum that’s technically about to pay her.

Playing a Fruit Ninja knock-off on her phone, Hyuna waits outside the museum’s front entrance, all her weight leaned on one foot and the other one skimming back and forth along the ground. She’s decently stable like that, and yet when Hui calls her name, she almost falls over out of sheer surprise, and, adding insult to injury, loses that round of Vegetable Assassin.

“You scared me,” she complains. Belatedly, she remembers she was supposed to watch his reaction when he first saw her, but it’s pointless now — he’s just smiling at her, same as ever.

“Sorry,” he says, really sounding like he means it. “I’m not late, am I? I hope I didn’t keep you waiting!”

“I’m early,” Hyuna says, which is true, for once in her life. Usually, the only thing she’s on time for is grand larceny. “And look, I got our tickets already.” She brandishes them at him proudly.

“Oh, wow,” Hui says. He takes the tickets from her, and he looks absurdly pleased with this development as if Hyuna did something actually impressive. “You didn’t have to, I was going to get them!”

“Don’t get too excited, yours was free,” she says, validated by how willing and ready he is to hype her up.

“Well, still,” Hui says, handing the tickets back and smiling at her again. “Thank you.”

She smiles back prettily and takes him by the elbow to guide him to the door. “Let’s go inside before it gets mobbed,” she says. That makes it sound like she wants some privacy, but she doesn’t, she just has plans that are kind of time-sensitive; she’d feel bad about leaving Hyojong skulking in the back for an indeterminately long period.

Hui seems very content to let her lead him around, and after their tickets are scanned and they’ve gone into the museum and Hyuna’s picked up a map, he asks, “Why did you want to come here? Not that I mind! It sounds lovely, I just didn’t know you liked art all that much.”

Hyuna almost laughs in his face. Little does he know, poor thing. “Well, since I work right around the corner, I see the ads for it all the time, and I’ve been meaning to check it out ever since they opened this exhibition,” she explains.

“Oh, you work at the Carrousel, right?” Hui says.

“Right,” Hyuna says. She’s never told him that, but Hyojong must have a while ago, and Hui does have a pretty good memory for details, apparently. When it comes to her, at least. “Sometimes they let us in the museum late after it’s closed for staff parties and stuff.”

“That sounds super cool,” Hui enthuses. Why is he so fucking jazzed all the time? Not everything is exciting, not that you’d be able to tell from the way he responds to every word Hyuna says.

To Hyuna’s dismay, it’s a little endearing. “Yeah, it is,” she says, slipping her arm through his. Maybe this much touching is too familiar for people who barely know each other despite having been acquainted for two years, but Hyuna’s never put much stock into propriety. Being bold is a shortcut to making friends, she’s learned. Hui could be a valuable ally to have, an easy alibi provider if worse comes to worst. “Do you want to see the water lilies right away, or the permanent collection first?”

Hui thinks about it for a moment, then leans over to see the map she’s holding in her other hand. “Permanent collection,” he decides. “Delayed gratification for the water lilies. Does that sound okay?”

What a fucking weirdo. One would think that Hyuna would be used to weirdos, having been acquainted with Hyojong first online and then in real life for the better part of seven years, but Hui’s a totally different flavor of weirdo. “Sure,” she says, amused despite herself. “Lead the way.”

The permanent collection is on the lower floor and Hui, ever the gentleman, walks slower so Hyuna can gracefully descend the stairs in her heels. It’s totally unnecessary and a very naïve assumption to make, and she’s neither appreciative nor annoyed. What she is, mostly, is excited to see her future spoils of war, and they’re right where she remembers them being: all four in the same room, the three Renoirs even hanging together in a little cluster for convenience and ease of being stolen.

She can’t help herself. “These are cute,” she says, gesturing to the paintings in question. One is of peaches, one is of apples and pears, and one is of strawberries. The final painting, the Cezanne, is called Apples and biscuits because that’s what it’s a painting of, and she can see it out of the corner of her eye, a little further down the wall.

“Which ones?” Hui says, coming in closer again. He’d wandered off briefly to look at some other Renoirs, but he’s never too far away from her, and now that he’s this close she can almost smell his aftershave, a smell which hangs around the kitchen sometimes after he showers. “Oh, these? They are cute.”

Hyuna hums, smiling fondly at the paintings. Soon they’ll be freed from their heavy frames and curled up in her room somewhere. “Now I’m so in the mood for fruit,” she sighs, trying her luck a little bit.

“Would you like to go get lunch?” Hui suggests instantly. Men are so easy to manipulate that sometimes it’s not even fun. “I mean, not right now, unless you’re hungry. Just whenever we’re done.”

“Okay,” Hyuna says, pleased with herself, and takes him by the arm again so they can walk through the rest of the gallery.

Date or not, it’s nicer than expected, being with him. She’d expected him to ramble and ask nosy questions, but so far, he hasn’t asked anything personal at all, as if he’s just enjoying her company for the sake of it, as opposed to for the sake of learning all about her. He looks nice, too, a loose silky button-up tucked into trousers that end at the ankle, his hair messy over his forehead and lighter than usual due to showers and the sun.

Hyuna doesn’t date. Between her illicit double life and her forever-long obsession with her best friend/partner-in-crime, she doesn’t really have the time or the interest to get to know someone new. But something about this, maybe the way Hui smiles at her when she leans in to look more closely at a painting, maybe how she really can smell his aftershave and know that he dressed up for her, too, is almost making her wish that she did.

That’s the heist talking, though. She always gets a little wild when one is on the horizon. (“Like PMS, but for art theft, and it gives me powerful hoe energy instead of cramps,” she’d explained to Hyojong once.) These feelings, whatever they are, will doubtless go away once the paintings are in her possession — Hui’s just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

They go back upstairs to finally see the water lilies, since Hyuna’s internal clock is telling her they’ve been there around twenty minutes and she needs to get things moving so Hyojong can go home. The Nymphéas are displayed as Monet intended, eight massive paintings following the curves of two oval-shaped rooms. The first room, which has four contrasting paintings of Monet’s usual blurry bullshit, is pleasant enough, but it’s the second one that really catches Hyuna’s fancy, and as she and Hui do a very slow lap around to take in the sights — these four blurry bullshit paintings all match each other, apparently, not that the difference is noticeable — she thinks, wistfully, about how nice it would be to steal one of these.

As pleasant as this is, it’s showtime. A couple of families have set the alarms off already, curious little children getting altogether too close to the art, but it’s been only for a second or two at most, and only to the low-alert level, barely even audible; there’s no way that’ll be enough for Hyojong to do his thing. Hyuna needs to do something big, something like breaking one of her heels and stumbling right into the wall or pretending to lose a contact and therefore needing to crawl around painting-adjacent to find it or tripping someone and making them fall into the alarm’s danger zone. So many options, so little time. And she has to do it without making Hui suspicious, too.

While she’s riding first-class on this train of thought, Hui’s gone off to circle around by himself, and when he comes back to her side, he’s got a dreamy look on his face. “This is really incredible,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s so immersive. Have you ever been to Giverny? You know, where his garden is? It’s just like this. So beautiful.”

Suddenly it all seems very simple.

“Come here,” Hyuna says.

Hui goes still, looking over at her. “Where?” he asks, carefully.

“Here,” she repeats and turns towards him, breath soft, eyes warm. She doesn’t want to ask again, but she will if he still doesn’t get it, even though she’s made it very clear what she wants.

She takes a small step forward, and so does Hui. His face looks different somehow, more serious, but maybe that’s just because she’s closer to him than she’s ever been before and she can see him better like this. He’s reaching for her, almost, but he stops himself just before making contact, his eyes darting down to her lips, her exposed collarbone.

He swallows — she watches his throat working — and says, “Hyuna,” and before he can even finish saying it all the way she leans in and kisses him.

Hui’s mouth is very warm and his hands come up to hold her by the waist, and God, oh fuck, he really tastes sweet, his lower lip sucked wet into Hyuna’s mouth and a surprised breath huffing out of him when she bites him there. He’s shy and she likes that, kissing him harder, coaxing him open, bringing one of her hands up to curl around his jaw and press her thumb to the corner of his mouth to get him to open up for her, give her his tongue, let her lick along the ridge of his teeth and swallow his air when he breathes.

It’s just for show, or it was at first, but now she can’t tell the difference and she can’t hold back, pulling him closer to her, into her, until his hands go tighter on her waist and she runs her own palms back up into his hair, pulling him in, and in, and in. She stumbles back, swayed by the force of the kiss, because he’s really kissing her now, all out of shyness, turning his head to get a better angle and kiss her deep like she’s the only one there, like they’re at home just the two of them, like he’s forgotten about anything and everything that isn’t her tongue working against his own and the way they both have to gasp for air when they change position even slightly.

This time when she slips backward it’s for real, one of her ankles going all wobbly from how fucking deep he can kiss, and he stumbles to catch her, arm sliding around her body. Faintly, in the distance, she can hear a low beeping that gets higher and higher, and she sways back again and pulls him with her, one hand dragging down from his hair to the nape of his neck to finally curl in the collar of his shirt, and the beeping gets louder, higher still.

She just needs to keep it going for a few more seconds, as long as she can. Beyond the beeping, she’s hearing murmurs, most likely disapproving, but she doesn’t care, can’t care, and this time Hui is the one who sways forward and pushes her back, coming in too eagerly for another kiss. Fuck, she wants her hands on him, wants him to touch her, too, why are there so fucking many people in this museum? He bites on her lower lip and she gasps, breath shaking out of her as she kisses him again, nipping, teasing, greedy.

Someone very close clears their throat, then again, and finally says, “Excusez-moi,” in the kind of tone that leaves no room for questions. Hyuna shudders and forces herself to pull back, still right up against Clear Morning with Willows, barely two inches away, her dress very nearly brushing it. She opens her eyes to see Hui and he looks devastating, cheeks flushed high with pink, lips slick, expression just as shocked and dazed as hers must be, and when she tears herself away from looking at him to look at whoever owned the throat they’d been clearing, she sees a frowning man in a uniform, his arms crossed.

“Please step away from the painting,” he says, and Hui stammers a quick apology and does so, pulling Hyuna gently along with him. She feels a thrill; he hasn’t taken his hand off the small of her back. “What’s going on here? This is a family museum, you know. There are children in the room with you.”

At the exact same moment, in the exact same instant, Hyuna says, “I just told him I’m pregnant,” and Hui says, “I just proposed.”

Surprised, they look at each other quickly, and Hyuna’s too kiss-drunk to really understand right off the bat what just happened, but further contemplation reveals that Hui had lied to cover for them, just as quickly and instinctively as she had. Impressive, honestly. She wouldn’t have expected him to have the moral fiber for that sort of thing.

The guard also looks between them. “Which is it?” he says, and thank fuck, he sounds amused. “Is she pregnant, or did you propose?”

Hui glances at Hyuna, his hand tightening in the fabric of the back of her dress, and she says, “Both. I told him I’m pregnant, and—”

“I’d been planning to propose for so long anyway,” Hui cuts in, sounding bashful but over-the-moon happy. “It seemed like the perfect moment.”

“I guess we got a little carried away,” Hyuna nods, a pretty blush coloring her cheeks and making her look shy like she hadn’t just been tongue-fucking Hui against a Monet mural. “We’re just… starting a family together. I’ve been waiting for this moment since we met. I can’t believe it’s finally here.”

She holds her breath and looks at the guard. He’d seemed gruff on first glance, but the French are so sentimental, and if they can just win his affections, they’ll be good to go. “I see,” the guard says slowly. He looks at Hyuna, and he’s actually starting to smile. “So you’re going to make an honest man out of him, huh?”

“It took her long enough,” Hui agrees with a soft laugh.

The guard chuckles, too, shaking his head. “Congratulations, then. Just hold off on the rest of the celebration until you get home.” He winks at Hyuna, which makes her feel a little skeevy, and, miraculously, leaves them alone after that, heading back to his post at the door.

Hyuna’s phone buzzes inside her purse with three texts sent in very rapid succession; that’s the signal from Hyojong that he’s gotten what they need and all is well. She exhales in relief, but their work isn’t over yet, and she still has this itch under her skin, spreading hot through her body from the spot where Hui is touching her.

“Come on,” she says to him, quiet and purposeful, and slides her hand down from his shoulder to grasp him by the wrist, tugging until he gets it and lets her take him by the hand, fingers slotting together tightly.

“Where are we going?” he says as she turns and starts leading him out of the gallery, flashing a quick, demure smile the way of some well-meaning middle-aged losers who watch them passing by.

“Shut up,” Hyuna says. There’s a single-user bathroom stall hidden behind the coatroom on this floor, unmarked by signs but shown on the floor plan she memorized before coming here, and that’s where she’s leading Hui. Hyojong can find his own way home. Right now, Hyuna has more urgent things on her mind.

The secret to getting away with sneaking around is confidence, so Hyuna pulls Hui through the coatroom without sparing even a glance for the attendant there, which, in turn, means they don’t get noticed either. Hui’s still following without questioning, and his grip on her hand is tight. When they get to the bathroom, she checks the handle and finds it unlocked, so she pushes it open and yanks Hui in with her, closing the door and wasting no time in shoving him up against it.

“Oh,” Hui barely manages to say before Hyuna’s flipping the lock and pressing against him, hands running up his chest, face upturned to him, lips parted.

“Stop me if you don’t want this,” Hyuna breathes, going up onto her toes so she can be as close to him as possible. She can feel his belt buckle through the thin fabric of her dress, and she can feel it when he inhales all shaky, his eyes wide and dark as he looks at her.

“I want it,” he says, voice low, and she’s done wasting time so she hikes her dress up to her hips and grasps his hand again, then lets him grab her ass as she kisses him hard and urgent, licking filthy into his mouth.

Fuck, this is so much better, and now that she knows it’s real she’s high on it, on the way Hui whines in his throat when she moves up to bite his earlobe. “I know you do,” she murmurs, licking below his ear. He’s so warm here, pulse jumping under his skin, shuddering when she scrapes her teeth along his jaw. “Can smell it on you that you want me.”

“Can you?” Hui musters, his hand tightening on her, pulling her closer. “What’s that on you, Chanel No. 5?”

“Good boy,” Hyuna purrs, arching her back. “Wanna see what else is on me?”

Hui, at a loss for words, just nods, and Hyuna leans up to kiss him before using her grip on the back of his neck to turn them, letting him see over her shoulder into the mirror above the bathroom sink. She sucks on his neck in the meantime, and she feels rather than hears the way he gasps in a breath at the sight of her all over him, his hand holding tight on her ass, her panties really barely there.

“You want to take them off?” she says into his skin. “Or do you want to ruin them? I wore them just for you, that wouldn’t be nice.”

Hui makes a small, helpless noise and tilts his head down to try and get a kiss, and she obliges, pressing their lips together as she rubs up against him, back still arched to show herself off. Despite what she’s saying, she wants him touching her, she knows she’s wet already — it doesn’t take much when she’s in a mood — and she presses her knee between Hui’s thighs to get him to spread his legs, letting her slot their bodies together and grind dirty on him.

He realizes what she’s doing and makes another choked sound against her mouth when her thigh and hip push right into him, hard in his clean-pressed preppy trousers, and he must either be real sensitive or very turned on already, because when she slides her hand down to grasp the firm outline of his cock through the fabric, he trembles full-bodied.

Hyuna loves power and success, and there’s nothing that gives her a sweeter kick than this, than the way it jumps in her grip, pushing against his zipper. Hui has to break the kiss to press his face into her neck, trying to keep it together. “Sorry,” he mumbles, breath hot, and she laughs low right against his ear, rubbing him with her palm.

“Don’t be, gorgeous,” she breathes, and he nods slightly, his other hand running up her back and into her hair, messing up her ponytail to the extent that she reaches back herself to take the hairband out. “You really want me, I know. You touch yourself to me while I’m in the next room, don’t you? I always see you looking at my tits, you’re not subtle.”

“Sorry,” Hui gasps again, not sounding particularly sorry at all as he lets go of her ass in favor of dragging his hand up her front instead, palm curving around her through her dress and her bra. Finally he’s touching her the way he’s been kissing, hungry as he squeezes the lush shape of her, seeks out her nipple with his thumb and index finger and gives it a tug that makes her squirm against him.

“Don’t be shy,” Hyuna says between hot, sucking kisses. “Touch me how you want to touch me, feel me up, c’mon.”

He’s heating up against her, she can feel his body through the thin cotton of her dress, and he does as she asks, his other hand moving to grab her ass as his other keeps squeezing and teasing on her chest. With her free hand, she starts undoing the buttons of his shirt so she can kiss down his throat and bite on his shoulder, and she loves how this makes her feel, being touched all over like this like his palms are mapping out her body. She’s about two seconds away from tearing his shirt open the rest of the way and marking him up with hickeys that won’t fade for a week, but he changes up his game before she can, leaving her tits alone in favor of sliding his hand down, grabbing her thigh, and all she can do is whimper a breathless “Yes yes yes” as he slips his hand into her panties.

Now neither of them can breathe even a little, their kisses so sloppy that they’re just biting messily at each other’s lips, and he presses two fingers inside her. She’s so wet that she opens up for him right away, and while he finger-fucks her slow she undoes his belt and zip and gets her hand on him fully. His resulting moan is low, trembling through his chest, and his cock is thick and dripping wet, too, jerking in her hand when she strokes him tight and long.

“You should be thanking God that we’re out right now,” she pants against his shoulder. “If we were at home, I’d be eating you alive, you’re such a fucking hot piece of ass, always in your preppy outfits making me want to wreck you. Do you think about me? When you touch yourself, do you think about fucking me over your desk? I do.”

“Hyuna,” Hui says, strangled. She spreads her legs wider, demanding, and he helps, his other hand moving from her ass to grab her thigh tightly from behind so he can hitch that leg up and push his fingers so much deeper inside. His thumb’s pressing up against her clit just right and she can’t stop squirming, hips working back and forth on his hand, getting wet all through her panties, down her thighs, probably on his pants. “Let me— can I see— please—”

She knows what he wants, but no way in hell is she going to let go of his dick, so she has to use one hand to yank her dress down over her shoulder, managing to slip one arm free at first and then switching hands so she can pull the other one out, until the dress is barely even on her at all, pooling at her waist and leaving her shivering in her bra. “Yeah?” she breathes. “This what you wanted, hm?” Her breasts are perky and straining against the black lace of her bra, and she rubs herself on him shamelessly, the motion of her hips as she fucks down on his fingers making them bounce.

Hui nods helplessly and when she catches him in a kiss he whines, his whole body shaking as she keeps stroking him. He’s a good multitasker, though, his fingers moving fast and confident inside her, practiced, making her tremble, too, and of course he must get crazy pussy, no wonder he’s so good at this.

The thought makes a surge of hot jealousy rise up in her and she tightens her grip on him, which makes him moan, head falling back against the bathroom door for a second. Hyuna has a very strict rule against sucking cock on the first date, but he’s almost making her reconsider. He’d probably sound so damn pretty, needy, and he’d be too polite to yank on her hair. Her eyes are glazing over as she thinks about it, and when he presses his face into his neck and mumbles, “I want to eat you out so bad,” she almost doesn’t hear.

She does, though, and makes a low, pleased noise, practically fucking throbbing on his hand, hips restless and squirming as she chases the feeling, grinding down on his fingers stretching her open and his thumb rubbing tight and perfect on her clit. “You do? You’ve got good lips for it,” she sighs. “Make me come and I’ll consider it for next time.”

Hui chokes on his breath and her smile is triumphant at his reaction, but it slips off her face real fast when he twists his fingers inside her and presses his thumb against her clit harder, pulling and circling just the way she likes. She’s coming undone fast, thighs shaking and her back arching, and if he wants a show he’ll fucking get one — she really does have no shame. With her free hand, she grabs onto the nape of his neck for stability, fingernails digging in, and she shudders, head falling back and hair cascading all over her bare shoulders. And as she comes, waves of heat rolling through her whole body and making her clench down so fucking tight on his fingers, she can hear his hushed gasps while he watches and that only makes her hotter aching everywhere burning for it until she’s oversensitive and jumpy and trembling and she has to push at his hand to get him to stop.

He’s clearly being as patient as he can, but when she moves her fingers on his cock he has to turn his face away to keep from moaning again, and she’s flushed, smiling, dazed. God, she needed that so bad. She wobbles on her one foot and he eases her leg down for her, steadying her waist with his free hand. His fingers are still inside her, and genius strikes her once again, making her smile sharpen, eyes bright.

“Here,” she murmurs, tugging at his wrist until he pulls his fingers out, which makes her shudder involuntarily at the echo of pleasure the accidental stimulation sends through her. His hand is soaked to his palm, and she holds him by the wrist and guides his hand up, up, and all the while he looks confused but intrigued until she gets to her destination and his cheeks go even more red. “Sneak peek.”

Hui doesn’t look away from her as he sucks his own fingers into his mouth to lick them clean, and she bites her lip absently, watching. He’s not doing it to show off, he’s not making it slutty or shy — he’s doing it like he’s taking it very seriously, which makes it all the better. When she can’t bear just watching anymore, she pulls his hand back from his lips and leans up to kiss the taste of herself out of his mouth, and she strokes him tight with a twist in her wrist until he goes very still and his breath goes very high and he comes all over her hand, clinging onto her for dear life, quivering and muffling his noises in her lips.

They stand there for a moment, drifting, and finally Hyuna is the one to move first, pressing a smacking wet kiss to his neck before stepping away and getting some paper towels from the dispenser by the sink to clean off her hands. In doing so, she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror and snorts a laugh at how ridiculous she looks: her dress is barely clinging onto her waist, her hair is fucking everywhere, and her lips are plump and red from kissing. “Wow,” she sighs, running the paper towel between her legs for good measure. “You okay?”

Hui, still leaned up against the door and breathing hard, nods. He doesn’t look much better than she does, what with his shirt half-undone and a warm flush all down his neck. He’s watching her pretty closely, too, and he makes a very cute face when she shimmies her panties down her legs and tosses them carelessly into the trash. “Jesus Christ,” he mumbles, somehow shocked into action by that, and comes over to get paper towels for himself so he can clean up and fix his pants.

“What?” she says innocently, leaning over the sink to reapply her lip balm, then put her hair back up. “You ruined them, after all. Do you expect me to ride the metro home in soaked panties?”

“No,” Hui says, sounding like he’s been squashed.

She smiles at him in the mirror. Fuck, explaining this to Hyojong is going to be a doozy. “Want me to fix your shirt for you?” she offers.

Hui looks down at himself, his reaction slightly delayed, and seems surprised to find that she’d opened most of his buttons. He must really have been bewitched by her to still be so out of it. “Oh. Sure. Thanks.”

Hyuna comes over to him, heels clicking against the bathroom tile, and does his buttons back up with quick, deft hands, then smooths down his collar and his hair. “You don’t think I’m easy or anything, do you?” she asks, tucking his shirt back into his pants.

He shakes his head, eyebrows raised. “Definitely not,” he says. Sincere as fuck as usual, too, which makes her feel warm.

“Good, because that was just a freebie, and if you ever want it again, you’ll have to work a hell of a lot harder,” she says, then leans up to kiss him lightly, their lips barely pressing together. He kisses back after a moment, just as softly. “We should leave separately. You go first, and I’ll meet you out front in a few minutes.”

“Okay,” Hui nods. He looks expectant for some reason, and Hyuna’s puzzled momentarily before she figures out what he wants and kisses him again, even softer this time. Contented, Hui steps back and heads for the door. He’s still reluctant to leave her, evidently, but she shoos him away until he unlocks the door and, smiling shyly to himself, goes out into the world beyond whatever the fuck they just did together.

Hyuna closes the door behind him just so she can have a moment or two alone, and she gets her phone out to check on Hyojong. As expected, the messages she’d received initially are just the letter G sent rapid-fire three times, but he’d texted her again while she was otherwise occupied; u good? and, after eight minutes, im going home. see u later.

She tries not to think about his tone for now, since she knows having her best friend’s roommate as a boy toy is going to be tricky to navigate. She’ll tell him later, she figures. Whenever they’re done with the robbery, which they should do tomorrow to get it over with. Now that all that’s decided, she fixes her hair in the mirror one last time (she only looks like she got fingerblasted for five minutes, not ten, which really isn’t too bad) and goes out to meet Hui downstairs.

“I thought you ditched me,” Hui says when she emerges from the museum, and she laughs, getting sunglasses out of her purse and bopping his arm with them before perching them on her nose.

“I’m being nice today,” she hums. “Don’t get used to it.” She turns around to get her bearings, then starts walking in the direction of the metro.

“Weren’t we going to get lunch?” Hui reminds as he follows.

Hyuna pauses for a second, considering this. “We can, but should we?”

“Well,” Hui says, shy and earnest again, “we were supposed to be getting to know each other today.”

“And we did,” Hyuna shrugs. “Don’t you think?” She smiles at him coyly as he goes pink, and waits for him to catch up so she can slip her arm through his and hold onto him tightly. “Besides, I shouldn’t go to a cafe. I’m not wearing panties,” she says, giving him a look.

Hui chokes slightly, going red now, and nods. “Good point,” he says. “Don’t remind me.”

“Why not?” Hyuna says innocently. “You can go somewhere if you want, but I’m going home.”

That confused look boys get when she speaks is one of her favorite things. “Um, okay,” Hui says, not arguing further.

“To my apartment, actually,” Hyuna amends. “I think they’re done working on it, my landlord texted me this morning.”

“Oh,” Hui says. She waits patiently for him to understand that this means that she won’t have to be living at his and Hyojong’s apartment anymore, ergo they can now sneak around properly and fuck at her place. Interestingly, Hui has never been to her apartment in all the years they’ve known each other. In fact, she’s not even entirely sure he knows where it is. So understanding takes a second, but he gets there. “That’s great!”

Hyuna hums in assent, opening her purse and looking through for a metro ticket. “Right? So I’m going to go check it out.”

“I guess I’ll also go back,” Hui says hesitantly. Coming must make him a little slow, which is a very cute character trait. “When, um…”

“When can you see me again? Right now,” Hyuna says. Now that she’s seeing Hui in a romantic-ish light, she’s getting really shameless with her flirting, which is already pretty bad even when she’s not interested in someone. “Other than that, I don’t know. I’ll text you. Come on.” She takes him by the arm and leads him into the metro, feeding her ticket into the machine and going through first. He catches up to her in a moment, and they board their train together.

It’s fairly crowded, so of course they have to stay close to each other. Hui gallantly fights his way through to try and get Hyuna a seat that’s ultimately snatched away by some smug teenager. She’s content to lean against him, though, laughing when she catches him looking at her. They transfer lines at Grenelle, Hyuna grabbing his wrist to pull him off the train so they don’t get separated and definitely holding on longer than she needs to, and this time they can get seats and they sit next to each other.

It’s a totally different vibe than riding home late at night with Hyojong, who’s always so touchy and quiet; Hui’s the exact opposite, physically stand-offish (despite having been knuckles-deep in Hyuna not half an hour ago) but chatty, talking about absolutely nothing in particular. Hyuna’s the one that keeps initiating contact, poking his arm or touching his knee or leaning against him. This is exciting, not even the sneaking around — God knows that won’t last, Hyuna can never keep a secret from Hyojong — but getting to spend time with someone new. Hui had been right, they really didn’t know each other at all, and though this hasn’t really changed that, they’re closer now anyway. Hyuna’s been close to exactly one person for the past five-six years, and while she wouldn’t give that closeness up for anything in the world and she’s not totally sure she wants to keep Hui yet, it’s fun for now, and that’s what matters.

Hui’s stop is first. He gets up when the train is almost at the station, clearly reluctant to leave her, and Hyuna rolls her eyes and stands, too. “Don’t be a baby,” she says, smoothing his collar down for him. “You’ll see me soon. Don’t tell Dawn, okay? I will, I promise.”

“Oh, okay,” Hui says, taking in all this information. “Okay, sure.”

“Good,” Hyuna says. Just to see what happens, she leans up and kisses him, her eyes half-open to watch his face bloom with surprise, before pushing the center of his chest to make him get off the train.

What a productive afternoon.

Her apartment really is done, thank fuck, and once she’s there she takes an hour-long bath (her tub isn’t in the kitchen, believe it or not) and a brief nap, naked in her day bed with the windows open and the curtains closed. Having her own space is exactly what she’s needed this whole week and now more than ever, what with this Hui thing and whatever weird reaction Hyojong is inevitably going to have to it. He’s always been possessive both of Hyuna and of what casual friends he’s managed to keep over the years, and Hyuna knows he doesn’t like for her to meet his acquaintances or coworkers or anyone in his life at all. She’s never pushed it before, but this sure as hell counts as pushing it.

She’s not nervous about it — in fact, she’s never been nervous about anything — but it is on her mind, so she finally texts Hyojong back that all is well and she’s ready whenever, how about they meet at 22:30 tomorrow to catch up? He’ll know what that means, since this is a low-key code they’ve been using since day one. Texting or even talking on the phone about what they’re actually doing is too risky, so the less information they communicate the better.

He texts back with an address of a Starbucks that’s open late and near the museum, so yeah, he got it. Hyuna looks at their text chain over the past couple of days and sighs, hoping he won’t be too weirded out when she tells him.

It’s always just been an issue of timing with them. It was never the right time and then she waited too long. That’s something she’s going to have to live with, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t regret it. In fact, that’s probably one of the only things she regrets. The list is short but not nonexistent, and includes but is not limited to: not writing more letters to her mother when she was at boarding school, not buying those limited-edition Louboutins before they sold out, going out for drinks with those college kids from Norway, and never actually making a real, unambiguous move on Hyojong.

Getting sentimental about it is easy when they’re not physically together, since every second of being in his presence is a reminder to Hyuna that maybe it’s for the best that she never made a move. This is proven very quickly when they rendezvous the next night at Starbucks, where Hyojong wastes about ten minutes of valuable heisting time on specifying the exact amount of apple juice he wants in his lime refresher, then making them move from table to table as people go in and out so as to avoid being overheard.

However, he settles down eventually, and, heads leaned in close over his refresher with one straw for them to share, they go over the plan. Since the alarm system has been down since this morning (Hyojong had overheard the guards talking about it), there’ll be no problems getting in — they can just break in through the front door. Hyuna knows exactly where the paintings are and the kit is ready to go; they’ll be in and out in 15 minutes, max.

Really, the only tricky thing is the museum’s super-public location. But they’ve got even that covered. Hyuna has some unsuspecting contacts in a local flash mob group and they’re currently working on a new project; she’s been subliminally conditioning them over the past few days to practice near the Orangerie at night when there’ll be fewer people and lots of open space to run around in. According to social media, they’re headed over there now, providing a nice little distraction to keep nighttime park-goers busy while Hyojong and Hyuna work their magic.

It’s all going off without a hitch so far. In their all-black outfits and accompanying belt bags (“still not a fucking fanny pack,” she insists as she clips hers on) they look like any other post-goth couple haunting Paris after dark, and she can hear the throb of the group’s practice music even from here. Nobody’s looking twice at them or even at all as they get closer and closer to the museum, and soon there’s no one around to see Hyuna tying black silk around Hyojong’s nose and mouth and then around her own. Breaking in is pretty simple, shockingly enough — all it really takes is carefully smashing one of the side panels and even more carefully going in through the gap. Their outfits may be multi-layered, but broken glass is pretty damn penetrating.

Once they’re in, they stay mostly quiet until the third Renoir is coming down off the wall. “I have something to tell you,” Hyuna whispers, kneeling on the floor with a headlamp affixed to her hat so she can see as she unscrews the back of the frame.

“Can it wait?” Hyojong whispers back, in the process of stripping the Cezanne.

“It waited already,” Hyuna says, then goes quiet for a while as she carefully slices the painting from the canvas. When that’s done, and she’s rolling the painting up to put in the bag, she goes on. “Hui and I hooked up.”

Hyojong doesn’t reply, which Hyuna was sort of expecting. He always needs time to process big news. But he’s not replying for so long that Hyuna looks up at him and finds him still working on the painting, eyebrows all frowny in concentration.

“…Did you hear me?” she tries. “Hui—”

“I heard you.”

Whoops. He doesn’t sound mad, but he sure doesn’t sound normal, either. Hyuna watches him closely as he finishes separating the painting out and hangs the frame back up, then brings it over to be wrapped and put into the bag.

Hyuna waits, but he doesn’t elaborate. “Is that all you have to say?”

Hyojong shrugs and holds the bag open so Hyuna can put the rolled-up paintings inside. “What did you want me to say?”

“Something, at least,” Hyuna says, frowning and zipping the bag back up. All three now-empty Renoir frames go back up on the wall, and they start making their way to the exit. “You seriously don’t have anything to say about it?”

“What are you hoping I’ll say?” Hyojong says. He doesn’t snap, but it’s a near thing, near enough that it leaves Hyuna shocked and miffed. “Congrats? What does ‘hooked up’ even mean?”

“You want details?” Hyuna retorts, her Gemini sun and Leo moon making her quick to clap back. “Who put what where? We hooked up, that’s all you need to know.”

Hyojong snorts. “Yeah. Pretty clear that’s what you think is all I need to know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hyuna huffs, going out of the hole in the glass door first and waiting for Hyojong to follow before setting off for their designated changing point. “Are you mad I didn’t tell you sooner? It happened yesterday, this is about as soon as I could possibly tell you.”

“I don’t care,” Hyojong says. He pulls his own scarf off when they’re at a safe distance, which is how she knows he’s really fucking mad about this. “You can clearly do whatever you want, so don’t mind me.”

What the fuck? “Oh, don’t do that,” Hyuna warns. “This isn’t about that.”

“No? Then what’s it about? Give me the bag, it’s heavy,” Hyojong says, and she lets him take it and sling it over his shoulder with an unsettling level of casualness for someone handling a bag worth around 8 million euro total.

Hyuna considers this, arms crossed as she walks with him. “I straight up have no idea why you’re so mad,” she finally says. “We’re not dating or anything, we just fooled around one time.”

“That’s all it is,” Hyojong agrees, but he sounds bitter and sharp, like a particularly angry asiago cheese. “There’s nothing more to it at all, you’re totally right, it’s definitely that simple.”

Hyuna rolls her eyes and smacks her hand on the button to open the single-user toilet doors for them. “If it isn’t that fucking simple, then tell me why not, because I literally don’t get it,” she says as the doors close, already pulling her hat off and handing it to Hyojong to put in the bag.

Hyojong takes the hat and looks as though he’s about to say something, but he doesn’t speak until Hyuna’s gotten all the way down to her bare skin and started putting her shirt back on. “Forget that he’s my roommate and my friend,” he says, hesitant, choosing each word carefully. “We both see him all the time. It’s risky.”

“I won’t give anything away,” Hyuna replies immediately, pulling her outer pants off. “That’s what you’re so mad about? You think I’ll blab all our secrets out? Jesus, that’s offensive.”

“No,” Hyojong says. Finally he sounds heated. “You really don’t think about things before you do them, do you.”

Hyuna laughs out loud. “Are you fucking kidding me with this? You’re saying this now, after what we just—?”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Hyojong says, his voice quiet as ever but now with this weird cold tone she’s never heard from him before. He hands her the bag so he can strip down, too. “It’s unfair to him.”

“What is? How could it possibly be unfair? He wanted it, and he got it,” Hyuna retorts. “You think I tricked him into wanting me? Oh, he did that all on his own.”

“It’s unfair to him,” Hyojong repeats, louder. “He doesn’t know you at all. And you don’t have a conscience.”

Hyuna feels like she’s been slapped and, reeling, she blinks at him a few times. “What the fuck?”

“Sleeping with a random stranger is one thing,” Hyojong says. He’s putting his shoes back on and pressing the button to open the doors for them again. “But sleeping with someone you’re going to have to see more than once from now on? You just play with people like they don’t matter in the long run but they do, and we can never tell him the truth about us and so you’re going to have to be lying to him all the time, like I do, and you don’t even care.”

“It’s not lying!” Hyuna defends, stomping out onto the street. Hyojong never gets mad at her — why can’t he just drop it and say it doesn’t matter, like he always does? “It’s not lying, it’s just… not telling him. There’s a huge difference.”

Hyojong takes the bag back from her, hooking it over his arm. “Maybe to you,” he says, jaw set. “A lie is a lie.”

“And— I’m not playing with him,” Hyuna says. Well, fuck, now she’s mad, too. What right does he have to say bullshit like this to her? “I didn’t tell him I wanted to date, I didn’t tell him I had feelings for him, because I don’t. There’s no way he thinks this is long-term.”

Hyojong shakes his head. He’s still not looking at her, and she has to hurry to follow as he walks, his typically lethargic pace sped up. “He’s a good person,” he says. “Hwitaek is a good and honest person, and he deserves better than both of us screwing around and lying to his face all the fucking time. It was bad enough when it was just me. I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to make it harder on me. Guess not.”

“This isn’t about you, holy shit,” Hyuna snaps. “How the fuck is anything on you? It was my choice to hook up with him and his choice to hook up with me. You’re not involved at all.”

Hyojong is quiet for a long time, all the way until the metro stop. “Yeah,” he finally says. “I get that.”

Hyuna’s had a little bit of time to cool off but not quite enough to be totally done being mad. However, she quickly realizes that she accidentally made it sound like it was just going to be her and Hui now, with no room in her heart for Hyojong. That couldn’t be less true, no matter how mad she is at him, and she frowns, reaching out for him. “Dawn—”

“Here,” he says, handing her a metro ticket before she can touch him. “Keep the bag at yours.”

“Duh,” Hyuna says and takes the ticket, watching him with big, mournful eyes. She doesn’t want to push him away at all and she really couldn’t give a shit about whether she’s playing with Hui’s heart or not. Hyojong is and always has been her priority. Maybe that does make her a bad person with no conscience when it comes to anyone other than the two of them, but that’s secondary. “Dawn, listen—”

“It’s fine,” Hyojong says. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

That’s what Hyuna’s been waiting for, but for some reason, hearing it isn’t really a relief. “Okay,” she says reluctantly, pouting. “Tell me if you change your mind.”

He nods and that’s that, apparently. They go through the turnstiles together and board the train together, still not talking, and they sit together in their standard position with Hyojong’s head on Hyuna’s shoulder. As usual, they look for all the world like a regular tourist couple after a busy day in a new city. From time to time, Hyuna thinks Hyojong might be falling asleep, but when she glances down at him she sees that his eyes are open.

Hyojong’s stop is first. He stands and puts the bag on the seat next to Hyuna, and just like she had with Hui, she stands, too, to pull him into a quick hug which he does his best to return. “Get home safe,” she says, not daring to kiss him on the cheek. “See you soon.”

“Okay,” Hyojong says, sounding tired. With that, he turns and gets off the train, and soon the doors close and she can’t see his blond head on the platform anymore.

What makes matters much worse is that she has a text from Hui when she gets home: I hope you had a good day today! Also, they finally had the orange marmalade cookies at the grocery store, so I bought you a pack. You can pick it up any time - it should be in the kitchen.

Shit, maybe she is playing with his heart. Hopefully Hyojong doesn’t say anything weird to him when he gets home, but he should be asleep by now, it’s late. Fuck. She just wanted to fool around quick and messy with a cute boy, why did it have to turn into this huge issue? She supposes that’s one of the downsides of leading a criminal lifestyle, but Danny Ocean never seemed to have this problem, and Hyuna is way hotter than George Clooney, so she definitely shouldn’t have to deal with this.

The paintings go into a storage bin under her bed and she makes preliminary contact with a fence she’s worked with once or twice before. It’s a high risk-high reward situation, of course, but these paintings are worth more than their usual haul, so she wants to make sure they don’t get ripped off again. The next few jobs she has planned are the Petit Palais and the Orsay, but the payout from the Orangerie will set them up nicely for a while, and there’s no rush to carry those out yet, security systems changing up or no.

It’s chill. Things are chill. As to this situation with Hui and Hyojong, she’ll handle it later.

“Later” ends up being three days after, when she stops by after work to pick up the cookies. She never texted Hui back, so she’s showing up without warning, but she has her own key for this exact purpose. Chances are one or both of the guys have eaten the entire package of cookies already, but even though she and Hyojong are kind of in a fight right now she still misses him, and maybe they can hang out if he’s back from the studio already. Spinning the keys around on her finger, she heads up the stairs, then has to spend three minutes looking for said keys when they twirl right off her hand and end up somewhere amidst the potted plants on the second floor landing.

She’s unlocking the door when she hears voices from inside and she pauses, curious. It’s definitely Hui talking, which makes sense, he’s usually home from work by this time of day. She can’t quite make out what he’s saying but she sure would like to, so she unlocks the door as quietly and slowly as she can, then sneaks just as silently into the apartment to loiter in the kitchen and eavesdrop. It’s all worth it to lead a dangerous life of crime as a professional art thief, since it’s made her great at being sneaky.

“—was never my intention,” Hui is saying from his room, the door barely open. “You know that, right?”

A pause, then Hyojong says, “Right.”

“I know that doesn’t make it better,” Hui continues. “I’m not blameless here, obviously, and I’m not going to stand here and tell you that I was… confused or I didn’t understand what was going on or anything like that. It was pretty unmistakeable. I could have stopped it any time, and I didn’t.”

“It’s okay,” Hyojong says.

Are they literally just talking about Hui and Hyuna’s steamy bathroom encounter? Why does Hui sound so rueful that an outsider would think that he ran over Hyojong’s pet lizard with a car? Jeez, it was a handjob and some fingering, not a pyramid scheme or attempted murder. Hyuna frowns and shuffles forward in the kitchen to listen better.

“It did happen very fast, but that’s still no excuse,” Hui says. “I should have known better. After all, I know you two are together, and I never wanted to get in between that. I’m truly sorry and I really hope you can forgive me, but I understand if it takes a while.”

Hyuna waits and waits for Hyojong to deny it. He doesn’t.

What the fuck?

Okay, Hyuna needs to put a stop to this. She rattles around in the kitchen cabinets in search of the cookies, and when she finds them, she opens the package noisily, too, just to really make sure they know she’s there. It works, footsteps followed by the creaking of Hui’s door announcing their awareness of her presence. “Hyuna?” Hui says. “Is that you?”

“Hi,” she says, emerging from the kitchen with the cookies. “What are you two up to?”

Hui has the absolute nerve to not look thrilled at the sight of her — in fact, he looks surprised and kind of guilty — and when she looks past him into his room, Hyojong isn’t meeting her eye, either, pale and frowning at the floor. “We’re just talking,” Hui says, glancing back at Hyojong.

“About what?” Hyuna says, eating a cookie and not offering the package to Hui by way of punishment for him being stupid.

Hui looks at Hyojong again, but Hyojong’s giving him nothing to work with. “About… what happened between us,” he says carefully. “We should talk about it, too. I think we both owe Hyojong an apology.”

“Why? We’re not together,” Hyuna says before she can stop herself. “Me and him, I mean.”

Hui’s eyebrows go up and out of the corner of her eye, Hyuna sees Hyojong’s posture stiffen. “You’re not?” Hui says, still speaking very carefully.

Hyuna shakes her head. “Nope. Never have been. He’s my best friend,” she says. Her voice sounds strange in her own ears, like someone else is speaking through her, but she can’t stop. “I know too much about him to date him, anyway, and just thinking about dating him is— I don’t know, it’s weird! We’re too close. It’d be awkward. Don’t you think it’d be awkward, Dawn? Imagine us dating! No, we’re not together, we’ve never even fucked. So there’s nothing to apologize for to him, since we’ve never been anything more than friends.”

“Oh,” Hui says.

Fuck! Fuck, fuck. Hyuna’s hands are shaking for some reason, and she busies herself with closing the package of cookies to conceal it. That was too much, she went too far, and now it sounds like Hyojong repulses her or something when that couldn’t be further from the truth. She can’t look up at Hyojong to see his reaction, but she doesn’t need to, and it’s too late, anyway — he’s turning and going into his own room, and the door is closed before she can say anything else.

Fuck.

The ensuing silence is dragging on and Hyuna feels like shit. She’s not used to feeling anything other than sexy, so it’s pretty horrible, but her pride won’t let her go after Hyojong and apologize right away, either. Catch-22.

“Hyuna,” Hui says softly, his voice much closer. She looks up to see that he has, in fact, come in closer, looking at her with worried, tender eyes. “Are you okay?”

Hyuna blinks a couple of times, then nods. “Yeah, totally. Long day at work.” She pulls a face, he steps closer, and somehow they end up pressed together against the doorframe, Hyuna draped all over him kissing him deep and slow.

She can’t get rid of this feeling in her chest, though. A sick, tugging feeling, the same one she gets when she’s pulling a scab off a healing wound and can’t look away from the carnage. It has nothing to do with Hui, who’s kissing her very nicely and even keeping his hands chastely at her hips, and everything to do with her own damn self and her inability to keep her mouth shut when she’s in a weird mood.

Why did she say all that? Who asked? It would have been enough to say “Actually, we’re not dating” and leave it there, but no, she just had to keep going, and now Hyojong’s upset and, honestly, so is she.

After a few minutes of kissing, she pulls away from him, clearing her throat. “I should go,” she says. “Thanks for getting me the cookies.”

“No problem,” Hui says, a little dazed as he pushes off from the doorframe and catches his breath. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Fine,” Hyuna says. She needs to get out of there fast or she might do something horrible like cry in front of him, and that’s the last thing she needs. She raises her voice even though it shakes, and calls, “Bye, Dawn!”

There’s no response, of course, and Hui is still watching her with a understanding concerned face. She can’t deal with this right now. Flashing him a quick smile, she heads for the door, and only when she’s back out on the street and walking to the metro station (why walk 15 minutes when you can waste 5 waiting for the train?) does she realize that she left the cookies behind, so all that angst and emotional torture was for nothing.

One of Hyuna’s biggest problems is her pride. She respects herself too much to let anyone try and bring her down, that’s how she justifies it. And that’s why her instinct here, when she’s somehow hurt her best friend in the world, is to defend herself instead, say that Hyojong doesn’t own her or have a claim to all of her time, insist that she can do whatever she wants and sleep with whomever she wants and nobody can take that away from her no matter what. Even as she tilts her head all the way back to force her tears back into their ducts so she doesn’t cry and ruin her mascara, she still feels defensive.

At home, she remembers what little philosophy she learned back in school to try and calm herself down. If she has the capacity to identify herself as being irrational or prideful or crazy, then that means she’s not fully devoted to being any of those things, and she clings to that in an attempt to chill the fuck out and not burn the only bridge she has left. It’s not about choosing a fling with Hui over a lifetime with Hyojong; it’s about choosing her own agency over their friendship, which is complicated. Boundaries are good, especially with them. She knows that — she’s the one that came up with that in the first place. The boundaries are there for a reason, to ensure that shit like this doesn’t happen at all. But now it’s too late and she’s left with all this fallout and no one to help her deal.

The problem with only having one friend is not being able to talk to them or get advice when you’re in a fight with said friend. Hyuna ends up curled up in bed for what feels like days (but is really only half a day, since she has to go to work) while she waits for Hyojong to stop being mad at her.

He doesn’t, though, and he doesn’t even text her a single link to any videos about the many uses of citrus rind like he usually does, so he must still be upset, too. Although she hates being the bigger person normally, she’s just successfully sold two out of four paintings from their latest haul and Hyojong needs to get his cut sometime, so she brings it by his apartment on her day off without checking his work schedule; either he’ll be there or he won’t.

I haven’t done anything wrong, she reminds herself sternly as she unlocks the door and goes in. No matter how sad he is, no matter how much it hurt him, I didn’t do anything wrong.

Well, maybe talking like that about him was kind of wrong, but there’s no way he’s more upset about that than about her hooking up with Hui. She’ll apologize for one but not the other.

Well, not unless he’s really upset. She can fake an apology for his sake but tell him that she’s going to keep doing what she wants. Maybe.

What Hyuna really wants is for this situation to resolve itself, so that she can stop thinking critically about her actions and attitudes and go back to her previous carefree existence.

“Anybody home?” she says as she lets herself in, the bag with the money cleverly disguised as a bag with socks. The disguise is simple: along with money, there are also socks in the bag. Foolproof. There’s no response, so she takes off her shoes and goes into the apartment, peeking into the kitchen to find a snack.

“Hyuna?” Hui’s voice says, and she drops the persimmon she’d just picked up, startled.

“Yeah, it’s me,” she calls back. Why does Hyojong always buy such strange fruits? She puts the persimmon back into the bowl she’d taken it from and goes through to Hui’s room to see what he’s up to. “Is Dawn still at work?”

“I guess so, he hasn’t been home yet,” Hui says. His room is back to how it had been before Hyuna’s impromptu stay: the bed up against the window, several bookshelves on the other side, a desk. He always does his reading and work in bed, though, and so the desk is slowly but surely becoming enrobed in dust.

Speaking of becoming enrobed, Hui is currently in a bathrobe and in bed, on top of the sheets. He must have just gotten out of the shower, because his hair is wet and, well, he’s in a bathrobe. Putting it together is hardly quantum physics.

Hyuna is reminded of another time she’d walked through his room and seen him like this, and his hair is doing very much the same thing it had been doing then, sticking up on the back of his head. He’s not surrounded by papers this time, but his computer is open, and Hyuna, naturally curious and needing an excuse to get closer, comes over to see what he’s reading about.

“‘Four masterpieces stolen from Orangerie: crime wave continues,’” she reads, smiling slightly. “How exciting. You know, I always thought you were doing work when you’re on your laptop like this, but you’re just reading gossip rags, huh?”

“No,” Hui says, blushing, and closes his computer quickly to set it aside.

“Sure,” Hyuna says. Still smiling knowingly to herself, she reaches out and fixes his hair for him, patting down the spiky parts and then leaving her hand there, idly cupped around the back of his head. “Did you miss me?”

That catches Hui off-guard and he looks up at her quickly. Fuck, what is she doing? This really is playing with him, she can tell that that’s what it is; she likes the way he looks when he’s surprised, and she’s really just getting a sense for how all this feels, continuing to be involved with him even when she knows it hurts Hyojong for some reason. The worst part of it all is that she’s pretty sure she’d like Hui if she got the chance to know him, but it’s not like that’s possible at all, so. She’ll settle for this.

“Yeah. Is that okay?” Hui says after a second, blinking his long-lashed eyes and looking cute and clueless.

“It’s just fine,” Hyuna hums. She sits down on the edge of the bed and runs her hand forward to push his damp hair off his forehead, and he lets her do all this, wearing the sort of expression that indicates that he’d let her do just about anything to him without questioning it. “Well, I’m here now. You don’t have to miss me anymore.”

“Oh,” Hui says. He seems to say that a lot around her, actually, and damn, that makes her feel good — she loves it when people get wordless for her.

Hyuna can’t help teasing him a little. She’s still feeling the situation out, after all. “Oh,” she mimics, then leans in and kisses him.

He kisses back hesitantly and far more softly than he had at the museum, which she’s fine with. Sitting up isn’t the vibe, though, so she pushes at his shoulder until he lies back, propped up against the million pillows he always has in bed. Naturally, she gets on top, but she’s still keeping it chaste, moving his hands to rest on her back or in her hair.

Kissing him is so damn pleasant. Hyuna focuses on that and gets lost in it, so lost that she doesn’t even feel that same weird sick feeling from last time. Thank God, honestly. It would have been so inconvenient to feel guilty and restless every time she kissed Hui like she’s doing now, licking at his lower lip, sighing as she changes angles, and then — well, fuck, now she’s feeling guilty and restless again.

She squirms on top of him and he gets the wrong idea, running his hand lower down his back with his grip curving dangerously towards her ass, and that makes her break the kiss, sitting up and tucking her hair behind her ear.

This fucking blows. Why can’t she just enjoy kissing him? She’d said that he could eat her out next time, and now it’s looking like that’ll never happen unless she can get over this mental block. He’s looking up at her all confused again and she leans to give him one more kiss just to make sure. Yep, sure enough, she can’t turn off her brain, leaving her uncomfortable and wishing she were anywhere else but here.

She pulls back one last time. “You’re cute,” she says, which is very, very true. “I’m gonna go home.”

Hui looks like he wants to ask her not to go, but he doesn’t, just nods and pets his hand very softly over her waist. If there’s one thing she’s grateful for, it’s that he has the tact to not ask what’s up with her, since it’s pretty fucking obvious what’s on her mind. She even glances at Hyojong’s closed bedroom door as she gets up, so if he didn’t know what was wrong before, he sure knows now.

“I’ll probably be back soon, maybe we can all have dinner,” she says, briefly opening Hyojong’s door to toss the bag of cash/socks inside.

“I’d like that,” Hui says. She looks at him and he’s smiling that sincere, ridiculous smile of his. “Just pick when.”

“I’ll be in touch,” Hyuna says, and blows him a kiss for good measure. Hui is appropriately dazzled by this and she heads out, picking her keys and purse up and slipping her feet back into her shoes.

But just as she’s about to open the door and leave, the knob turns and Hyojong is there as if by magic — he’s even wearing a witchy outfit to really seal the deal. He’s as startled as she is at this sudden meeting, so they both rear back, alarmed, to blink at each other from a safe distance.

“You’re here,” Hyojong says after a moment. He’s so fucking hard to read even after all this time; she can’t tell if he’s glad to see her or pissed off.

“I was just about to go,” she says, being cautious. She hates feeling awkward around him, mostly because it brings to light the uncomfortable truth that she definitely takes Hyojong for granted. It’s wrong, she knows that. But he takes her for granted, too, and she remembers that she’s mad at him because he’s mad at her and schools her expression into something aloof. “Your socks are in your room.”

“My socks,” Hyojong repeats.

Hyuna rolls her eyes instinctively. “You know what’s in the fucking bag, don’t be cute.” Maybe she shouldn’t be joking around with him when they’re in a fight, but she loves him too much to be cold towards him. She can’t help it.

It misses the mark. “Sorry,” Hyojong says with a half-hearted shrug and goes past her into the apartment.

Hyuna frowns, turning to watch him go, and takes his place in the doorway, one foot out on the landing already. Fuck it. “Are you still mad at me?”

“When was I mad?” Hyojong says. He’s in the kitchen now, starting to slice the same persimmon she was looking at earlier.

“Wow,” Hyuna says. “Wow.”

Hyojong has the audacity to look like he doesn’t know what she’s reacting to. “What?”

Hyuna wouldn’t be this hurt if he hadn’t accused her of living life with no regard for consequences and if he hadn’t made her seriously question the foundations of their friendship over a fucking handjob in a public bathroom. “Nothing,” she says, snippy, and leaves.

Of the two of them, Hyojong is the one best-suited to giving someone the silent treatment, but that’s largely accidental; back when they were just engaged in passionate and extensive email correspondence, before he’d moved to Paris for her, he’d sometimes go AWOL for days on end, leaving her panicked that she’d said something wrong or that he’d gotten distracted while walking and had fallen off a mountain. When they’re in a real fight (which is so rare that she can count on one hand the number of times it’s actually happened) he goes mostly radio-silence, but she’s pretty sure that he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. He’s absent-minded, always has been. Sometimes she thinks that if she never texted him again, never saw him again, he wouldn’t even notice. At least, not for a while.

That’s certainly depressing, and her self-esteem is way too high to encourage that kind of bullshit. The point is that he can go quiet without much effort, whereas for her, ignoring him is a Herculean task. On her walk home she sees so many things that remind her of him — strangely-shaped fruits, incomprehensible movie posters, and one hairless dog — that she literally has to force herself not to text him about, but if he’s going to be like this, then she’s determined to ice him out in return. She’s never claimed to be above pettiness, after all, and she has no intention of cracking first, no matter how shitty it makes her feel, and no matter how much she misses him.

She does miss him, of course. The journey of their friendship is long and complicated, but the gist of it is that they haven’t been apart for very long since they met. Sure, there was that strange year-long period when he was still in Korea and she was still in fucking England, but aside from him occasionally forgetting to email back they were in contact pretty much nonstop. Then he moved to Paris and found an apartment 15 minutes’ walk away from hers, and they’ve been inseparable ever since. Sure, it’s been less than a week since their fight, but she misses the kid, and who can blame her? He’s her only friend — he’s all she has. And even if she had anyone else, this would still sting.

Brooding is by no means a natural state of Hyuna’s, either; she really has to force it. She listens to Evanescence and re-organizes her closet to keep herself busy while she broods, since there’s a very fine line between brooding and moping that she’d rather not cross.

Why is Hyojong being so fucking confusing? Honestly, it serves Hyuna right for choosing to be best friends with a man.

After doing a facemask and trimming her bangs, Hyuna’s feeling much better. She and Hyojong are both adults and can both be rational, so if he still isn’t talking to her by tomorrow she’ll talk to him first and tell him that they need to get over this so they can get on with their lives. He loves her, she knows that, and she knows that he’ll keep loving her even if he resents her sometimes. Maybe he just needs a reminder of that and then they’ll be fine, and if he’s seriously that fucking committed to it, she’ll never get her hands on Hui again.

Her phone buzzes with a text and she picks it up to see, eyebrows going up when she reads the message. ok what day? Hyojong has said with no context whatsoever.

Hyuna huffs and decides not to reply. It was probably a wrong number; he was probably just trying to text back someone scheduling a tattoo appointment. He’s done it before, so it’s not worth acknowledging.

But he texts again within a minute: for dinner. And then again, after a minute or so of the text bubble phasing in and out of existence: hui said u wanted 2 all have dinner . when r u free

Jesus Christ. Hui is such a fucking snitch. She hadn’t even been serious, given that she and Hyojong are barely on speaking terms right now, and she’d really hoped he’d have the brainpower to not just assume she’d been serious, let alone tell Hyojong about it.

Fuck, whatever. She texts back that she’s free Sunday (not putting it off too much, but still taking a couple of days to make him wait for it like he’s made her wait, as well as giving her enough time to pick an outfit that makes her look good without making it seem like she tried hard to put it together) and they leave it at that, not even setting a time. It’s unspoken Hyuna-Hyojong law that dinner happens around an hour before sundown, making any pre-dinner selfies look good by default.

Over the course of the next two days, outfit planning falls somewhat by the wayside due to a busy work schedule and a meeting with a buyer in a park to make a surreptitious exchange — the Swiss self-portrait for 45,000 euro. Were the painting to be sold at a legitimate auction, she has no doubt that it would fetch upwards of two million, but it’s not like 45,000 is anything to sneeze at even for her and Hyojong. With that taken care of, she’s now only got two extremely valuable pieces of contraband in her apartment, which will likely go soon as well. She tries to focus on that, not the inexplicable rift between herself and the person she cares most about in the world, and as a result ends up so distracted that she very nearly forgets about their dinner plans and has to rush to get ready.

It’s not like she needs to dress up just to see her temporarily estranged BFF and his roommate/her sometime lover, so she doesn’t, electing instead to stay in the jeans and t-shirt she’d been in and braiding her hair for just a modicum of formality. Fuck, and she’s showing up empty-handed, even though she knows chances are Hyojong has forgotten all about dinner and there won’t be any food ready. And of course the metro is delayed, too, so she wavers between waiting for the train to come and giving up and walking, and she waits so long that it’s clear the train isn’t coming, but as soon as she starts heading up and out of the station, she hears the rumble of it down the tunnel.

Hyuna’s a big believer in omens, and none of this bodes well for how dinner is going to go.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Hyuna arrives at Hyojong and Hui’s apartment fifteen sweaty minutes later, and the braid she’d plaited so neatly is starting to come loose already, wisps of dark hair curling prettily down over the sides of her face and sticking sweatily to her forehead. By no means does she have the unbothered ethereal creature look she’d been going for, but she’s past caring. She needs some ice water and maybe some strawberries, and only after that will she be able to care about how messy she looks.

To her surprise, she can hear cooking noises when she unlocks the door and goes in. That’ll probably be Hui. The door to his room is opened all the way to make the entryway look larger, and someone is definitely cooking something that smells food-adjacent. Hyuna peeks into the kitchen and sees that it is, in fact, Hui cooking, but the shower is also running, so Hyojong must be there, too.

Hui lights up with a smile when he sees her. “Oh, hi, I wasn’t expecting you yet,” he says, stirring the contents of a pot on the stove.

“Really? I thought I was late,” Hyuna says. She leans over to see what he’s cooking, but it’s all approximately the same color and texture so she’s not entirely sure.

“Hyuna’s here,” Hui says in the direction of the shower, the door of which opens just enough to let Hyojong stick his hand out. Hui sighs and cuts a slice of bread for him, which he puts into the extended hand. The hand subsequently vanishes back into the shower and the door closes.

“Hi,” Hyojong says after a moment, muffled.

Hyuna rolls her eyes. “I hate this apartment,” she tells Hui. “Can I help cook?”

“Um… not really,” Hui says, but he seems touched by her offer, smiling softly. “Well, maybe you could—”

“Great, I’m glad you’ve got it covered,” Hyuna says and leaves the kitchen. She can hear Hui’s quiet laugh in response as she goes through to sit at the table and play on her phone until dinner is ready.

Hyojong emerges from the shower a few minutes later, nodding at Hyuna in acknowledgment before going directly to his own room. The door closes, and she can hear a hairdryer powering up a minute or so later.

Hui, looking sheepish, comes out of the kitchen. “So,” he says. “I was making stew.”

“And?” Hyuna says, not looking up from her phone.

There is a brief but awkward silence, and Hui says, “Um. I don’t know.”

Hyuna sighs and sets her phone down to look up at Hui. He’s wearing a little chef’s apron and looks very stupid, so she’s more sympathetic than she normally would be. “Do you wanna just get delivery?”

“Great idea,” Hui says, relieved, and returns to the kitchen to, presumably, dispose of whatever abomination he’s just brought into this world.

“It’s the thought that counts,” Hyuna assures him, getting up and taking her phone with her so she can look through her and Hyojong’s list of usual places they like. “Come here, what are you in the mood for?”

Hui turns the stove off after hastily covering the pot — which had been emitting slow-curling grey smoke — with a lid and comes over to look at Hyuna’s phone with her. “Anything, really. I could go for Indian, I’ve heard this place is really good.”

“It is,” Hyuna says, unsubtly looking up at him now that he’s so close. Damn. She’d thought that after this wacky week she’d get over the way she reacts to him, but she clearly hasn’t learned her lesson. But it’s not her fault that he’s kissable as fuck. “And I know Dawn’s regular order.”

“Perfect,” Hui nods. He must also realize just how close together they’ve gotten, because he goes still. She can practically hear his eyelashes fluttering, and she tilts her head up to see. She might not have dressed up for dinner, but he sure did, and he smells clean, too. That aftershave smell is giving her some pretty strong sensory memories and she hums quietly, settling her free hand on his waist. Hui swallows nervously and whispers, “What are you doing?”

“What do you want?” Hyuna murmurs. She’s not actually trying anything, since she knows Hyojong is in the next room, but if she’s going to toy with Hui’s heart she’s going to go all-out. She rubs her thumb lightly over the side-seam of his shirt, listening to his quiet breaths. And she waits for another beat, letting the moment drag on. “Their samosas are great, I’ll split an order with you.”

Hui immediately knows he’s been played and steps back quickly, laughing. To her immense delight, he’s gone a little pink, rubbing the back of his neck and looking for all the world like the Platonic ideal of a flustered boy, like he came here straight from central casting. “You’re so unfair.”

“What’d I do?” Hyuna says innocently. “I’m just giving you a recommendation. Do you not like samosas or something?”

“Just order for me,” Hui says, still laughing a little and still pink. “I trust your judgment.”

“Oh, you do? Not going to call me unfair if I get you something you don’t like?” Hyuna teases. She smiles at him, smug, and scrolls through the menu to pick out main courses for them both. Once the ordering’s done, she goes back out to the table and Hui follows, sitting in the other chair. The noise of the hairdryer from Hyojong’s room has stopped, and Hyojong himself emerges in another minute, looking about as sleepy and rumpled as he usually does.

“We just ordered takeout,” Hui says, smiling up at him. Hyuna, oddly nervous about whatever this dinner is going to entail, doesn’t greet him yet.

“Cool,” Hyojong says. “What happened to the stew?”

Hui very quickly shakes his head by way of answer, and Hyojong nods and comes over to sit in the third and final chair. Now Hyuna does greet him, reaching out to flick a stray wisp of hair out of his face. He doesn’t react much, which is customary, and the anxious feeling in her stomach persists.

“Relax,” Hyojong says, and although he’s not looking at Hyuna, she knows he’s talking to her.

“I’m super relaxed,” she assures him. “What would I have to be nervous about, hm?” Her tone is light, and she knows, logically, that there’s nothing to fear. At worst, he’ll ask for an apology. He’s not going to say anything life-changing right now; she’s overthought this whole situation very badly indeed.

“What I’m about to say,” Hyojong replies.

Well, fuck. That went out the window. “Say it and I won’t be nervous, then,” Hyuna counters, brave face on, as always.

Hyojong shrugs. “Okay. I’ve been weird the past week. Sorry.”

Hyuna glances briefly at Hui, who is similarly confused, and then raises her eyebrows at Hyojong. “Is that seriously it?”

“It’s because,” Hyojong continues, ignoring her, “I was scared and jealous. I didn’t mean to react like that when you told me, Hyuna, and I’m sorry. I’m also sorry for making you stress, Hui, and for not telling you that it was fine since Hyuna and I aren’t together. But I did react like that, and I didn’t tell you that it was fine. You can be together if you want, I’m kinda over it. Just thought you should know, I guess.”

Hyuna has literally no idea what is going on, which is strange, considering she can usually read Hyojong’s mind. They’re disconnected, out of touch, and she can’t figure out what the fuck he’s talking about. “Know what?” she says after another few seconds of confusion.

“Oh. Did I not say it? That I have feelings for both of you,” Hyojong says.

“What,” Hyuna says. Her heart is suddenly too fast, her pulse too loud. Did she mishear? Is he joking? Or maybe it’s a dream. Anything seems possible except this.

“Are you really surprised?” Hyojong says. He’s smiling but only a little, and he’s not looking up at her or at Hui. “I don’t hide it. I thought you knew.”

“I didn’t,” Hyuna says, numb.

“Me, neither,” Hui agrees. She looks at him and he has a strange expression on his face, like he’s torn between shock and acceptance.

“Pretty much the whole time,” Hyojong adds, answering Hyuna’s question before she can ask. “Don’t feel bad. I don’t expect anything. I just wanted you to know why I was so weird.”

“You don’t expect— Dawn,” Hyuna says, overcome, overwhelmed, and reaches for him. Usually touching him is so natural, like he’s an extension of her own body, but she can’t make the movement smooth somehow, her hands shaking as she runs her fingers through his hair and turns his head in her direction so he has to look at her. “Dawnie. You really mean it?”

Hyojong nods, finally meeting her eyes. Now she can read him again, and she can see that he’s nervous and worried, and her heart hurts, everything fucking hurts, and all she can do is get up out of her chair and go to him. He only has a second to look confused before she leans in and kisses him on the mouth, firmly at first just so he knows she’s not fucking around and then lighter, again and again.

“Dawnie,” she says between kisses, both hands holding onto his hair tightly. “Why didn’t you tell me? I thought you weren’t interested at all, that’s why I never tried it with you, I love you so much, have you been hurting? Don’t ever keep anything from me again, I can’t believe you, I’m so sorry for hurting you and for saying all those things, it wouldn’t be weird with you, it’d be perfect, it’s always perfect. Do you forgive me? Do you know I love you?”

Hyojong makes a muffled noise against her mouth which she takes as a yes to all, and he’s kissing back, his lips pliant and warm. She hasn’t kissed him fully in so long, not since New Years’ last year and other than that not since he’d first come to her, but it’s the most natural thing in the world, like breathing, like they’ve been doing it all along and never stopped. Her heart hurts but it’s also so full. She hates feeling like she’s missing something, but this is what she’s been missing.

She remembers with a start that Hui is still there, and that technically they’re maybe-together, maybe-exclusive, and maybe he won’t really like her kissing on Hyojong like this. Which is very much not up to him, but she doesn’t want to be outright rude, at least. She tears herself away from Hyojong but not too far, leaning her cheek on his, and looks over at Hui. “Is this okay?” she asks.

Hui still looks kind of strange, one elbow leaned on the table. His face is, all at the same time, fond, resigned, excited, apprehensive, and genuinely happy. She can’t quite put her finger on how he must be feeling, but at any rate, he nods slightly, a smile starting to pull at his lips. “It’s okay. I get it. I feel the same way,” he says, and Hyuna feels Hyojong shudder in surprise beside her.

“You do?” he says, all cautious like he’s not letting himself believe it yet. “About what?”

“About both of you,” Hui says. He laughs very quietly, glancing away and rubbing his hand over his face briefly. “You have no idea how hard it is to enter into, like, a dynamic like the one you two have and not feel something.”

Hyuna isn’t surprised by this development at all, and she turns her head to kiss Hyojong on the cheek, immensely satisfied by the way things are unfolding. It’ll take some more vetting of Hui before she’s cool with this, of course, since just because he’s good enough for Hyuna doesn’t mean he’s good enough for Hyojong, and she might occasionally get a little jealous, but other than that, she’s just fucking psyched all-around.

But Hyojong continues to be doubtful, ever the suspicious little pessimist unless one of the objects of his affection is literally kissing all over his face as soon as he’s done confessing. “You like me, too? Not just Hyuna?”

“Yes,” Hui says, his smile getting softer, more sincere. And his face is settling into something more familiar, that weird look from earlier gone. “Do you believe me?”

Hyojong nods without much hesitation and Hyuna does, too, kissing Hyojong’s cheek again and then his jaw. She’s practically in his lap at this point, and his arm is around her waist, and maybe they’ll have a threesome later, and won’t that be fun?

“I’m not expecting anything, either,” Hui adds. “And I don’t want you to change what you have going on just for me. Your operation is hard enough with two people, there’s a lot of moving parts and planning, I get that. Adding a third could really be disastrous.”

“Right,” Hyuna agrees automatically, glad for some recognition of how hard they work. Hyojong has gone totally motionless, not even breathing. She’s about to ask him what’s wrong when it hits her and she sucks in a terrified breath, glancing over at Hui sharply.

“Oh, shit,” Hui laughs, sounding surprised. “I was just bluffing, but you really do steal art for a living. Wild.”

Hyuna’s blood runs cold. “Literally what,” she says. She can’t fucking handle this. Not right now, not ever.

“You knew?” Hyojong says, his voice high from shock.

“Knew about what?” Hui says coyly.

Hyuna elbows Hyojong harshly in the ribs. “Yeah, knew about what? Shut up,” she hisses.

Hui looks between them and laughs again. “Calm down. Yes, I knew. I’ve known for a while.”

“Calm down?” Hyuna repeats, damn near hysterical. “Calm down? What else do you know? How do you know? What the fuck?”

“I just figured it out,” Hui shrugs. There is a knock on the door, and Hyuna and Hyojong both jump in terror but Hui stands up, unfazed. “That’ll be the food.”

He heads over to open the door, and Hyuna and Hyojong have a very intense and very fast whispered conversation about what the fuck is going on, if Hui is serious, whether they should kill him, et cetera. They quiet immediately when he comes back to set the bags on the table, but he’s not saying anything else yet, just unloading the food very matter-of-factly.

Hyuna stares at him, reeling, until she can’t take it anymore. “What the fuck do you even want?” she says. “Are you blackmailing us?”

Hui is midway through unboxing some samosas and looks up, startled. “What? No,” he says, sounding offended.

“Then what? Money? You want money?” Hyuna insists. Hyojong has gone pretty much catatonic and likely won’t be able to talk for another fifteen minutes or so.

“Also no,” Hui frowns. “What sort of person do you think I am? I don’t want anything like that.”

“But you do want something,” Hyuna says, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “Or you’d have told us that you knew earlier. You were waiting for the right moment so you could use it to your advantage! So what is it? What the fuck do you want?” She has another thought and gasps, her hand flying to press to her chest. “Did you— that time, with me— was that—”

“No,” Hui rushes to interrupt, flushing pink. “No, that had nothing to do with this. I really like you both a lot, for real, that’s real. Honestly, I wasn’t ever going to say anything, I was waiting for you to tell me.”

Hyuna narrows her eyes and puts a protective, soothing arm around Hyojong’s shoulders. “How long have you known, exactly? And how did you ‘just figure it out,’ huh?”

“Hyojong takes me out for a really expensive dinner about every five months or so, right around the time that articles start coming out about some small museum getting robbed,” Hui explains. “Circumstantial, I know, but I have really good instincts.”

“Wow,” Hyuna says, her kind and comforting grasp on Hyojong breaking for a moment so she can smack his arm. “Great job, genius.”

“It’s not all on him,” Hui shrugs as Hyojong makes a hurt noise and rubs his arm. “One time we were all listening to a podcast together and the host said something about a recent purchase of a Degas painting by some private gallery in Paris and you literally said ‘sure would be a shame if anything were to… happen to it’ and did a weird evil laugh.”

“You did do that,” Hyojong mumbles. Hyuna squawks indignantly and smacks his arm again.

“You’re just not very subtle,” Hui says with a small smile. “But I do spend a lot of time with the two of you, and so I don’t think anybody else would have figured it out yet. I don’t want anything, I promise. I’m not blackmailing you and I don’t want money. If there’s any way I can help, though, that’s what I’d want.”

“Help?” Hyuna repeats dubiously.

Hui nods, his eyes going wide and bright with sincerity. “If you need an extra set of hands, or a lookout, or a good alibi. The news and the cops have been taking more notice of your work lately, so things have probably gotten harder for you, right? I could help. I know I’m not experienced, and if you don’t need my help that’s fine, but I have various, you know, contacts, ideas, resources… Just give it some thought.”

This is starting to sound like an offer that Hyuna and Hyojong can’t refuse, no matter how much Hui insists that he’s not blackmailing them. Before, he’d been kind of a liability, and now he’s a super-duper liability. If they say no to him, there’s absolutely nothing stopping him from going to the cops. Granted, all the evidence he has is seriously circumstantial, and if he were to snitch they’d probably have time to wipe everything and go under deep cover, but that’s less than ideal; Hyuna’s attached to the life she and Hyojong have built here. Hui is inexperienced and a liability, but saying yes to him is probably the only option they have.

There’s also that whole thing about all of them being into each other, but fun threesome activity seems secondary by now.

Hui is eating a samosa and watching them with his soft concerned eyes. “Are you two okay? I didn’t mean to just spring it on you like this. I really thought you’d tell me at some point soon.”

“Why the fuck would we just tell you?” Hyuna says, exasperated. “And why did you say something now? Since you apparently weren’t ever going to tell us that you knew.”

Hui thinks about it for a moment, then shrugs, bashful. “Since we were laying everything on the table, I figured I didn’t want to keep it from you any longer,” he says and all but bats his eyelashes at Hyuna.

To her chagrin, it works. “Whatever,” she mutters, looking away from him before she can blush. “Eat your fucking samosas.”

“They’re our samosas, you said you’d split them with me,” Hui points out, nudging the container towards her. Hyuna eyes them briefly, then returns her attention to Hyojong, who seems to be doing a little better.

“You okay?” she murmurs, petting over the side of his head. “You can sleep over with me tonight if you want.”

Hyojong nods, just like she knew he would. He likes to isolate himself from whatever’s stressing him out, and he’d probably have wanted to stay at Hyuna’s place even if Hui had just left it at the whole “I like you both” thing and not dropped that second bomb on them. She smiles at him, pets his hair again, kisses his cheek one more time, then goes back to her own chair so they both have room to breathe.

After a few minutes of the three of them silently munching, Hui clears his throat. “Did I make things weird?”

“You think?” Hyuna says, raising her eyebrows.

“Not weird,” Hyojong disagrees quietly. “Just… different.”

“That’s what weird means,” Hyuna says. “Hui, when do you want an answer by?”

Hui considers it briefly, resting his chin in his hand. “I didn’t really ask a question, so it’s up to you. The next time you’re planning something, you’ll know if you want my input or not, and you can tell me either way.”

“Okay,” Hyuna says, and that’s that. She’s done talking about serious things for the night, and she wants to get Hyojong out of there and back to her place so they can unwind ASAP. “Well, we’re gonna go.”

Hyojong stands right away and starts tidying up after himself and Hyuna, then retreats to his room to, presumably, pack an overnight bag. He always has a toothbrush and some snacks at Hyuna’s place, but that’s about it. This leaves Hui and Hyuna alone, and she sighs, tossing her braid back over her shoulder and raising her eyebrows at him.

Hui fidgets under the direct attention. “What?”

“What the fuck do you mean, what? You’re into Hyojong and you know our secret? There’s a lot to unpack here,” Hyuna says. Just to really drive her point home and leave him quaking in terror for his life, she crosses her arms.

“Um,” Hui says, looking adequately terrified. “Which are you more upset about?”

“I’m not upset about you liking Dawn,” Hyuna says lightly. “He’s very lovable, I don’t blame you. I’m pissed that you didn’t say anything sooner about knowing.”

“I like living with Hyojong,” Hui says, his voice getting softer, eyes downcast. “I like being a part of his life. And you’re a package deal, so there’s no you without him, either. I thought if I said something, you’d both freak out and leave without a trace. I didn’t want that— I don’t want that. I guess… now that I know he has feelings for me, and you’re presumably, um, interested in me, too, there’s some security there. You won’t just leave. Maybe you’ll at least say bye first.” He tries for a very small smile, glancing up at her briefly, then away again.

Jesus, that’s sad as fuck. “Wow,” Hyuna says and leans all the way across the table to give him a quick kiss, barely long enough for either of them to close their eyes. “Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for you? We like living with you, too, dumbass, so stop fishing for compliments.”

Hui, kiss-dazed after one second, looks confused. “Are you not upset with me anymore?”

“I’ll stop being upset in five to seven business days,” Hyuna informs him and stands up to go get her shoes.

“Let me know,” Hui says, sounding mournful, but he’s back to all smiles very quickly when Hyojong emerges with a bag slung over his arm. “Have fun. I’ll see you later, okay?”

Hyojong does something with his face that’s probably supposed to be a smile but really just looks like the shyest person in the world trying not to scream out loud, then scurries over to Hyuna’s side as if she can protect him from his own feelings. She can, of course. That’s what she’s there for.

“Bye,” she says, waving at Hui with one hand and grabbing onto Hyojong’s elbow with the other to lead him to the door. “Dawnie, do you want to walk or take the metro?”

“I don’t care,” Hyojong mumbles, opening the door for her and going out right after so as to avoid being alone with Hui. He honestly probably sees Hui not telling him that the crush was mutual as a betrayal. It’s a miracle that he continued being friends with Hyuna after she told him what she really did for a living, but now that Hyuna knows that it’s because he was a little in love with her the whole time, it makes more sense.

They end up walking since it’s a warm summer night and they’re both feeling restless. Usually when they walk together, Hyuna insists on them linking arms so they don’t drift apart, but today they hold hands, palm to palm at first and then with fingers interlocked. Hyojong doesn’t have much to say, and for once neither does Hyuna, content to walk by his side, enjoying the unfamiliar but pleasant feeling of their linked hands occasionally bumping against her leg. Even after their mutual confessions which have, presumably, changed everything, she doesn’t feel any less comfortable with him, and from the way he looks straight ahead without fidgeting, she knows he’s the same way.

Once they’re back at her apartment, Hyojong takes off his shoes and goes in to fall face-first onto her bed. She laughs at him and sees the curve of his cheek when he smiles in response, and she can’t help but go and join him even though she’s got shit to do.

Just like old times. Just like the old days, those breathtaking sleepless nights when she’d be exhausted beyond belief but staying awake to talk to him because they had so little time together. As soon as she got off the plane she’d be on a bus to Hwasun and he’d meet her at the station, then take her back to his tiny house in the fucking mountains where she’d very politely make very awkward small talk with his mom (who clearly and obviously assumed they were screwing but somehow never forbade Hyojong from letting Hyuna spend the night) and then sprawl out on his bed while he sprawled out on the floor and then talk until they were both hoarse, until the sun was coming back up. Then she’d sleep during the day, go out for dinner with him when she woke up, and spend the whole evening and night talking again. This only happened twice over the two years they knew each other before he came to Paris, and she could never stay with him more than three days; her parents were typically very content to be uninterested in her and just send her a generous allowance from time to time, but on the rare occasion that she was back in their motherland, they did demand her presence, and “but I have to hang out with my beloved internet pen pal, we have a bond” wasn’t an acceptable excuse for delaying her arrival.

So Hyuna’s heart is hurting with nostalgia tonight when she crawls into bed with him. Like old times, they start on opposite sides, both staring at the ceiling and not saying anything, but unlike old times, they inch closer and closer together until she finally says, “Get over here, you big baby,” and he comes into her arms.

He settles his head into the crook of her shoulder and exhales shaky and quiet. “Sorry,” he says, barely audible.

“I’m sorry,” she says, pressing a kiss to the top of his head and tightening her arms around him. “You must have really suffered because of me. You’ve really loved me this whole time?”

Hyojong shrugs just a little. “Haven’t you loved me this whole time?”

“You got me there,” Hyuna laughs, kissing into his soft hair again. She quiets soon enough, holding him tighter still, even wrapping her legs around him for good measure. They lay like that for a little while, until uncomfortable guilt is rising in her throat and she can’t hold it back anymore. She takes in a breath and runs her hand down his back, then starts to say, “Dawnie, I really—”

“I know,” Hyojong says. “You don’t have to say it, Hyuna. I know.”

He tilts his head and presses a very, very small kiss to her neck and she trusts (for once) that he really does get it. When it comes to insignificant things like whether or not they got paid 3 million euro, his ability to read between the lines is kind of questionable, but here, she knows he knows.

“Good,” she murmurs. “And what about Hui?”

She can practically feel Hyojong’s immediate discomfort and shyness. “What about him?” Hyojong says, sounding uncharacteristically hostile, and Hyuna laughs, patting his back to calm him down.

“Were you not gonna tell me that you had a thing for him? Also, do you think both of us wanting to fuck him is going to be a problem if we bring him into our operation?” she muses, idly rubbing her ankle over Hyojong’s.

He pulls away from her, frowning in a sleepy sort of way. “You’re considering it?”

“Dawn, I really don’t think we have a choice,” Hyuna sighs. “He said it like we had a choice, but. Come on. If we say no, fuck off, we don’t need or want your help, you really think he’ll just be like… ‘Okay! Gotcha!’”

“Yes,” Hyojong says, dead serious, and Hyuna rolls her eyes. “Yeah, he would! I know him way better than you do. When he says something like that, he means it. He held onto our secret this long, right?”

“Whatever,” Hyuna says, stretching her legs out. “I don’t buy it. He’s got something up his sleeve, mark my words.”

“Marked,” Hyojong nods. He considers her for a moment, then lies down by her side again, eyes pensive. “So do you not like him anymore, or…?”

Hyuna laughs and playfully kicks at him. “Don’t get your hopes up. We’re sharing him.”

“That’s fine,” Hyojong shrugs. “He’s a good guy. You sure you won’t get too jealous?”

Considering he just spent the past week sulking about Hyuna and Hui being involved, it’s kind of funny to hear Hyojong worrying about someone else’s jealousy. Hyuna shakes her head, biting back a smile, and reaches out to gently pet over Hyojong’s hair. “It’s you I don’t want to share,” she says, voice quiet.

Hyojong shivers and tries to hide it with a quick smile, but she notices anyway. She notices most things about him, so it’s really a marvel that she didn’t notice how he felt about her or about Hui. What’s the reverse of wishful thinking? That’s what she’s been suffering from over the past few years, evidently.

She finds the cure here, in leaning in to rub the tips of their noses together and braving ahead even when he starts shying away. And she kisses him for good measure. Lightly, not enough to scare him too badly. She wouldn’t want to give him the wrong idea tonight — neither of them is ready for anything beyond a few close-mouthed kisses, she’s pretty damn sure — so she keeps it light when she kisses him again, then hugs him close to her.

They stay like that until she complains that her arm is falling asleep and pushes him off of her. And then it’s just like normal, him hanging out in bed while she bustles around her apartment complaining about customers at work while she does a piss-poor job of cleaning. She takes a quick shower, then he does once she’s back out, and while he’s in the shower she makes up the bed properly, throwing the various decorative quilts and pillows to the floor and bringing regular pillows out instead. The bed’s small, but Hyojong gets pretty cuddly and Hyuna’s short, so collectively they don’t take up a whole lot of space.

He returns from the shower in a few more minutes, and she’s in bed already, idly scrolling through the handful of articles about their latest exploits that have popped up since the last time she checked. The insurance fraud thing has sort of fallen by the wayside, and the latest hot-button issue is the robbery of the Orangerie, which is admittedly a pretty big deal. He wriggles his way into bed by her side (since she refuses to move and make room) and curls up around her back, his chin on her shoulder so he can see her phone. “What are you reading?” he asks, audibly sleepy. Go figure. It’s been one of the most shocking days in Hyojong’s recent memory, and all he wants to do is sleep.

“Stories about us,” Hyuna replies, finally adjusting how she’s lying but not to make room for him, just to get a little further away, since he’s still kind of damp from his shower.

Hyojong hums in response. His cheek’s on her shoulder now, and at this rate, he’ll probably be passed out cold in three minutes. “Hyuna,” he mumbles after a moment. “What are we gonna do?”

“I don’t know,” Hyuna sighs. He could be referring to any number of things, and that’s her response to all of them. “I’ll think of something.”

He drapes an arm over her, then tightens it, hugging on. “Don’t think of something alone. I’ll be more ambitious so you can take a break.”

“Jesus,” Hyuna says, rolling her eyes. “You’re still thinking about that? We have new problems to deal with now.”

Hyojong shrugs, tightens his hold again, and doesn’t say anything else.

It’s kind of a sweet sentiment. Hyojong is a very sweet boy, and sometimes he shows it more than usual. If this really is the beginning of the end, then Hyuna’s glad to have Hyojong by her side through it all.

But she’s getting ahead of herself. Hyojong’s intuition is typically pretty good, and if he says that Hui’s trustworthy and harmless (despite this obvious instance of him being kind of snakey) then she’ll work on believing it. As to him helping out, well. That’s a little more questionable, and she’ll need more time and information to decide. It’s not like she and Hyojong were professionals when they started — Hyuna’s pre-existing arrest record notwithstanding — but it’s not just about experience, it’s about a mindset, and she just doesn’t know if Hui’s cut out for it. Breaking the law to this scale takes a lot of devil-may-care courage. While that’s a fairly loosely defined concept, whatever it entails is not something Hui seems to have. Her recruitment process for Hyojong basically consisted of dropping hints that she had a big and illicit hobby, then telling him the truth, then wondering out loud what it would be like if they worked as a team. Not exactly replicable with Hui, so she’ll need to come up with something else. It’ll probably take a while, she thinks to herself, but before she can invent a reliable vetting method, she falls asleep, with Hyojong asleep already and all cuddled up to her.

As it turns out, Hyuna’s worries are misplaced. It ends up happening, as so many things do with Hui, very quickly.

“Oh, the Petit Palais?” he says a week later as he walks past Hyojong and Hyuna, who are at the breakfast table with papers and blueprints spread out all around them. They’d tentatively decided to not hide what they’re doing from him, at least, even if they don’t want to bring him on board yet or at all. “I love their resource center, it’s such a nice place to study. I go sometimes, even though I’m not a student anymore.”

“Huh,” Hyuna says thoughtfully, and that’s really all it takes.

Nothing crime-related or three-way romance-related has happened between Hyojong and Hui’s disparate confessions, but Hyojong is still too shy to sit right next to Hui. So after Hyuna’s scared the living daylights out of Hui by saying “We need to talk” and then leaving, they sit across the table from him, Hyuna’s hands folded professionally like she’s doing a job interview. Hui seems nervous but optimistic, and Hyojong is slouching in a sulky sort of way by Hyuna’s side.

“What’s up?” Hui prompts when the silence has dragged on for a little too long.

“It’d be cool if you could help us out with this one,” Hyuna says, not one for beating around the bush. “If you can get us into the resource center, we’ll hang out there until after closing, and then we’ll do our thing and leave.”

“Oh!” Hui says. His eyes light up and his posture straightens, and when he nods, his hair bobs on top of his head from enthusiasm. “Great!”

“You’re not helping us with the actual, y’know, doing our thing,” Hyuna adds quickly. “You can just get us in, then go somewhere else.”

“Sure, whatever you guys want!” Hui nods. Jeez, he’s so enthused about this that Hyuna feels embarrassed on his behalf. Hyojong likes it, though, doing his cute shy smile, eyes on the table. “When? I’ll go before by myself so I can tell you where you can hide out.”

“Okay,” Hyuna says, raising an eyebrow. That’s actually not a bad idea. “We’re thinking either next Friday or Saturday, and the museum closes pretty early—”

“Saturday,” Hui interrupts. “Sorry, just— it’ll be better on Saturday. It’s fine if you want to do it Friday, of course, but Saturday, France is playing Australia, so everybody’s going to be watching the game and not paying attention to alarms going off or whatever.”

Hyuna’s eyebrow goes higher. That’s an even better idea, what the fuck? Either Hui’s been planning this heist behind their backs for a while, or he’s just well-suited to this sort of thing. Kinda unexpected for an underpaid, overworked office secretary who more often than not needs Hyuna’s help opening jars, but then again, Hyuna manages a jewelry store and Hyojong’s a tattoo artist, so the lesson about never judging a book by its cover has been thoroughly learned. Also, maybe she should start paying attention to sports? “Fine, Saturday. When are you going to go case it yourself?”

“I can go tomorrow, I have a half-day at work,” Hui says, pulling out his phone to check. “You’ll be able to get in from the resource center, you’re sure?”

“Pretty sure,” Hyuna says, shuffling some papers around until she finds the museum’s floor plan. “Look, it connects through here, and we can just put some doorstops in to keep those doors open. This’ll be fun, huh, Dawn? We haven’t done the all-day camp-out since… the Gustave Moreau museum, right?”

“Right,” Hyojong says.

“Maybe we can hide in the bathroom,” Hyuna muses. “I can print some ‘out of order’ signs for the stall doors and we can just chill.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, what are you stealing?” Hui asks politely, then looks startled and amends, “Not— stealing, um, what are you going to… take? Borrow? Liberate?”

“We’re going to steal a Cezanne and a Corot,” Hyuna says, entertained. “And that’s all you need to know.” For good measure, she reaches across the table and pats him on the cheek like she does to Hyojong sometimes. Hui reacts about the same way Hyojong usually does: he goes a little pink and shuts up. “Anyway, let me know how it goes tomorrow. Don’t text me or call me about it, I’ll just come back here after work.”

“Oh, okay,” Hui says, back to being wide-eyed and serious. “I’m guessing I shouldn’t text or call with any information about this at all, generally?”

“It’s not rocket science,” Hyuna shrugs, lazily and elegantly stretching out her arms. “Just use your best judgment. And ask Dawn if you’re not sure and if I’m not here.”

“So… that’s a yes?” Hui says uncertainly.

Hyuna pinches the bridge of her nose and exhales. “I’m surrounded by idiots,” she mutters. “Seriously, how many braincells do you have between the two of you? Five?”

Hui looks meek and tries to get some solidarity from Hyojong, but Hyojong is busy braiding the tassels on the edge of a decorative napkin and is therefore unavailable. “Sorry,” Hui finally says. “Gotcha. No texting or calling.”

“Before you do something, ask yourself: would this get me noticed by some weirdo at Interpol with nothing better to do?” Hyuna suggests. “It’s pretty easy to figure out what’ll tip those assholes off or not.”

“Got it,” Hui nods, visibly trying not to smile.

“What’s so funny?” Hyuna says, raising an eyebrow. “You’re in the fucking big leagues now, Interpol’s in charge of investigating major art theft, you think the Paris Police Prefecture is going to be capable of figuring us out? I didn’t just pull that out of my ass.”

“I know, I know,” Hui says and rubs a hand over his face to calm himself down. “I just like the way you talk.”

That catches Hyuna off-guard and her cheeks are heating up before she can stop herself. “Oh,” she says, pleased. “Okay.”

“I’ll tell you what I find out,” Hui adds, softer, still smiling but more gently. “And I know I don’t have very many braincells, but I promise I’m reliable. You made a good call, Hyuna. Thank you— thank you both— for taking a chance on me.”

“Yikes, it’s fine,” Hyuna says. There’s something about that all-encompassing, overwhelming sincerity that’s, well, overwhelming, making her feel like she’s being crushed under a steamroller of good intentions. That in combination with his casual little compliment from a moment ago makes her blush now undeniable, and since Hyojong is evidently rendered totally useless by the depth of his feelings for Hui and Hyuna both, Hui’s basically just sitting across from two tongue-tied and giggly cat burglars declawed. She composes herself long enough to say, “I’m going home, see you tomorrow,” and to keep some sense of mystery alive, doesn’t even answer Hui when he asks what time.

“Are you gonna be okay here alone with him?” she whispers to Hyojong when Hui’s off doing something in the kitchen and Hyuna’s about to head out.

Hyojong nods, looking affronted. “I can handle myself,” he whispers back.

“Hyojong? Would you like a piece of toast?” Hui says from the kitchen, and Hyojong immediately goes very red and very shy, all but hiding behind his hands.

Hyuna’s supposed to believe that this guy’s edgy designs and “badass vibes” gained him thousands of followers on Instagram? She pokes at him, teasing, and he ducks away but makes a pleading face at her until she rolls her eyes and says, “Yeah, put butter on it,” so Hyojong doesn’t have to speak.

After Hyojong’s had his toast and Hui has very politely stayed out of their way, Hyojong walks Hyuna downstairs, obviously reluctant to be alone with Hui regardless of what he says. Hui doesn’t seem like he’s going to be pushy and want to talk to Hyojong about feelings or crime or anything in between, but he’s clearly full of surprises, so Hyuna gets why Hyojong’s anxious. Then again, just about anything can make him anxious, from a slightly lumpy tangerine to a train running late to a mass stabbing. There’s no real need to take this seriously yet.

Just outside the building, Hyuna curls her hand in the front of his t-shirt, more holes than fabric (she remembers when he got it as a birthday present to himself and he sent her a selfie that she had as her lockscreen for about a week before she changed it back to a Lisa Frank goth edit), and tugs him in for a kiss. He kisses back like he’s been dying for her to do this all day, hands on her waist while she drapes her arms over his shoulders, and she murmurs sweet nothings to him into the space between their mouths when they come up for air. He’s kind of a clumsy kisser, he keeps turning his head the wrong way and missing his chance to get some tongue action going, and honestly, Hyuna wouldn’t be surprised if she’s the first person he’s kissed in a very long time; he hasn’t had a boyfriend or a girlfriend the whole time they’ve known each other and he’s definitely not the one-night-stand type. It’s pretty cute, but she’s also glad that he’s going to have Hui to practice on, since he’ll only have the cuteness factor going for him for so long.

Their goodbyes take a while sometimes — she usually remembers something she’d meant to tell him about at the very last minute — but this is a new record, and it takes significant effort for them to separate and for Hyuna to go homewards. Earlier, when Hyojong hadn’t been speaking to her, she’d decided that the problem with only having one friend was having no one to talk to if that friend is mad at you, but now it’s clear that there’s a way more serious problem, which is that if you fall in love with said friend, you won’t be able to keep your hands off them and you’ll never get anything done ever again.

Hui goes to the Petit Palais on his lunch break. He finished university a few years ago, but his student card still gets him into student-only places (that, and his rosy cheeks and general bright-eyed, bushy-tailed demeanor), so he makes it into the resource center without suspicion. In order to not seem sketchy, he stays there for about forty-five minutes pretending to work on some master’s thesis follow-up stuff. “You can hide in the bathrooms or in a storage closet in the curator’s offices,” he says, pointing to the relevant spot on the floor plan.

“Are there security cameras there?” Hyuna asks, gesturing for Hyojong to write down Hui’s answer. He’s taking notes like some kind of nerd, probably just so he doesn’t have to actually participate in the conversation.

Hui thinks about this for a second, then shakes his head. “I didn’t see any in the resource center. And I was looking for them, I’d have seen them. There are some outside, though, here and here.”

“Wicked,” Hyuna says, marking the spots Hui points to with an X drawn in red glitter pen. “We can go out the other way, then. Let’s go over the plan.”

Here’s the plan: at 15:50, Hui will go to the resource center and get settled in. At 16:10, Hui will ask a curator for help finding something in a temporary collection, but will also feign some very minor injury (such as stubbing his toe) as they leave, thereby distracting the curator from Hyuna and Hyojong’s entry. Hui draws the curator away while Hyuna and Hyojong prop open the door between the resource center and the main museum, then conceal themselves. Hui leaves the museum by 16:45. The World Cup game starts at 17:00, and the museum itself closes at 18:00, which is also the start of the second half of the match, and needless to say, whatever paltry security remains after closing hours (two guards in opposite corners of the building) will be very distracted. Hyuna and Hyojong will have a maximum of forty-five minutes to get out of their hiding place safely, take the paintings, then go, and should be leaving at the same time the game is ending. Regardless of whether France wins or loses, there’ll be people being noisy and obnoxious in the street, so Hyuna and Hyojong will blend into the crowd and make their way back home as usual. Hyojong will go to his and Hui’s place, Hyuna to her own with the payload, and then all three will rendezvous to debrief at a cafe that’s located midway between the two apartments.

There’s a little bit of room for error, as there always is, but overall it’s a pretty tight plan. Hyuna hates admitting that she needs anyone’s help besides Hyojong’s, and yet she can’t deny that having another person there to bounce ideas off of has been… useful, if not nice. Hui was right, this seems to have been a good call. Maybe if he can keep his pretty mouth shut and stick to the plan, she’ll let him do some actual stealing with them next time.

“Any questions?” Hyuna says, finishing the line she’d been drawing on the floor plan with a flourish. “Dawn?”

“Nah, I’m good,” Hyojong shrugs. He takes the glitter pen from her and draws a rectangle, around which he then draws three quick sketchy little people that are clearly supposed to represent the three of them. Despite them being essentially stick figures, it’s still immediately obvious who’s who, due to the very powerful energies he somehow managed to imbue the image with.

“That looks just like us,” Hui smiles, leaning in closer to see. “Aw, I’d keep that if it weren’t on top-secret heist plans.”

Hyojong goes very red and shy, mumbling something meek and fiddling with his hair. Seriously, people compliment him on his doodles for a living and he somehow can’t handle it when Hui says one vaguely flattering thing to him. Then again, Hyuna’s bar is set pretty low, too; the other day she stopped by in the morning and the sight of Hui’s bedhead made her kind of horny. It’s been more than three weeks since their bathroom dalliance, and daily (sometimes thrice-daily) masturbation just isn’t cutting it anymore. But now that Hyojong’s declared his interest in Hui, she has to wait for him to make a move before she can make another one, and at this rate, Hyojong won’t be able to even make eye contact with Hui ever again. Great. Hyuna’s pussy will keep being lonely forever, evidently.

“Anyways,” she says, snatching the pen back from Hyojong before it can cause any more damage, “if nobody has any questions, I’ll see you all on Saturday.”

“Okay,” Hui nods. For someone who’s about to become accessory to grand larceny, he seems awfully calm. Maybe he just needs more time to process the weight of his decision and he’ll freak out about it later and change his mind about being involved at all. “Good luck to us all.”

Saturday morning drags on and on. Hyuna never hates her job more than she does on heist days, when obnoxious customers attack in droves with pointless questions and insipid compliments and the jewelry Hyuna’s supposed to be selling seems tacky and ugly. Everything is an obstacle to her doing what she really wants to do, which in today’s case includes seeing Hyojong and Hui. Technically, she makes enough from the heist stuff to not even need a job, and her parents still send her an allowance every other month, and on days like this, quitting is tempting. But robbing the Louvre would be the crown jewel in Hyuna’s metaphorical heisting tiara, and working at the Carrousel gets her some security clearance, so she puts up with it for now. It’s annoying as fuck regardless of how at-peace with it she is, though, and she can feel her paintings waiting for her, and this is taking forever.

But after she’s announced that she’s leaving for the day, time speeds up abruptly. All of a sudden, blink and you’ll miss it, she’s leading Hyojong through the back door of the Petit Palais. They’re both wearing normal outfits for now — their robber disguises are in the bag Hui had brought with him and left for Hyojong in the men’s bathroom — and they go right by Hui in the atrium before the resource center. He’s just dropped a book on his foot and doesn’t break character even for a moment; he and the curator he’s with both ignore Hyuna and Hyojong completely as they bend down to pick up the other books that had fallen.

That’s all it takes. They’re in. Hyojong goes directly to the men’s room while Hyuna continues through the resource center. Nobody’s in the room and the only curator there is out front with Hui, so there’s nothing in her way. She jams the lock of the door between the center and the main area of the museum with a folded-up piece of paper, then checks the time (they’re perfectly on-schedule, Hui should still be out and about with the curator) and joins Hyojong in the bathroom. It’s a tiny space, two stalls and one sink, but it’ll have to do. The out-of-order sign goes up on the door, Hyuna checks her watch one more time, and then all they have to do is wait.

Waiting for an hour and a half is much easier said than done. For Hyuna, that is. Hyojong’s going to have no problems whatsoever with sitting mostly still the whole time and doing nothing in particular, but Hyuna likes to stay busy even when she’s lazing around. But she can’t braid her hair for fear of shedding a few strands, she can’t catch up on her latest favorite TV show, she can’t make conversation, and she’s going to get sore real fast from having to perch in the odd position she’s currently in for such a long period of time. The only light at the end of the tunnel is the payout, and she’s found a great buyer this time; 1.5 million guaranteed for both paintings in good condition.

It’s so quiet in the bathroom that Hyuna can hear the occasional bus pass on the street outside, as well as Hui returning to the table he’d been at, chatting with the curator, packing up his things. Hyuna checks the time. 16:44, he should be leaving by now. She looks meaningfully at Hyojong, who blinks even more meaningfully at her in return, and soon it’s quiet outside again — Hui’s gone.

The resource center formally closes at 17:00, but Hyuna’s not risking coming out before the museum closes, regardless of how uncomfortable this position is. In order to keep from dying of boredom, she’s mentally going over her favorite Britney Spears dance routines. Hyojong’s eyes are sort of glazed, but that’s par for the course. Cezanne’s Three Bathers is on the first floor, Corot’s Marietta on the second. They’ll go out the way they came in, paintings in tow, and that’s the hard part done.

Hyuna almost falls asleep, dozing off with her head drooping down to the side, but Hyojong shakes her awake before she can really pass out. She makes an angry face at him and he points to her watch, which shows that it’s 17:55 and it’s time for them to get dressed and start enacting the next phase of the plan.

As Hyuna pulls a black shirt and dark pants on over what she’s already got on, she considers briefly why she never gets nervous about jobs anymore. The first few she and Hyojong did, she was arguably even more scared than he was, regardless of her past brushes with the law. That had all been small fry, a dropped shoplifting charge here, driving without a license there, shit like that. These jobs in Paris were bigger, riskier, and she had her best friend with her, too, and if anything went wrong she wouldn’t be the only one in trouble. And yet now that she’s working their biggest job to date with two accomplices instead of one, she can’t muster up any anxiety. Maybe it’s because this has become routine and she knows what to do, how to account for all the variables. Maybe it’s because she and Hyojong have such good luck with pulling their heists off; they’ve never ever been brought in for questioning regarding a theft. Or maybe it’s just because she knows they’re the best and there’s no way they’ll fuck up. Whatever option it is, she’s focused but calm as they leave the bathroom and make their way through the propped-open door and into the darkened, silent museum.

There’s not a lot of time to look around, but Hyuna loves museums after closing, how quiet they are, how empty they seem without tour groups and art students filling every possible space. Hyuna and Hyojong stay close to the walls as they walk, and soon they’re taking the Cezanne down and Hyuna’s working on taking it out of the frame. Each turn of her screwdriver and each push of her utility knife through the plywood backing sounds terrible and loud and she doesn’t want to rush it and risk damaging the painting, but every noise is so magnified by the marble floors and high ceilings that she is, against all odds, starting to get nervous.

Hyojong picks up on it, bless his heart, and steadies her hand with a light touch on her wrist. “Take your time,” he murmurs, keeping his voice quiet so it doesn’t echo. “There’s no rush.”

“I know, I know,” Hyuna says, taking a breath, then resuming work a little slower. “I think my screwdriver might be dull? Or something?”

“Weird,” Hyojong says. He adjusts his grip on the painting so she can pull the backing off more emphatically, and when she’s done, he hangs the frame back up on the wall, as is customary by now.

“Fucking Cezanne, I swear to God,” Hyuna mutters under her breath. She’s cutting the painting off the canvas one pin at a time, and it must have been reframed recently because they’re tight as hell and are taking a lot of muscle to pop off. But she finishes somehow and carefully, delicately peels the painting away, then has it wrapped in plastic and stowed in the bag in under a minute.

The next one’s upstairs. As they walk, Hyojong keeps sneaking glances at her, and she finally calls him out for it when they’ve taken the Corot down off the wall and Hyuna’s starting to free it from the frame. “What are you looking at? I’m fine,” she says, tightening her grip on the screwdriver to really force it into the grooves of the screw.

“I know you are,” Hyojong says placidly. “Are you nervous because of, y’know, him?”

Hyuna scoffs, the black silk fabric of her face-scarf warm against her mouth when she huffs once more for good measure. “Fuck no. He did his thing and left. Why the fuck would I worry about that?”

“Dunno,” Hyojong shrugs. “But if you’re nervous, don’t be.”

Hyuna stops her unscrewing to roll her eyes at him. “Great. You’re the best at advice, thanks.”

“Don’t be nervous,” Hyojong insists. “You’re right, he didn’t do a whole lot, and he’s trustworthy. It’ll be fine. Now hurry up so we can get paid.”

As far as pep talks go, it’s a 2/10. But she’s getting the painting rolled up and slipping it into the bag alongside the Cezanne, and Hyojong was talking throughout the whole process (he talks slow, it took a while for him to get all that out), thereby distracting her from dwelling on her nervousness or lack thereof. Huh. For all of Hyuna’s complaining about how it might be nice to have an extra set of hands (she’d always meant it in the sense of growing a new pair herself, but fuck, that sure seems like foreshadowing now), she and Hyojong work great together as a team. If they really do bring Hui onboard as a full-fledged third, she’ll miss this camaraderie, their Bonnie-Clyde dynamic (even though Hyojong has always very strictly forbidden Hyuna from making comparisons like that and refuses to use 1930s slang in his speech no matter how much she wheedles and bugs him about it). She feels a powerful rush of fondness for Hyojong and she’s smiling to herself like a crush-struck dumbass as she and Hyojong zip up the bag and start heading out.

Everything’s going according to plan. It’s exactly 18:55 when Hyuna and Hyojong leave the museum via the same door they came in through, pulling their hats and scarves off as soon as they’re out on the street, and a quick look around indicates that France has won the game. According to Hui, it wasn’t a super important match, but there are still people in the streets and distant sounds of celebration. Hyuna and Hyojong link arms tightly so they don’t get separated, both still in their Saturday night best, which would probably be suspicious on anyone else, but Hyojong makes the oversized all-black concept look very cyberpunk, and Hyuna’s combo of baggy pants with an industrial strength sports bra making her super flat-chested is somehow giving her 90s vibes. They make their way down the street to the metro, shouting “Allez les Bleus!” with everyone else, and when they get on the train, Hyuna pulls insistently at the front of Hyojong’s shirt and kisses him, lips curving into a smile against Hyojong’s mouth when some over-excited couple sitting just behind them cheers in response.

They sit next to each other, the bag spread out over both of their laps. Hyuna doesn’t know what it is about tonight, but she’s so on-edge and restless, and it’s not even in a bad way, really; it just makes her even more talkative than usual and certainly much touchier, one of her legs slung over Hyojong’s and her hand grabbing onto his tightly. She’s kissing him as much as she’s talking to him at this point, too, mostly on his cheek and jaw but occasionally branching out to the corner of his mouth or his ear. There are a lot more people on the metro than there usually are, so maybe that’s why she’s restless — she’s worried about the paintings. As she combs her fingers through his hair and kisses his cheek for the billionth time and tells him all about why coffin nails are ugly, that squirmy, anticipatory feeling remains.

“See you soon,” she says when Hyojong gets up to leave, but she doesn’t let him go yet, tugging him back down by the hand so she can kiss him fully one more time. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Hyojong says, doing her very favorite smile, bashful and private, making him look about five years younger. Despite everything, he hasn’t changed a whole lot, her Dawn. He lets go of her hand and waves to her as he slinks off the train and out of view, leaving her alone with the paintings and her thoughts.

It’s been a good day. A successful one, even. The theft might not get noticed for a couple of days, at this rate, and the paintings will have already sold by then, and Hyuna, Hyojong, and Hui will be on a mini-cation somewhere warm and floral. God, why does Hyuna keep thinking about the three of them all intertwined in various erotic scenarios? Is she ovulating or something? She pulls out her phone to check her cycle as she waits to get to her station, but gets distracted by a news article about quinoa and forgets what she’d originally planned to do.

At her apartment, she stows the paintings under her bed, then strips down, washes her face, gets changed, and opens the windows wide to let some fresh air in. She’s meeting the guys in about half an hour, so she has plenty of time to slice up some fruit to eat and re-do all her makeup. In the end, her look turns out kind of similar to what she’d been wearing to case the Orangerie with Hui, but it’s totally unintentional. And she’s in a skirt, not a dress, so even eagle-eyed Hui probably won’t pick up on the resemblance.

He totally does pick up on the resemblance, the asshole. “You look nice,” he says, eyes twinkling conspiratorially as he smiles up at her.

“Do I?” she says breezily, tossing her hair over her shoulder and sitting down on Hyojong’s side of the booth so she can slide her arm around him and give him a squeeze.

“You always do,” Hui nods. He seems impatient to talk business, though, and she takes pity, calling a waiter over so she can order some bread for the table and an Italian soda just for herself. Once the waiter’s gone, Hui sits forward with yet another unfamiliar facial expression on: this one’s almost hungry, and he looks lean and serious, face all alight with eager curiosity. “Well? How’d it go?”

“We got what we needed,” Hyuna says, fluent in double-entendres. “In no small part because of you.” She’s a shameless flirt, dimples popping when she smiles coyly at him, and it works pretty well — Hui goes momentarily speechless, smiling dumbly back at her.

“Thank you for helping,” Hyojong adds. His voice is impossibly soft and he’s so fucking shy that he pretty much whispers it, but Hyuna and Hui both hear it somehow anyway.

“Ah, thank you for letting me help,” Hui says graciously. He looks like he wants to say something else, but the waiter comes back with Hyuna’s Italian soda so he doesn’t.

Hyuna’s the only one that ordered something, which she’s fine with. Being the center of attention comes very naturally to her. “What have you been up to?” she asks Hui, stirring up the syrup in her soda and taking a sip.

“Not much. Did some research, went home, caught the tail end of the match,” Hui answers. This is both his pre-determined alibi and what seems to really be the truth. “Nothing out of the ordinary happened.” That’s the pre-determined super secret code for ‘nothing out of the ordinary happened.’ “I’m glad you had a good day today.”

“I am, too,” Hyuna says with another one of her coy smiles. Shit, she and Hyojong still need to talk about how they’re going to divide up payment. Hui helped just enough to get paid, but definitely not enough to get an equal portion. Maybe she’ll just take him out to a nice dinner like Hyojong apparently does and they can call it even.

“Can I see?” Hui says, his voice lowered for secrecy’s sake. “I’m just… curious.”

Hyuna laughs, taking another sip of her soda. “No. Use that pretty head, c’mon. The fewer people see, the better.” She decides she doesn’t want her soda anymore and hands it off to Hyojong, who tries it, wrinkles his nose, and sets it aside.

“Oh.” Hui’s confidence seems to crumble somewhat. “Okay. Gotcha.”

Hyuna looks around thoughtfully, twisting a strand of her hair around her finger. They can’t really talk here, and she can’t remember why she thought a debrief somewhere public was a good idea. Maybe Hui suggested it? “Let’s get out of here,” she says, flagging a waiter down again so she can pay for her soda.

Hui and Hyojong both look confused at this proposed change of scenery, but neither of them argues, so after Hyuna’s paid for her soda, Hui leaves the booth, then Hyuna, then Hyojong. “Um, where are we going?” Hui asks politely. Hyuna catches him and Hyojong exchanging a quick look, which she doesn’t totally understand. She doesn’t know why they’re both being kind of weird, either.

“I’ll walk you back to your place,” she shrugs, adjusting her purse on her shoulder and slipping her arm through Hyojong’s instinctively. “And you can invite me up for a drink, like a gentleman.”

“Okay,” Hui says. His cheeks are going that pretty pink that she likes, and since he’s on her other side, she takes him by the arm, too, pulling both of them in close against her. This makes getting out through the cafe’s door pretty difficult, but they make it happen, and then they’re taking up the whole sidewalk instead. In short, they’re kind of a public nuisance, but at least they’re all cute and so no one seems to mind.

It’s a warm evening and the sun is still up, getting into Hyuna’s eyes as they walk and making her squint and turn her head to hide in Hyojong’s shoulder. A soft hand reaches over and brushes her fringe down so it’s almost covering her eyes, and she turns to see that it’s Hui, smiling at her. He hasn’t directly touched her in a while, and although this touch is definitely chaste, it still makes her feel warm and almost flustered. She smiles back at him, eyes lidded and fond, and snuggles into Hyojong’s arm. Something’s happening, but she doesn’t know what it is yet. She still feels restless like earlier and breaks eye contact with Hui to turn her head and press a kiss to Hyojong’s cheek. The print glitters from her lip gloss and she leaves it instead of wiping it away, liking the way it looks on his skin in the light from the setting sun.

Hyuna has to let go of Hui and Hyojong so they can go up the stairs. She goes first so they can both check out her ass, naturally, and when they’re up in the apartment, she pulls her hair back in a quick ponytail while they all get settled. According to all formal rules of social etiquette, Hui or Hyojong should be offering Hyuna a drink or a snack or something, at least, but that unfamiliar glint in Hui’s eye is back and so they all sit down around the table to continue the debrief.

“So what happened after you made it in?” Hui prompts, elbows on the table, legs all manspreaded out.

“I jammed the lock of the door to the main exhibitions, then we hid out in the bathroom until the museum closed,” Hyuna says, telling it like a story, even leaning in across the table slightly for dramatic effect. “It was cramped and warm and I was falling asleep, but Dawn had his eye on the time and woke me up when we needed to go. We went for the Cezanne first. No alarms went off and I took my time so I wouldn’t damage the painting—” she omits the part about how she’d been nervous and the frame had been giving her trouble— “and then we went for the Corot, which was on the next floor up. No security guards, no issues. We wrapped them both and left the same way we came in, right on schedule.”

“Where are the paintings now?” Hui asks.

“Under my bed, where they always go,” Hyuna shrugs. “My apartment’s a great place to store art, I have an air purifier so it’s not too humid or too dry… Anyway, nobody saw us going out, thanks to the crowd.”

“Would you say that it went well?” Hui says. “Better than usual? Worse? About the same?”

Hyuna looks to Hyojong for a second opinion and shrugs again. “About the same.”

That strange look on Hui’s face sharpens. Maybe it’s a trick of the light, or maybe Hyuna’s just imagining it. “What actually happens when you’re inside?” he says, and his tone is more hushed, verging on something like reverence. “What do you do?”

“I know where the marks are ahead of time, so we just go directly to them,” Hyuna answers, humoring him. She thinks she knows what’s going on here: neat and tidy law-abiding Hui is shocked and titillated by his first contact with the unlawful. That explains why he’s asking about all this like he’s been dying to know the truth for years, not just the few months since he’d figured it out. “Then Dawn takes the painting down from the wall and I take the frame off with various tools. Each painting is a little bit different, like… sometimes they have waterproof backing and normal backing, sometimes it’s just one piece of cardboard, sometimes there’s four frame clips and sometimes there’s only one. But there’s never been a mark I haven’t been able to get just because of how much unnecessary shit there is keeping it in the frame. So we take the painting out, roll it up, put it in the bag. Gossip a little bit if we have time. Then we head out.”

“And what do you do?” Hui asks, his attention directly on Hyojong. “While Hyuna’s cutting the painting out?”

Hyojong, as shy as ever when it comes to talking about this, makes a noncommittal noise, glancing at Hui. “I’m holding the frame. Keeping a look-out. I dunno, I don’t do a lot. Hyuna does all of the planning and most of the work. I guess she’s the brains and I’m the brawn?”

“No,” Hui says, “you’re so much more than that.” And he leans across the table, his eyes unfamiliar below his eyelashes, and tilts his head to the side and kisses Hyojong on the mouth.

It’s a soft and clumsy kiss, Hyojong’s eyes wide open and Hui’s slipped shut, and as Hui’s hands come up to curl around Hyojong’s jaw, Hyuna sees him trying to coax Hyojong to kiss him back. But Hyojong is still motionless from shock, stiff under Hui’s touch, as Hui presses his lips to Hyojong’s again gently, plaintively. There they go, Hyuna’s boys, both just a little bit too shy and polite for their own good.

Seeing Hyojong kissing someone else is making Hyuna feel protective in all kinds of ways. That’s the strawberry-pink mouth she’s been kissing on all week and now it’s on someone else, it’s on Hui, Hui who made Hyuna come so hard, who still makes her come hard just thinking about it. Hyojong deserves that, he needs that — he’s wound so tight all the time. And maybe, sweet thing, maybe he thinks he needs permission, since Hyuna joking that they’re going to share Hui doesn’t really constitute any kind of real agreement about who gets to do what with whom.

Hui tries one more time and Hyojong finally starts responding, his eyelashes fluttering as he closes his eyes, and Hyuna reaches out to put her hand on the back of Hyojong’s neck as a warm reassurance that she wants this, too, and as encouragement to keep going.

It works. Hyojong melts, shivering and parting his lips and letting Hui kiss him properly. Hui’s hands move down to hold onto Hyojong’s shirt and Hyuna rubs her thumb over the soft hair at Hyojong’s nape, and something about the way they’re both touching him makes Hyojong start kissing Hui back the way he’s never kissed Hyuna before, sucking at Hui’s lower lip and giving Hui room to lick into his mouth. They’re not quite aligned, still kissing clumsy and going too fast and too slow all at once, ending up bumping their teeth together when they change angles, tongues licking just barely at the wrong moment. Hyuna can hear the quiet, shaky intakes of their breath, and she knows this has been a long fucking time coming, can’t even imagine how they’ve been able to keep off each other. Hui moves his chair closer to Hyojong’s so they can kiss deeper, and although Hui’s being much more careful with Hyojong than he’d been with Hyuna, she can still tell that they’re heating up, and Hyojong’s cheeks are pink and his hands have come up to hold onto Hui’s forearms to keep him from pulling away. They look so pretty together, so vulnerable and hot with how carefully they’re touching and exploring, and Hyuna pets her hand over Hyojong’s neck, making him shiver again, pressing closer to Hui, who’s already half out of his chair by now to get even closer.

Hui comes up for air, leaving Hyojong pink and visibly wanting more, and turns to Hyuna. Before he can open his mouth to ask, she’s kissing him already, and he still tastes the same and feels the same, plush and warm and sweet. She nips at his mouth with her teeth and he bites back, not as sweet anymore, and it makes her smile, letting go of Hyojong’s neck so she can pull at Hui’s hair. “What are you up to, huh?” she murmurs into his lips. “Kissing Dawnie, then me? Can’t get enough or something?”

“You know what I’m up to,” he says, voice lower just for her. She’d been teasing, she’d thought all he wanted to do was kiss a little and get some team-building activities going, but clearly he wants more. He breaks the kiss and pulls back, reaching for Hyojong again, and if Hyojong didn’t look shell-shocked before he sure as hell does now after seeing Hui and Hyuna kissing. He doesn’t have a voyeuristic bone in his body — in all the times Hyuna’s been totally stark naked in front of him, she’s never once seen his eyes wandering — or, at least, Hyuna thought he didn’t, because that clearly worked for him in a lot of ways; he’s looking directly at Hui and his cheeks are red but he’s not hiding like he would be if he were really feeling shy. In the split second that Hyuna can see his face before Hui leans in to kiss him again, she sees that his eyes are dazed and hot like he’s coming out of a fever.

They kiss for a while, and Hyojong’s taking a more active role now, she can see him licking into Hui’s mouth and edging his chair closer. And he reaches up, too, his hand curling around the side of Hui’s neck. Before he can get settled in that position, though, Hui breaks once again and stands this time, taking Hyojong’s hand and pulling him up. “Come with me,” he murmurs, drawing Hyojong close, and Hyojong goes, leaning into him until they kiss again, fitting together way better now that they’re both standing. Hyuna watches the sharp line of Hyojong’s jaw moving with the push of his tongue into Hui’s mouth, watches his eyebrows pulling together in concentration as they kiss. They can touch each other more now, Hui’s hands going back through Hyojong’s hair and holding the back of his head, Hyojong gripping Hui’s shirt at the waist.

Hyuna’s not entirely sure who starts moving first, but slowly but surely they’re heading for Hui’s room, kissing as they walk. She’s been so caught up in watching them, the way they move together, the shape of Hui’s mouth against Hyojong’s, their hands, that she’s forgotten about her own place in all of this. Not that she minds them going off on their own — Hui and Hyuna did it first, after all — but she’ll miss them if they’re apart too long. Although there’s a lot to be said for her sitting out here or maybe in Hyojong’s room, just listening to them, imagining how they look together. But Hui interrupts her thoughts; in the doorway to his bedroom with Hyojong hesitantly kissing on his jaw, he holds out a free hand and says, “Hyuna,” and that’s all it takes.

She gets up and follows them. Hui kisses Hyojong again while they wait for her to come over, and once she’s by their sides, they move to the bed, Hyojong’s hand letting go of Hui’s shirt in favor of grasping Hyuna’s wrist to keep her close. Hui’s kissing Hyojong like he can’t get enough of him and Hyuna can’t blame him, she’s kissed him, too, she knows how hard it is to stop once you start. They end up at Hui’s bed and now it’s Hyojong on top of Hui the same way Hyuna had been a week ago, and when Hyuna runs her hand down the curve of his back he makes a small, shaky noise into Hui’s mouth.

Hui sits up so that Hyojong will be in his lap, and he and Hyuna both work on pulling Hyojong’s shirt off. Hyuna’s never seen Hui like this, not even when they’d been fucking in the bathroom at the Orangerie, his eyes so dark and focused, intent on Hyojong. Hyuna moves to sit behind Hyojong and slip her arms around him, running her hands up the flat expanse of his chest, and she kisses up his shoulder to his neck as Hui kisses his mouth. He’s smooth and firm, warm, shivering under her touch, and he breathes out another soft noise when Hyuna rubs a thumb over one of his nipples just to see if he’ll like it. She does it again until he squirms and pushes her hand away, complaining very quietly to Hui that she’s teasing him. But Hui’s not too sympathetic, either, taking Hyuna’s hand and moving it back to where it had been. He kisses Hyojong deep while Hyuna keeps teasing him, and now Hui’s pressed so close that his shirt is right against the back of Hyuna’s hand, so close that she can almost feel his heartbeat, firm and steady.

Soon Hyojong turns, though, to catch Hyuna’s mouth in a kiss. She’s so surprised that her hold on him slips, and through a series of movements and adjustments, she ends up between them with both of them on her, Hui kissing her mouth while Hyojong’s shy, clumsy lips go down her throat. They’re both pressed close to her and against all odds she feels herself getting shy from all this attention, even though it’s all she’s ever wanted to have two cute boys who are utterly devoted to her kissing her so enthusiastically. Hui’s kisses are just so fucking deep, like he’s kissing her with everything he has, and Hyojong’s lips and hands are unfamiliar, making her shivery and nervous. Despite all her X-rated nap dreams about him, she’s not used to the real thing yet, to knowing that he wants her, to feeling it.

Hui doesn’t just look different, he’s acting different, too. Gone is the blushing, overwhelmed desperado from the bathroom stall, and in his place is tunnel vision and an iron will, a feminine hand moving to help Hyojong get Hyuna’s blouse off. The way he’s touching her is getting Hyuna kinda hot, so when she’s down to just her bra, she wriggles out from between them to get into his lap instead. A hand threaded tightly into his hair keeps him from moving and she leans down to kiss him hard, rolling her hips down even though her skirt is starting to ride up pretty bad and she knows he won’t be able to resist her long. Her other arm goes around his shoulders, fingers digging into the top of his arm, and she arches her back to press herself against him as she sucks on his tongue and pulls at the short hair on the back of his head. Hui goes with this sudden urgency easily, riding a hand down her body to hold onto her hip, his grip tight and actually moving her so she’ll grind on him again.

She does, the movement of her hips dirty and slow, and that makes him choke on air for a moment, gasping against her mouth. Now that’s more familiar, so she does it again, savoring the way his breath stutters in response. She hears something else, too, the bed shifting, and turns her head to look at Hyojong instead. “Are you still jealous?” she murmurs, a coy cat’s smile curling on her lips as she grinds against Hui, rolling her hips and arching her back again to make her whole body look as sexy and touchable as it is.

Hyojong’s lips are red like he’s been biting at them as he watches and his eyes are dark, too, meeting Hyuna’s head-on. He looks like he’s under a spell, like he can’t help but tell the truth, and after a moment he nods, unapologetic. In any other situation, him admitting something like that would just be cute, but here it’s hot, making Hyuna smile again, sharper, and reach out for him.

“Then do something about it.”

She doesn’t need to ask him twice; almost as soon as she’s done speaking, he moves in close to take Hui by the chin and turn his head until they’re kissing, and it’s a deep kiss, messy and showy, as if Hyojong is simultaneously claiming him and telling Hyuna that his territory here is marked. Once again, Hyuna can’t take her eyes off them, and this time she lets her hands get involved, trailing her fingers over Hyojong’s skin just above the waistband of his jeans. He trembles but doesn’t stop kissing Hui, so she gets bolder to try and make him break, sliding her hand down lower, dipping her fingers into his jeans. It’s a game of heterosexual chicken, because she’ll probably get too freaked out about jerking her best friend off to actually seal the deal, but he’ll definitely shy away if she moves her fingers about an inch further.

The jury in charge of deciding the outcome of this game ends up hung. Before Hyuna or Hyojong can either make an escalating move or admit defeat, Hui interferes — and if Hyuna had to guess, she’d put him at about seven and a half inches, which is decently hung in her book considering how short he is, so yeah — by pushing Hyuna’s hand away and replacing it with his own in the same position. He doesn’t waste time, sliding his palm down to curl around Hyojong through his jeans and grip him, rubbing tight until Hyojong squirms. “Is this okay?” he asks, voice low.

Hyojong nods immediately, and Hyuna’s torn between staring and hiding her face as Hyojong’s head falls forward onto Hui’s shoulder and his hips rock up against Hui’s touch. She’s seen him laughing, crying, moping, zoning out, but never making little pornographic noises as their shared lover undoes his jeans and starts stroking his cock. Is this what Hyojong looks like, sounds like, when he’s getting himself off? He can’t stay still, hard already in Hui’s hand and clearly trying not to be embarrassed about it, and there’s no way Hyuna could look away at this point.

At the start of this whole process, she’d been in kind of a daze; everything was moving slow and seemed poetic, the way Hyojong and Hui kissed and touched each other coming across like something from a dream. But now that she’s gotten over the initial shock of it, she’s feeling closer to her usual post-heist high, and having a lazy, dirty threesome immediately after stealing several million euros’ worth of art is so perfect, it’s everything she’s ever wanted out of this illicit career, and so she can’t help but smile as she leans in to steal a kiss from Hui while he keeps stroking Hyojong. Hui proved himself to be a great multitasker when he and Hyuna fooled around, and he maintains that reputation tonight, tongue-kissing Hyuna while he makes Hyojong pant out needy noises against his shoulder.

Hyuna might not be ready to touch Hyojong directly — she’ll definitely get there, though — but she wants to stay close to him and soothe him as Hui jerks him tight and twisting. The same way Hyuna had jerked him off, she realizes, and although it’s probably a coincidence, it still makes her go pink and warm, rubbing her thighs together for some friction on her clit as she stops kissing Hui and leans in to nuzzle a kiss to Hyojong’s mouth.

She also takes her bra off for good measure, and to her surprise, Hyojong has to try really hard not to moan, his lips pressing tight together with the effort. She’d thought that he’d be totally unaffected by that after all the times he’s seen her strip in front of him, but evidently not. Maybe every time she has her tits out and has to lean on him for balance, he’s been half-hard in his jeans and doing a great job of hiding it. That’s another thought that’s as cute as it is hot and she kisses him deeper, the same way she kisses Hui, until Hyojong can’t even kiss back, just gasping against her mouth.

Hyojong comes after a few more minutes of this, of filthy, wet kisses from Hyuna while Hui strokes and teases him, feeling out how he likes it best. Turns out he likes it long, slow, Hui’s hand tight and practically wringing it out of him. Hyuna holds his face between her hands as Hyojong trembles and gasps out broken whimpers, kissing him over and over and over until he’s really done and he’s left breathless and clinging to Hyuna. This leaves Hui with a handful of come to deal with, but he’s not stumped by that very long, breaking away temporarily to get a roll of paper towels from its convenient location under his bed.

Hyuna raises her eyebrows at him when she has time to take a break from kissing and hugging Hyojong, her eyes warm and mischievous. “What do you need that there for? Late-night origami?”

“You promised me something last time,” Hui says, not joking, not teasing, just looking at her with his hot intense eyes. “Did you mean it?”

She immediately knows what he’s talking about and can’t help going a little red, running her hand through Hyojong’s hair as he catches his breath. “What do you think?” she retorts and crooks her finger to beckon him closer.

He moves in as requested, pressing a brief kiss to her bare shoulder. “Lie down, then.”

“Dawnie, take my skirt off,” Hyuna whispers, and even though Hyojong is on some other plane of existence, he obeys anyway, fumbling to undo the side zip so she can wriggle out of it and kick it away, never to be seen again. Then she lies down and arranges herself prettily on the pillows, Hyojong by her side, Hui on top at first, then moving down. One of her arms slings around Hyojong’s shoulders and the other stretches out to grab Hui’s hair, just to ensure that neither one of her boy toys is going anywhere. She’s been so preoccupied with Hyojong that it comes as a total shock when Hui pulls her panties down and slides his fingers through the slick mess she’s made of herself, then pushes her legs further apart and goes in face-first, eating her up like he’s starving. She jolts and arches, pulling at his hair and clutching at Hyojong’s shoulders for some stability, but Hui doesn’t show any mercy, mouthing her clit and pushing his tongue into her and not coming up for air even for a second.

Hyojong’s getting jealous again. She can tell because he’s stopped kissing her and has moved down the bed slightly so he can start exploring the rest of her, pushing her arm up and off of him so he has room to move. He ends up level with her chest, and she knows where this is headed, but knowing in advance doesn’t make it any less searing hot when he starts kissing and sucking at her tits, one hand settled oh-so-gently on her waist, while Hui keeps licking Hyuna out without finesse, without any pussy hacks that he read about online, just hungry messy suction and the push of his fingers inside her.

Hyuna has had a lot of sex in her life. She’s even had a threesome before. But it’s never been like this, the three of them pressed together like they never want to be apart again, Hyuna’s whole body aching, pussy so wet that Hui really is having to come up for air now or he’ll drown, Hyojong’s soft breath shuddering over her skin, his sharp teeth and pink lips relentless until he’s left a round red mark under her collarbone for her to flaunt later.

She can feel that she’s close, throbbing on Hui’s fingers and against his mouth, and she grabs two handfuls of Hyojong’s hair, pulling so hard that he yelps quietly. She doesn’t stop, though, she needs something grounding her, and actually pulls him even closer, clutching him against her chest as she moans, hips working down to keep Hui from stopping. Hui’s other hand is keeping her thigh down so she doesn’t squirm around too much but that only makes her want to squirm more, and she can’t stay quiet now, each breath gasping out on a moan, muffled in Hyojong’s hair when she ducks her head down.

And she comes just like that, her legs spread open wide and the rest of her body curling in on itself from how fucking good it feels. Hyojong’s hands are all over her, Hui’s still doing whatever the fuck he’s doing with his tongue that makes her feel like she’s about to die, and Hyuna’s hoarse moans sound more like little sobs by now. She has to physically kick Hui away from her so that he’ll stop and she lets go of Hyojong to let him breathe again, then falls back against the bed and gasps up at the ceiling, covering her eyes with one hand briefly while she collects herself.

She could definitely come again but she probably wouldn’t survive it if Hui were the one in charge of that. Fuck, he’s good, and some gentle prodding of her collarbone results in the revelation that Hyojong has actually bitten her up pretty thoroughly. She sighs, stretches out all her limbs, runs a hand down her own front to feel herself up, and smiles.

“They should make you illegal,” she tells Hui, her voice low and syrupy. “Lock you up so you can’t menace anyone else.”

“Yeah, right,” Hui says. “You’d break me out.”

Okay, that’s true. At this point she just might do anything for him. She smiles at him again, loving the way he looks right now, eyes blown black and his mouth and chin so wet from her. He even sounds a little rough. By her side, Hyojong also looks fucked-out and dazed even though, all things considered, he didn’t even get that much action, and she beckons Hui back up to them. He goes, but not before stripping down — fuck, he’s been fully dressed this whole time, which is very porny but also very hot.

Hyuna and Hyojong are both just sort of lying there ogling him, and Hyuna doesn’t even have time to go through an imaginary debate between herself and Hyojong over who gets to get Hui off and how, because Hui’s cutting out the middleman and curling his hand around his own dick, propped up on one elbow so he can keep looking at them while they look at him. It’s funny how over the course of just a few weeks he’s gone from being unable to have a normal conversation with Hyuna unless Hyojong is in the room to jerking off while she and Hyojong both watch. The shyness isn’t totally gone, though; Hyojong and Hyuna must make a pretty interesting picture, Hyuna covered in hickeys and her hair a mess, Hyojong out of his fucking mind, both of them totally intertwined and staring at Hui with matching big eyes, and Hui huffs a very quiet sound, looking away for some composure as he keeps stroking himself.

When they’d fooled around before, Hyuna hadn’t gotten the chance to really see him, but she’s sure getting an eyeful now, that tight body all laid out for her to see. He’s yummy, and although she’s had her fill for the night she still wants more, and she reaches out to help him along, trailing her hand over his chest and back up into his hair to tug at it the way he likes. He turns his head to nose into her palm, but he doesn’t look away from her except to look at Hyojong, making unblushing eye contact with them both in sequence as his lips part and his eyelashes flutter and he comes. He can’t focus on keeping himself pretty when he’s coming but he ends up looking pretty anyway, chest heaving with his breaths, a flush spreading over his face.

They all lie there breathing hard and staring at each other until Hui, all his movements slow and lazy, reaches back for the paper towels so he can wipe off his face and hand. Hyuna starts laughing for some reason, and that, in turn, makes Hyojong laugh, and she’s so overcome by love for him that she flips over so she can pull him into her arms and they just cling to each other giggling and hiding their faces in each other’s shoulders.

“What?” Hui says, a smile in his voice.

“Nothing,” Hyuna says, lifting her head and holding out her hand. “Get over here.”

Hui scoots in behind her, then scoots closer when Hyuna complains about how he’s not close enough. He brushes a few unruly strands of hair off her shoulder and kisses the side of her neck, reaching over her to pet Hyojong’s arm and then just hold onto him loosely. Hyuna thought she’d like being squished between them, and she kind of does, but they’re also both extremely warm and she’s getting sweaty fast, so once they’ve all caught their breaths and can think a little more clearly, she shoves them both away and moves up the bed to claim a pillow for herself and get under the covers. Naturally, Hui and Hyojong follow, and then they’re both cuddled up to her on each side, their heads on her shoulders, watching through sleepy eyes as she scrolls through her phone.

“Did we make the news yet?” Hyojong mumbles. He and Hui both had the bright idea of putting an arm around Hyuna, and somehow they met in the middle and ended up holding hands on her stomach.

Hyuna shakes her head. “It’s all World Cup stuff. I told you, they might not even notice for a few days.”

“Cool,” Hyojong says. It’s a miracle that he’s still awake and able to form words at all, and Hyuna hums fondly and kisses the top of his head.

Hui’s been suspiciously silent this whole time, but he finally speaks up, sighing and sounding dreamy. “That was so much fun,” he murmurs.

Hyuna doesn’t know if he means the art theft or the threesome, but regardless, her follow-up question is the same. “Yeah, you had fun? Wanna do it again?” she says, gently nudging him with her shoulder.

Hui lifts his head to look up at her and nods, eyes sleepy but serious. Hyojong is quiet but still awake, and she feels him squeeze Hui’s hand lightly.

Hyuna smiles. “Then let’s do it again.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“The Musée d’Orsay,” Hyuna says, unrolling the printout across the breakfast table, “located on the rive gauche, is one of the largest art museums in Europe and holds the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist art in the world. The museum building was originally a railway station that functioned until 1939, and was converted into a museum in the early 1980s.”

“Did you just get this from Wikipedia?” Hyojong says suspiciously.

“Shut up,” Hyuna says and hides her phone, the Orsay’s Wikipedia page pulled up on the screen, under the table.

“We already know what the Musée d’Orsay is,” Hyojong says. “Get to the good stuff.”

Hyuna rolls her eyes but breaks out her glitter pen, uncapping it and starting to mark up the floor plan, already helpfully marked with room numbers. “The Courbet is usually here,” she says, circling room number 20. “All the Van Goghs are here, 71, that’s on the middle level.”

“What do you mean, usually?” Hui says, frowning and leaning in to see the layout better.

“I mean usually,” Hyuna says. “They update the floor plan every morning just in case they’ve moved something around for a temporary exhibit. Those are in the permanent collection, though, so they probably won’t go anywhere. Obviously we’ll check on the day of.”

Hyojong takes the pen from her and starts drawing something. “Alarms?” he asks while he draws. She tries to see what he’s drawing, but he covers it with his hand and she scowls, leaning back again.

“Same system for perimeter breaches as for getting too close to the walls, but not every room is alarmed,” Hyuna says, “only the ones with the real important stuff.”

“Let me guess, the Van Gogh room is alarmed,” Hui says dryly.

“You’re so smart,” Hyuna coos, reaching over to pinch his cheek. “It is, duh, but we’re going to get around it, and here’s how.”

“If you’re about to say Plan: Boy Who Cried Wolf,” Hyojong starts to say but is cut off by Hyuna declaring, “We’re enacting Plan: Boy Who Cried Wolf!”

Hui looks between them with some amusement. “What is Plan: Boy Who Cried Wolf? It’s kind of a mouthful, can we give it a nickname?”

“It’s an idea I’ve had for a long time,” Hyuna explains, totally ignoring the nickname suggestion. “We’ll have to make it pretty snappy what with all this bullshit about how everyone’s security systems are compromised, but between the three of us, we should be fine. The gist of it is: we set off the fire alarms in the weeks or days leading up to the heist, and then on the night of, we set one off and nobody cares enough to check up on it. And even if they do, we’ve set it off on the wrong side of the building, so they stay far away from us while we’re working.”

“Huh,” Hui says, glancing at Hyojong again and smiling slightly. “Sounds pretty good. What do you have against it?”

“It took her a week to come up with the name,” Hyojong says. He’s just finished with his drawing and hands the pen back to Hyuna. The drawing is of Van Gogh’s Two girls out of temper, the very painting they’ll be stealing soon, except both girls are Hyojong. It’s kind of uncanny and definitely unpleasant. “So I had to help her pick out a favorite, and after that it just didn’t seem cool anymore.”

“It’s not supposed to be cool, it’s supposed to be smart,” Hyuna huffs. “Hui thinks it’s smart. Don’t you, Hui.”

“I do, and it is,” Hui says, as diplomatic as ever. “How exactly do we set off the alarms leading up to the heist?”

“I’ve got that on lock,” Hyojong says. He gestures vaguely in the direction of his own room. “Got a whole box of stuff. You leave a lit cigarette in the bathroom one day, drop a sparkler in the stairwell few days later, rub a battery on some steel wool and leave that under a smoke detector… Pretty easy.”

“Easy,” Hui echoes, starting to smile again, and considers all these ideas briefly. “And nobody’s going to get hurt, right?”

“Definitely not,” Hyojong says emphatically (as emphatically as he can, anyway). “None of the fires will burn very long or very hot. Just enough to be smoky.”

“On the night of the actual theft, we’ll need something longer-burning, but it doesn’t matter what it is since it doesn’t need to be inconspicuous,” Hyuna adds. “So that’s how we’re getting around the alarm system for the paintings. Getting into the building sounds like it’d be tricky, but I know of a few private entrances that’ll be easy to crack. The one that suits our purposes best is this one. The issue with it is that it’s right on the street, right by the river, so it’s pretty public. We’ll need a distraction.”

Hui thinks about this, then smiles, shrugging self-consciously. “Not to sound like a broken record, but there’s a few more World Cup matches coming up.”

“Perfect,” Hyuna says. “Find out what days they are and get back to me. If we do it on a game day, we’ll be able to get in and out without attracting too much attention. I have a lock-picking kit, the door won’t be a problem, and Dawn and I will go in, and— hmm. Does either one of you already own a drone?”

Hui and Hyojong both look at her blankly. “A drone?” Hui says after a moment. “Like… what kind of drone?”

“It needs to have a camera,” Hyuna says thoughtfully. “And have a pretty powerful controller so it can be piloted from half a block away. That’s the sort of thing young men just have lying around these days, right?”

The young men in question exchange looks. “Do you have a drone?” Hui asks Hyojong, who shakes his head. “Yeah, neither do I.”

“Ugh,” Hyuna says. “Fine, so we’ll get a drone. How expensive are they? Around a thousand? I’ll have time after work tomorrow, I can buy one. Dawn, get me some cash.”

Hyojong nods and goes into the kitchen, opening one of the cabinets and rifling through boxes of spelt flour and chocolate nonpareils until he finds a metal container purporting to contain Earl Grey tea; he opens this container and withdraws a fat stack of bills, which he brings over to the table.

Hui has gone pale. “Has that been in this apartment very long?” he asks delicately.

“Yeah, why?” Hyuna says, counting out 1400 euro and handing the rest back to Hyojong.

“I— I just— are there more of those stashed all over?” Hui says.

“In a few places,” Hyuna nods. “They’re kind of hard to find unless you’re looking for them.”

Hui looks like he can’t decide between yelling at her and kissing her. That’s always a good look on him. “What if I’d wanted to make some tea? I like Earl Grey!”

“We don’t have a strainer, there’s no point in making loose-leaf,” Hyuna shrugs. “Use your head, c’mon. Anyway, okay, I’ll get the drone. Since you asked, the drone is a back-up distraction just in case the alarm thing doesn’t work. Hui, you’ll be outside flying the drone right up against Bal du moulin de la Galette, since it’s famous enough to have its own alarm and is also on the opposite side of the museum from us, two floors up.”

This is definitely a promotion from his role in their previous heist, and Hui seems pleased with the upgrade, the whole money in the tea tin thing forgotten. “Okay,” he smiles. “Works for me.”

“What are we stealing again?” Hyojong asks as he returns from putting the money back in its hiding place.

“Van Gogh’s Two girls out of temper, which you clearly knew about already,” Hyuna says, pointing to his sketch (which continues to scowl menacingly at her from the page, and she shudders, covering it with her hand), “and Courbet’s L’Origine du monde.”

“Oh, that sounds familiar,” Hui says. “Isn’t that the one with the… um…”

“The lovingly rendered close-up of a pussy? A vulva, if you will? Yeah, it is,” Hyuna says. Hui goes pink and mumbly, and she laughs. “I love it, I think it’s a great painting. If we don’t get a good deal from our buyer I might just keep it for myself. Anyway, those two are our main marks, but after Dawn’s little stunt at the Marmottan we’re also much more comfortable with browsing, so if we grab a few other random pieces along the way, don’t freak out. I know Dawn has his eye on some Sisleys.”

“I just think they’re neat,” Hyojong mumbles defensively.

“The bag can fit a lot,” Hyuna continues, patting Hyojong comfortingly on the head. “We’ll probably wind up with three or four extra.”

Hui nods, looking over the map of the museum again. “Should we make a schedule of who’s doing what when?”

“Sure,” Hyuna shrugs. “We need to start Plan: Boy Who Cried Wolf soon, and that’ll take about two weeks from start to finish. While we’re doing that, we can also case the area and find a good place for you to pilot the drone from. Maybe you can multitask and be lookout around the door, hm?”

“You sure you trust me with all this?” Hui jokes. “That’s a lot of responsibility.”

“I don’t know, do I trust you with all this?” Hyuna says archly, trying to seem cool and mean, the kingpin she’s always wanted to be.

“She does,” Hyojong says. He’s so fucking unhelpful whenever she needs him to back her up. “We talked about it last night.”

“Oh,” Hui says, smiling again. Hyuna glares at Hyojong but the bastard remains unbothered. “Well, thank you. I won’t let you down.”

“Whatever,” Hyuna huffs. She’s still pouting as she caps her glitter pen and starts rolling the floor plan up, but Hui stops her, gently circling his fingers around her wrist and leaning in to press a soft kiss to her lips.

That’s the sort of thing he just gets to do now, apparently. Hyojong, too. And she’s caught them kissing a couple of times by now as well, hanging out in the kitchen and standing too close together, not brave enough to put their arms around each other yet but wanting to be close anyway. She’s pretty sure they haven’t fooled around on their own yet, though. But what with the way Hyojong looks at Hui when Hui pulls away from kissing Hyuna, that’ll probably change soon.

It’s a weird arrangement, but it’s working so far. Hyuna comes over just about every day after she’s done at the store, usually with some kind of excuse like needing to borrow a phone charger or half a cup of sugar (“Are you going to walk the whole 1.2 kilometers back to your apartment with that? Just go to Franprix, for God’s sake…”) or wanting them to talk her out of buying solid gold napkin holders worth €2000, but sometimes just because, just to see them. The best part of doing this is Hui and Hyojong’s nightly bantering over who gets to walk Hyuna downstairs no matter how much she insists that she’ll be fine on her own. And whoever it ends up being, they always end up making out against the doorway out of the building until one of the neighbors complains.

Hui really is kind of a weird guy. She’d suspected that about him from the start, and now that she’s spent a fair amount of time with him, it’s becoming increasingly clear. Sometimes it takes him forever to get a joke and he’s too handsome for his own good, and any time Hyuna complains about his face he acts all confused, like it’d be possible for him not to know how good-looking he is. He has a great memory for very small details — what Hyuna’s boarding school was called, Hyojong’s mom’s name, the hours of the café Hyojong spends all his time at when he’s hiding from clients at the tattoo studio — but forgets big things constantly, like when rent is supposed to increase or which Kardashian is currently being cheated on or whose turn it is to pay the electricity bill. He works long hours at his corporate office and comes home tired and melancholy, and despite him having gotten a whole master’s degree in creative writing, he refuses to let Hyuna or Hyojong read anything he’s written. He can be very clumsy — on more than one occasion, Hyuna’s been minding her own business filing her nails into sharp points over the bathroom sink and she’s been rudely interrupted by the sound of every shampoo bottle in the kitchen-shower clattering to the floor because Hui stumbled when getting in — but sometimes he moves very quickly and very gracefully with fast reflexes and confident motions. One day he’ll be affectionate and flirtatious, and the next he’s withdrawn and formal. If Hyuna didn’t already know he’s a Virgo she might think he, not Hyojong, is the second Gemini in this triad.

All that being said, she likes him so fucking much. He’s nice and he’s sexy and he makes her feel giddy. She feels comfortable around him in a similar way to how comfortable she feels around Hyojong, but he’s still so new to her, there’s still so much to learn about him. He’s a good kisser, too. Always puts his hands in the right places and never pulls away first. If she had to rank him out of 10 for overall pleasantness, she’d give him a very solid 8.5, with a point and a half taken off for humming in his sleep.

As for Hyojong, her current relationship with him truly does feel like something out of a dream. They’re too shy to touch each other but they do it anyway, constantly ending up with her arm around his shoulders or his hand on her knee or their heads leaned together. She’s always been drawn to him as if by some magnetic force, and now it’s even worse since she’s allowed to kiss him and hug him and know he knows exactly what she means by it. Work keeps them from being able to spend every waking moment together, but they have been seeing each other more than usual, meeting up for lunch or having sleepovers at Hyuna’s five days a week. Just as Hyuna had suspected, he’s become a better kisser now that he’s got two people to practice on, and last week, laying on her bed with the windows open wide letting in the late afternoon sunlight, they went further than they’ve ever gone before, kissing lazy and wet until she felt him starting to get hard against her, and then they stripped down and just lay there touching each other, exploring, petting and stroking and feeling, the sun coming in through the window making his hair look almost translucent. She was so careful with him, not moving too quickly or holding him too tight, and everything was new and perfect, his soft hushed gasps as she got her mouth on him, the way he clung to her when she’d finished, his fingers inside her and her hips rocking down just as lazy, unhurried, letting him explore her however he wanted. Even after they’d both come they didn’t let go, staying just like that, just looking at each other at first and then talking in quiet voices about everything they’ve been through together, enhanced by looking back at it through the light of these new revelations. When they all had dinner at Hyojong and Hui’s apartment later that evening, Hui could tell that something had changed, but that didn’t change anything between the three of them. They all still flirted and joked around and kissed plenty, and when Hui walked Hyuna downstairs and they were kissing by the door, she whispered to him that she was so happy — a rare moment of vulnerability for her — and he took her by the waist and kissed her so deeply that she couldn’t breathe.

She is happy, honestly. Even if Hui’s not trained enough yet to jump right in and physically help Hyuna and Hyojong when they’re doing the actual stealing, having him around is still helpful, both as a sounding board and as a companion. After years of having only Hyojong to commiserate about the ups and downs of the art thief life with, the sudden presence of another person who can be a receptacle for venting is pretty sweet. It also definitely doesn’t hurt that he’s easy on the eyes and likes to make her come. Plus he’s very good to Hyojong; Hyuna’s standards for Hyojong’s friends are absurdly high, and he’s never had a lover in all the time she’s known him so this is kind of a first, but ever since Hyojong’s confession she’s been watching Hui very closely, waiting for him to slip up. He hasn’t, though. He’s just as kind and considerate to Hyojong as he is to Hyuna, and he seems equally content to either sit in silence with Hyojong or chat. Hyojong looks at him with adoring eyes and clams up whenever Hyuna teases him about it, and all in all, it’s pretty damn cute. They get along well. If two years ago you’d told Hyuna that one day she’d want someone other than Hyojong to be around her all the time, she’d have said “Either you’re really from the future or you’re just being an asshole, but regardless, get out of my face,” and yet — it’s her life now.

Hyuna buys the drone and brings it back to Hui and Hyojong’s place two days later. “I’ve been researching what kind is best, that’s why it took me so long,” she tells them. The truth is, of course, that she just forgot.

“Are you sure you didn’t just forget?” Hyojong says as Hui carefully takes the drone out of the box and starts reading through the instruction manual. Hyuna glares at him but as usual, Hyojong is totally immune, shrugging mildly in response.

“This’ll definitely do the trick,” Hui says, closing the booklet of instructions. “I don’t want to test it out in here, though. Maybe we can practice some time this weekend.”

“Are we all still on-track to enact the Plan?” Hyuna asks. “Dawn, you’re going first, right?”

Hyojong nods and goes through his pockets, retrieving a wrinkly pack of cigarettes and Hello Kitty lighter to show them both. “Tomorrow. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” Hyuna coos, forgetting that she’s supposed to be mad at him for negging her and leaning over to give him a kiss. “Don’t forget to wipe all that down before you use it, yeah? Just in case.”

“I know, I know,” Hyojong says. He hesitates briefly and kisses her again before she can pull away, and she’s really proud of him for hesitating less than he usually does.

“And then me next, on Monday,” Hyuna nods once they’re done kissing. “And Hui on Thursday. We make our move Saturday.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask, is there a reason I’m going last?” Hui asks, smiling to himself. “Like, just in case I can’t pull it off, at least you two will have done your part ahead of time?”

“Pretty much,” Hyuna says and now she goes for him, making him put the drone down so she can wrap her arms around his shoulders and kiss him instead. He’s still smiling as he kisses back, a gentle hand on her waist and his mouth soft against hers even as she nips at him.

“Someone’s feisty today,” he murmurs.

“Is it me?” she says, teasing, and bites his lower lip again to reprimand him for daring to comment on her behavior. Yeah, she’s in her typical pre-heist wild mood, but he should know better than to just call her out like that. Besides, it’s been a few days since she’s really made out with him and let him feel her up, so it’s not her fault that she’s restless. They’re all clearly in the honeymoon phase of whatever this relationship is and they can’t keep their hands off each other — that’s just the energy they’ve got going, it’s not just on her.

“She always gets like this,” Hyojong says from somewhere deep in the kitchen. Evidently, he’s gotten bored of planning a multi-million-euro heist and wants a snack. “You can just ignore her.”

“Hey,” Hyuna complains, separating herself from Hui with some reluctance. “Do you think just because we’re official now that you get to say whatever you want about me?”

Hyojong doesn’t answer, returning from the kitchen with several bunches of grapes in his hands. “How much are we getting from this job, again?”

“We were promised four for the Van Gogh,” Hyuna says. “Obviously it’s worth a lot more, but you know how it works.”

“Who’s the buyer?” Hui asks, all of a sudden alight with interest.

Hyuna shrugs. “Some bitch in Switzerland. I don’t know a whole lot about them except for how much they’re willing to pay. They said they wanted it by the end of the year, I said I could do it, and I’ve worked for them before so I know they’ll be good for it.”

“And for the Courbet?” Hui prompts.

“That one I’m going to list,” Hyuna says. “Along with whatever else we get.”

“List?” Hui says. His eyes are bright and laser-focused, cheeks starting to flush with excitement. At first, Hyuna’s kind of confused by why he’s practically hanging on her every word, but then she remembers how insatiably curious he’d been about the specifics of Hyuna and Hyojong’s last job, and she starts to put it together. It’s more than simple curiosity; Hui kind of gets off on breaking the law, on dealing with criminals and thieves, on doing something that he can’t tell anyone else about. It’s cute, and she’ll definitely play into it if it’ll keep him like this.

How typical for such a goody two-shoes to be this into being a little bad.

“On a very special website,” Hyuna says, sing-song. “It’s American, I think. On the dark web.”

Hyojong can probably tell that she’s showing off, but he doesn’t comment on it, coming up behind her and resting his chin on her shoulder. “They usually send someone else to pick it up,” he says. “We don’t know what happens to it from there.”

“If you make the sale online, how do they pay you in cash?” Hui says. Jesus, at this rate Hyuna will spill all their secrets, but she doesn’t even care, what with that fevered look on Hui’s face.

“I’m kind of an unconventional seller,” Hyuna says, smiling coyly at him. “I put in the listing that I’ll only accept cash, none of that bitcoin bullshit, so they’d better be prepared to have some of their contacts in Europe seek me out. I’ve had to go to other parts of France before, one time they had me go to Monaco. But I’ll never accept anything other than cash.”

“Does Hyuna always find buyers and make the trades?” Hui asks Hyojong. “Or do you do it, too?”

“I’ve only done it twice,” Hyojong replies with a lazy shrug. “Back when we were still figuring out the best way to do things. She just has a better head for business.”

“And I’m better at dealing with people,” Hyuna adds. “We went to Monaco together, though.”

“It was fun,” Hyojong mumbles. He’s getting braver every day, because he turns his head and kisses Hyuna on the cheek.

Hui is still far away and hyper-present at the same time. He looks like he can barely contain himself. Hyuna, taking pity, smiles again and reaches up to pat his chest, right over his heart. “You okay, hm?”

Hui nods. “Tell me more,” he says.

“And why should I?” Hyuna teases, lips pouted, batting her eyelashes up at him. Hell, he wouldn’t be the first person she’s slept with who’s got a hard-on for breaking the law — back in Hyuna’s boring shoplifting days she had a fling with a guy like that — but before she pushes it further, she wants to know if she’s right or not. “These are trade secrets, you know. Private information. Are you going to pay me for it? What’s my reward?”

It works.

“Me,” Hui says. His cheeks start going redder and his eyes start going all bashful. He shifts where he stands and glances away from Hyuna, biting briefly at his lower lip, and each time she starts playing with him she gets to see him in a totally different light, and this is a new one yet, curious and genuine and so desperate for more that he’d probably do just about anything. And after a moment, he clears his throat and says, “Please.”

Hyuna’s smile is triumphant and sharp. As always, she’s the cat that got the cream. She steps out of Hyojong’s hold and tugs Hui closer to her, loving how warm his skin is from his blush. “We didn’t always used to do it like this,” she tells him, sliding a hand up to run over his jaw. “Plain breaking and entering, I mean. We tried different things. What did we try, Dawn?”

“The first job we ever did, we dressed up as cleaners,” Hyojong says. “Rolled the paintings away in the cart.”

“One of them was a new acquisition by the museum,” Hyuna reminisces. She leans up and presses her lips to Hui’s jaw and feels him shudder in response. “I almost felt bad about it. But you know how much we got for it?”

“How much?” Hui breathes.

Hyuna closes her eyes, mouthing up to his ear. “Seventy-five thousand,” she whispers. “Not bad for our first time, don’t you think?”

Hui’s hands, previously just hanging weakly at his sides, come up to grip Hyuna by the hips. And Hyojong’s clearly figured out what’s going on, because Hyuna can feel him right behind her, too, his fingers hesitantly resting on the small of Hyuna’s back. Hyuna sucks Hui’s earlobe into her mouth, nipping it with her teeth before letting go.

“And do you know what I spent it on?” she continues, barely audible, her voice so quiet and low and she can see the resulting chill running down Hui’s neck.

Hui swallows and tries to answer, but his mouth is dry and he only succeeds on the second try. “What did you spend it on?”

“I went to the spa,” Hyuna murmurs, “one of those fancy spas in the 16th arrondissement. I got a massage that lasted three hours. And then I bought a clawfoot tub.”

“And you?” Hui says, scarcely breathing. He’s so fucking quiet but Hyojong somehow hears him anyway, moving in closer behind Hyuna.

“A car,” Hyojong says. “Didn’t know better than to spend it all in one place yet.”

Hyuna smiles to herself, remembering how sad Hyojong had been when he’d ultimately had to sell the car back because there’s no fucking parking anywhere in the entire city of Paris. She’s closing in on the kill, though, and it’s a dangerous combination, her pre-heist high with whatever trip she’s sending Hui on, but she can’t stop when she’s this far ahead. “What about you, Hui? What are you going to do with your money?” she says, voice practically a purr by now.

Hui makes a small, helpless noise. Hyuna’s got him backed up into his own doorframe and he can’t escape, and she shifts against him, dragging their bodies together just enough to make him burn for it. “I— I don’t know,” he manages.

“We’ll give you a good cut,” she says, licking the soft skin under his jaw where his pulse rabbits desperately at the contact. “Buy yourself something nice. Something pretty.”

Hui nods, trembling, his hands so tight on Hyuna’s hips. “Will you pick something out for me?” he asks, hesitant and low.

“Do you want me to?” Hyuna says. Her patience is running out, and she shows it by moving over to kiss him on the mouth, biting at his lower lip just like she’d been doing earlier. “What else do you want me to do? I’ll tell you what I want to do.”

“Tell me,” Hui croaks.

Hyuna thinks she might know how Hui feels. He’s presumably from a good family and had a good upbringing, a decent existence, and nothing interesting ever happened to him until Hyuna and Hyojong came into his life. They’re both hot and a little dangerous, ruthless in the best kind of way, and they know what they want and how to get it and that they’ll never, ever get caught. And now Hui’s in their top-secret club finding out all about how Hyuna funds her champagne-and-caviar lifestyle, and they’re like a fucking tidal wave and he’s just standing on the shore and getting swept off his feet. He can’t help but go with them; he can’t resist. She could do anything to him and he’d beg for more.

And he’ll be begging, alright.

“I want to fuck you,” she says.

Hyojong clearly knows exactly what she’s talking about and he goes very still behind her, then drops his forehead down onto her shoulder, exhaling out a shaky breath against her skin. Hui misinterprets it, though, and his hands start running lower, bunching up the fabric of her skirt. He’s breathless and she doesn’t need to press close to him to feel that he’s hard, but that’s not the point.

“No,” she corrects, quickly grasping his wrists to stop him from moving his hands further, “I want to fuck you.”

The expression on Hui’s face is exclusive to guys who’ve bottomed before but never for a woman and have therefore been missing out on everything good in life. Hyuna sees it all the time. If he was blushing before, he’s practically squirming out of his skin by now, embarrassed about how into this whole law-breaking thing he is and shocked by what Hyuna just said, what she’s suggesting. “Oh,” he says.

“Do you want me to?” Hyuna murmurs, leaning in to kiss him slowly, her eyes open so she can watch.

“Yes,” Hui says immediately, replying before he even has time to think about it. “Yeah— yeah, I do.”

Hyuna kisses him again and Hui kisses back and he’s all kinds of desperate now, his hands on her waist again and squeezing her hips so hard it almost hurts. “Okay,” she breathes. “Let me just get— oh, fuck.”

Hui pauses, still flushed and warm, confused. “What?”

“I don’t have anything to fuck you with here,” she says and thunks her head against his chest, frustrated. “Fuck. Ugh. If you just wait like half an hour—”

“You do,” Hyojong says. His voice is small and hoarse like he’s telling a super scandalous secret that he should have kept to himself.

Hyuna pulls away from Hui and turns back to look at Hyojong, her eyebrows raised in surprise. “What?”

Hyojong nods, chewing the inside of his cheek and not meeting her eye, instead staring at a spot across the room. “You… brought a box of stuff over last year after you stopped seeing that lady, said you wanted me to keep it here to avoid temptation.”

“And you kept it?” Hyuna says, almost breathless from delight. “Where is it?”

“In my room,” Hyojong mumbles.

By the time he’s finishing talking, Hyuna has already grabbed him and Hui both by the hand and is yanking them through the rooms until they’re in Hyojong’s. She pushes Hui to the bed, then gestures wildly at Hyojong for him to get whatever this mysterious box is, and he blinks at her for a moment, then stumbles over to his closet and starts digging through.

He comes back in a few seconds with the box in question, which is actually a Louboutin shoebox that’s been enthusiastically taped shut. But when he hands it to Hyuna, she sees that the tape has definitely been undone and then re-done, and she looks up at him sharply. “You snooped!”

“No,” Hyojong lies, cheeks red like Hui’s.

“Did, too,” Hyuna insists, tearing the tape off and starting to take everything out of the box. “How else would you know what was in here? Don’t say x-ray vision.”

“X-ray vision,” Hyojong says meekly and comes over to sit on the bed.

Hyuna totally forgot about this box, which is funny considering how often she complains about having no one to peg. Inside is her favorite harness, lovingly folded and kept in a storage bag, the black leather in perfect shape aside from five notches carved into it on the right hip strap. Two bottles of lube — probably long since expired, but between Hui and Hyojong and their collective stupidly high sex drives they’ll probably have more around here somewhere — and the crown jewel of her collection: seven inches of rose gold-colored silicone, firm and sexy and not too huge, all things considered, but enough to make Hui’s eyes go wide when he sees it.

“Oh,” he says.

“Do you like it?” Hyuna asks, admiring the weight of it in her hands, the shape, straight with a flare out towards the tip to simulate a head. “Dawn, get me some lube.”

Hyojong nods and goes over to his closet yet again while Hui eyes the strap-on, looking way more curious than apprehensive. “Still down?” Hyuna asks, pushing the length of it through the o-ring at the heart of the harness so she doesn’t have to do that later.

“Yes,” Hui says. He sits up a little more and gets up off the bed, fidgeting. “I’ll… be right back. Give me ten minutes, okay?”

“Okay,” Hyuna says, giving him her brightest, prettiest, most I’m-about-to-fuck-you-so-hard-baby smile. Some boys like some privacy when they’re getting ready, and she respects that. Hui’s looking at the strap-on like a challenge he can’t wait to take on, not like at a threat, so she knows he’ll be back in ten minutes as promised.

Hui leans in and kisses her before he goes, and she smiles into it, licking at his lower lip and running her hand down his chest. When he pulls away and turns to go, she can’t help reaching out to smack his ass playfully, which makes him go even more pink and turn around to pout at her. But all she does is smile at him again, and he tries to suppress it but ends up smiling back, shyer and softer as he heads out of the room.

Hyojong returns with two bottles of lube for Hyuna to choose from, and she pulls him to sit down next to her, bringing him in for a kiss right away. “Are you okay with this?” she murmurs, moving them both further onto Hyojong’s bed (blessedly wide enough for three). Out beyond Hui’s room, the shower turns on, quiet and distant.

Hyojong nods and kisses her back. He seems like he wants to say something, he keeps drawing back from the kiss but then changing his mind and coming back in, and she waits patiently, petting a hand through his hair in the meantime. Finally, he gets up the courage. “Do you think you’d ever want to do that with me?” he asks, so mumbly she can barely understand.

“Dawnie, yes,” she says immediately, kissing him harder. “Just say the word. Would you want me to?”

Hyojong nods again, even more shy, hiding in Hyuna’s cheek as he kisses her there. It’s not like Hyuna’s never thought about it before — she definitely has before, and now, too, way more frequently since the change in their relationship — but she’s surprised that Hyojong has. Then again, it’s not that surprising, considering how devoted he is to her and how strong his bottom tendencies are otherwise.

She has to pull him closer, and they end up tangled together up against the headboard, kissing slow and deep. He’s excited by all this, she can tell, and so she decides to take a slight risk just to see what’ll happen. “You know what I think?” she whispers into his mouth, and answers her own question before he can even form a theory. “I think you kinda like watching.”

Hyojong huffs very quietly, frowning and kissing her again to hide it. “What? Why?”

“Because it makes you jealous,” she murmurs, petting his hair, soothing him even as she kisses him deeper. “And I think you kinda like being jealous, too. It makes you hot. Makes you want to get in on the action even more. If you’re jealous, then we’re hurting your feelings, and then we have to work extra hard to make you feel better, right? Am I right?”

Hyojong is silent for a long moment, and she stops kissing him in case them kissing is what’s keeping him from answering. “...Maybe,” he finally says, and she makes a triumphant noise and kisses him hard to reward him for his honesty.

“Just because you like to watch doesn’t mean you don’t ever get to play, though,” she says, nipping lightly at his lower lip and dancing her fingers up his spine to tug at his hair, making him shiver and press closer to her. “If I’m leaving you out, tell me, okay?”

“Okay,” Hyojong says, so dazed from how she’s kissing him that he’ll agree to anything.

“I love you,” she adds, softer, breathier, in between kisses that have even her toes curling from how good it feels to suck on his tongue and pull his firm, broad body in so tight against hers. “Love you so much.”

“Love you,” Hyojong echoes. He’s said it to her before, of course, but it sounds new like this, hoarse and mumbled and innocent (despite their shared lover being in the next room preparing to get fucked, despite the way Hyojong’s hand is gripping Hyuna’s thigh, despite the filthy slick run of his tongue into her mouth).

That’s exactly how they are, wrapped up in each other and kissing like they can’t get enough, when Hui comes back ten minutes later as promised. “Um, hi,” he says from the doorway, and Hyuna pulls away from Hyojong, wiping her mouth, to see him. He’s wearing his bathrobe but it’s almost slipping off one shoulder and it’s barely tied, showing off his smooth, perfect skin, that stupid tight body that makes Hyuna’s common sense change its name and go into hiding in the Antilles.

She smiles at him and sits up, crooking her finger to beckon him over to the bed. “Come here, baby.”

“You’ll kill him,” Hyojong says reproachfully from behind her, sounding pretty near death himself already, and sure enough, Hui goes a delicate pink again as he starts approaching the bed.

“Did you miss me?” he asks softly, letting Hyuna take his hand and pull him in the rest of the way. It’s a cute little reference to that one time right after they’d first hooked up when they’d been home alone together for a few minutes, and her smile widens, eyes sparkling up at him.

“Yeah, is that okay?” she replies, her other hand coming up to start undoing the tie of his robe. Hui nods, shivering in the air when she slips the robe off his shoulders and it slides down his body (God, Hyuna wishes that were her) to fall to the floor. Hyojong moves back to make room as Hui gets onto the bed and Hyuna leans in to claim his mouth in a kiss, then takes him by the hips and moves him to lie down, spread out on the pillows.

“You’re not going to ask me to go gentle on you, are you?” she asks, pulling her shirt off over her head one-handed. She’s not wearing a bra — why bother at this point?

Hui’s eyes are big and his breath is shallow and he smells clean, the curve of his neck damp from the shower where he’d missed a spot drying off. “No,” he says, tilting his chin up bravely. “I can handle it.”

Hyuna laughs, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. “We’ll see,” she says, dimples popping when she smiles at him. “Dawn, get me a hair tie.”

While Hyojong gets up off the bed to dig through his desk drawers, Hyuna takes off her skirt. She doesn’t put on a show or try to make it sexy; she doesn’t need to. Her panties come off next, and she replaces them with the harness, kneeling on the bed with her thighs spread wide as she slips the bulk of it between her legs, then pulls the straps around, fastening the sides and pulling at the closures until it’s snug on her, molding to her body so naturally that she barely even feels the leather against her skin. All she feels is the weight and motion of her cock, how it bobs when she moves further up the bed, and the hot rush of power and pleasure she gets when she’s strapped made so much stronger by the way Hui actually whines at the sight of her, struggling for air even though she hasn’t touched him yet.

Hyuna holds her hand out for the hair tie and straightens up, eyes fixed on Hui. She knows what a dirty picture she makes — she’s all curves and pure sex already, more than just a centerfold, she’s a whole fucking Playboy special edition all to herself — with the black lines of leather hugging her hips and her strap standing proud, and she gets shameless with it, showing off for them both. She sweeps her hair into a ponytail to keep it out of the way and arches her back as she does so, giving him an eyeful of her beautiful perky tits and the whole spread of her body. Hui’s not the only one affected; she can see out of the corner of her eye that Hyojong’s gone motionless by the bed, staring at her and rooted to the spot, too.

“See something you like?” she teases, putting her hand on Hui’s knee and pushing his legs apart. She slides her palm up his thigh and he starts shivering, but she’s just teasing for now — she needs more lube first. “We paid for this mattress with a portrait by Greuze,” she adds casually as she pops the cap of the lube bottle.

Hui makes a low, trembling noise, like he’d forgotten all about that whole aspect of this, and sticks one hand off the bed, grasping at air. “Hyojong— come here,” he says.

“I can’t help you,” Hyojong whispers, grabbing Hui’s hand tightly and stumbling over to the bed. “I don’t know how to call her off.”

“No— it’s fine, I just wanted you to be here, too,” Hui says, tilting his head up to look at Hyojong.

“Here I am,” Hyojong says, shy, and dares to glance at Hyuna, who’s currently warming lube on her fingers, a smile playing over her lips as she watches this endearing show of solidarity. Hyojong seems heartened by this and decides to try his hand at seduction, hesitantly continuing, “Um… I got that lamp with the money we made from our third job. It’s Bauhaus.”

Hui exhales a noise that’s part-laugh, part-moan, squeezing Hyojong’s hand and spreading his legs wider for Hyuna, who’s put her hand back on his thigh. “Those are really expensive,” he says, breathless.

“That’s the idea,” Hyuna hums, curling her hand around his thigh and lifting his leg up to wrap around her waist as she moves closer, and she runs her hand up higher and higher until she’s almost touching him, a drop of lube slipping down from her fingertips onto his sensitive skin and making him shudder. “Want me to keep going?”

“Keep going? You haven’t even started,” Hui says, sounding strangled, then collects himself and nods. “Yes. Keep going.”

Hyuna grins at him, sharp and pretty, and keeps going, pressing two fingers to him before doing anything else. She doesn’t want to hurt him, after all, and she finds him pliant and opening so easily under her touch, practically inviting her fingers deeper inside to stretch him out more. Hui exhales at the pressure and closes his eyes, turning his head towards Hyojong, and Hyuna eases her fingers in further until he’s cursing under his breath and arching up off the bed.

But Hyuna’s patience starts running out after about three seconds, and it’s like Hui can read her mind, because he lifts his head and says, “Please just fuck me, oh my God.”

“Careful,” Hyojong warns, but it’s too late: Hyuna’s already reaching for Hui with her other hand, grasping his chin tightly and leaning in with a mean little smile on her face.

“Oh, you want me to fuck you?” she says, taunting, and doesn’t even kiss him, just bites his lower lip. “Want me to fuck you in this bed I bought for our boyfriend with dirty money? With this cock I bought with dirty money? You’re dirty now, too, you know that, right? If you do bad things, that makes you bad.” She pauses, then bites him again, sucking his lower lip into his mouth and savoring his quiet moan. “But you’re still gonna be good for me.”

“Hyuna,” Hui breathes, shaking full-bodied. “Hyuna, please.”

“What do you think?” Hyuna asks, tilting her head to look up at Hyojong. “Has he earned it?”

“Come on,” Hyojong complains. His cheeks are flushed pink and he can’t quite look at her but he tries, for Hui’s sake. “Don’t torture us.”

“I’m not torturing anyone,” Hyuna says lightly, smiling at them both again, and pulls back to get into position. She draws her fingers out of Hui, then curls that hand around the strap, stroking loosely to spread lube over its length while she gets the bottle with her other hand to make sure there’s enough. Once it’s slick and her fingers are gliding easily up and down from the base to the tip, she moves in close between his open legs, steadying herself against his hips and finally pressing the round head to the edge of him. His body jolts briefly at the first contact, but he doesn’t move away, and his teeth are pulling at his lower lip and he’s looking up at her with fevered eyes.

“Dawn, how about you get in bed and keep him company,” she suggests. The strap may not be huge (she has bigger ones, they’ll work up to it) but it’s definitely not small, and Hui will probably want a sweet and gentle Hyojong-shaped distraction until he’s used to it. Hui nods immediately and Hyojong is stripping and clambering into the bed on Hui’s other side in another second, plastering himself to Hui’s side and shyly, affectionately pressing kisses first to his shoulder, then to his cheek.

Hui shifts slightly and ends up dragging the head of Hyuna’s strap into himself, making him suck in a rattling breath and grab white-knuckled at Hyojong’s arm. “It’s been a while for me,” he warns, cheeks flushed both from arousal and from the confession, and Hyuna grins.

“I’d fucking hope so. I’d kill you if you ever tried to sexile Dawn,” she says, but she doesn’t want to be too harsh during such a precarious moment, so she pets her hand over his thigh, lets him take a few breaths, then starts moving again, seating herself deeper and deeper in him.

“Fuck,” Hui says, harsh and quick like all the air in his lungs was just punched out of him. “Fuck, that’s good.”

Rationally, it shouldn’t make any sense for this to feel as good for Hyuna as it does, but it’s like she can feel the heat of his body around her, how tight and slick he is, drawing her in all the way until her hips are pressed snug against his. Now she has to catch her breath, running a hand up from his hip to his chest until she can grab Hyojong’s right hand for some stability, and Hui squirms under her and makes a soft noise and she starts fucking him, slow and easy.

It’s so fucking good on every level. Hui is making soft ah-ah-ah noises like he can’t stop himself, and with each smooth push of her hips forward the base of the strap-on presses right against Hyuna’s clit, sending a sharp buzz of pleasure through her. Hyojong is already touching himself, overwhelmed, and Hyuna loves this view, both of them totally entranced by her, at her mercy, under her spell.

“You need this so bad, you’re wound so tight all the time,” she says, giving Hui’s hip a squeeze with the hand she has braced on his waist. Her thrusts are even deeper now, smooth rocking back and forth with the lazy way she rolls her hips. It’s nearly the same motion to take a dick as it is to use one, and she knows what she must look like, powerful, carnal, every wet dream either Hui or Hyojong has ever had come to life. “Told you I wanted to wreck you, didn’t I? I guess I already wrecked you by making you bad. But it was your idea, hm? To join us? So maybe you were bad all along.”

Hui makes a breathless noise, trying to speak and failing miserably. She’s been inside him for maybe two minutes and she’s already fucked him to incoherency, just as she expected. Hyojong, slowly stroking himself as he watches Hyuna with wide eyes, turns more onto his side, nuzzles into the soft hair right by Hui’s ear, and starts whispering something too quietly for Hyuna to hear. Whatever it is, it makes Hui tremble even harder, nodding and trying to catch Hyojong in a kiss.

“What’d you tell him?” Hyuna pouts, letting go of Hyojong’s hand so she can hold onto Hui’s thighs and hips instead, lifting him into a better angle, so good it makes Hui gasp and moan into Hyojong’s mouth.

Hyojong kisses him for a while, deep and filthy, and she watches his jaw as it works, his tongue slipping into Hui’s pliant mouth, until Hyojong pulls away and looks up at her. “Go slower,” he says. “I’m gonna suck him off.”

Hui is one lucky son of a bitch, Hyuna thinks enviously. “Good idea,” she praises, smiling at him. Hyojong slides down the bed and Hyuna slows her motions, still fucking Hui deep but even smoother now, her whole body rolling from her chest to her hips. As far as positions go, missionary is pretty tiring, but she doesn’t keep her thighs strong and her abs tight for nothing (honestly, this is exactly what she stays in shape for), plus she gets this beautiful view of Hui underneath her as she drives into him deep.

Hyojong settles when he’s level with Hui’s hips, pausing to think about how best to do this, how to coordinate with Hyuna. He figures it out soon, adjusting the angle of his body and then curving down over Hui, while Hyuna spreads Hui’s legs wider so she can press in even closer and not risk bumping into Hyojong. Hui’s face is pink and he’s moving one of his hands to curl in Hyojong’s hair, but he doesn’t quite make it before Hyojong’s leaning in and sucking the head of his cock into his mouth.

“Oh fuck,” Hui gasps, his hand missing Hyojong’s hair by a mile and ending up scrabbling at Hyojong’s shoulder desperately instead. “Fuck— oh my God—”

“Don’t we make a great team?” Hyuna smiles. Her eyes are blown dark and she’s practically glowing, a warm sheen of sweat on her brow and between her breasts. Every time she thrusts into him, the silicone pushes back against her with just enough pressure to make her throb but not enough to get her off, and the leather straps between her legs are rubbing her pussy right where she’s sensitive, so she’s aching, too, so turned on, but there’s nothing she can do about it. She’d rather die than stop fucking Hui like this.

Hui just moans in reply, and Hyuna sees the way his cock pulses in Hyojong’s mouth. They really are a great team, taking Hui apart like this, and Hyuna lets her imagination run wild for a second, picturing this same scenario with Hyojong on the receiving end instead. Maybe he could ride her — fuck, she likes that, can practically feel his weight on her hips, his mouth warm and wet on her neck when he inevitably falls to hide his face and gasp against her skin, his hands grabbing at her so helplessly — or she could fuck him into the mattress, but if she did that she wouldn’t be able to see his pretty face. She gets carried away with this line of thought and ends up fucking into Hui a little too hard, which makes him, in turn, cry out hoarsely and push his cock deeper into Hyojong’s throat.

“Sorry,” Hui pants, clumsily petting over Hyojong’s hair. Hyojong makes a noise to let him know that it’s okay, he can take it, and Hyuna watches him tighten his lips and swallow around him, sucking him down further. Hui’s eyes slip shut and his lips fall open in a moan, hand tugging at Hyojong’s hair, and when Hyuna tilts her hips and fucks him deep, he moans again and covers his mouth with his free hand, biting at his fingers as he struggles to hold himself back.

Hyojong is doing the absolute most; he’s bobbing up and down in sync with Hyuna’s thrusts, and she can see him working Hui with his tongue, too, giving Hyuna a run for her money in terms of who in this apartment is the best at BJs. But it’s not like Hyuna has eased up on Hui just because Hyojong’s also on him, and if anything, she’s going even harder, fingers digging into Hui’s flesh and her hips knocking against Hui’s with every roll forward.

If Hui was incoherent before, now he’s on another level entirely. He’s flushed and dazed and his body is totally slack under Hyuna and Hyojong, but his eyes are open again, watching Hyuna watching him. How fitting: Hyojong likes to watch, and Hui likes to be watched. And he’s giving her a beautiful show, she can’t look away, he looks like he’s seconds away either from crying or from coming down Hyojong’s throat. Both options sound amazing and so Hyuna redoubles her efforts, grinding into him faster and so much more intense, dragging her hips up at an angle when she’s pulling back and circling down when she thrusts back in.

There really are tears in Hui’s eyes now and he can’t shut up, moaning Hyuna’s name, then Hyojong’s, and then he can’t enunciate anymore and he’s just gasping and he sounds so needy, so pretty, just like he’s being fucked out of his mind.

“Yeah, you like that?” Hyuna says, a breathless, blinding smile on her face as she keeps going even though her legs are sore and she needs more pressure on her clit, she’s so wet that she can feel it on her thighs, but he’s almost there, she can take him all the way.

Hui nods, struggling for air, and looks right at her, hot and dazed but trying to keep his head up. “This is real,” he tells her, voice shaking. He sounds so serious all of a sudden, and she can’t help but laugh at him, since he’s so fucked up right now that he’s talking nonsense. Obviously it’s real — Hyuna can tell when someone’s faking. He insists, though, saying again, “It’s— this is real.”

“I know it is,” Hyuna soothes. “Are you close, baby?”

“Yeah,” Hui says, and his lower lip wobbles and he throws his head back, gasping at the ceiling.

“Hear that, Dawnie?” Hyuna says, taking one hand off Hui’s body to tug at the hair on the back of Hyojong’s head where it’s messy, dark roots showing through the blond. “We’re gonna make Hui come.”

Hyojong hums, low, to let her know he’s been listening, and there’s not much more either of them can do from here but keep going. Hyuna’s hair is starting to fall down from its ponytail with a few wispy strands sticking to her temples, her bangs in her eyes, and there must be something really wild in her gaze because as soon as Hui looks at her he has to look away again, covering his whole face with his hand. And a moan claws its way out of him when he comes, hips jerking up into Hyojong’s mouth and his other hand yanking at the sheets.

“My turn my turn my turn,” Hyuna says, breathless and riding this high, and she pulls out of him as fast as she can while also being careful. She has the straps undone in seconds and unceremoniously tosses the whole ensemble to the floor where it lands with a noisy clatter, but she’ll have one of them clean that up later, that’s the last thing on her mind right now. Hyojong has pulled off Hui and is wiping his mouth and smiling shyly up at him, and Hyuna grabs his shoulders, needy and insistent, until he looks at her and then lies back, pulling her with him and sliding a hand between her legs right away.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, and she has to bite his shoulder hard to keep from sobbing when he actually touches her, dragging his fingers over her, touching and teasing where she’s swollen and aching and so turned on that it’s almost too much, razor-sharp pleasure searing through her and making her whimper shaky noises into his skin.

Maybe she should be embarrassed about this quick transition from ultra-powerful badass dominatrix to desperate sensitive mess, but Hyojong’s fingers are making her see stars, rubbing fast tight circles on her clit while his other hand holds her down to keep her from writhing around too much. He’s so gentle and shy with her that she forgets, sometimes, that he’s actually pretty strong, and God in heaven this is really doing it for her, letting him take the reins for a change. She’s so worked up and she’s been denying herself for so long that she’s shaking apart and coming in just another minute, and then she gets her hand on him and he’s done in about thirty seconds, too. Hui’s just lying there, sightless eyes pointed upwards, breathing hard, and when he hears the movement from next to him come to a halt, he turns his head very slowly to see them.

“What’s good,” Hyuna says from her spot burrowed into Hyojong’s neck.

Hui blinks, swallows, and says, “Hi,” in a very hoarse, faraway voice.

“Who knew that you’re so dirty, huh?” Hyuna says, reaching over Hyojong to pet Hui’s chest.

Hui whines, weakly pushing her hand away, and Hyuna laughs, pressing a kiss to Hyojong’s neck before sitting up. She’s going to be sore tomorrow, and she’s a little bit sore right now already, but in that hot tingly way she gets sometimes after she comes really hard. It feels good, though, her whole body feels amazing, and she leans down to give Hui a small kiss.

“You’re not too bad,” she whispers, nudging their noses together. “And you were good for me.”

“Good,” Hui mumbles, trying to kiss her back as best he can. His mouth is slack and warm and soft, and she can’t help kissing him again even though he’s too worn out to reciprocate.

“You want anything?” she offers. “Water, a washcloth? You did great, you really did. I’m so impressed.”

Hui shakes his head slightly, and Hyuna gets up anyway, stretching out her arms and legs and groaning quietly. The room smells like sex and she loves it, smiling down briefly at the tangle of the leather harness and the strap on the floor. She makes a mental note to put another notch on it, but that’s also a task for later — right now, all she wants is some ice water and to laze around with her lovers.

It’s kind of crazy, just how quickly she let him into her life and into her heart (to say nothing of her pussy). He and Hyojong moved in together after just one or two meet-ups over coffee, so the process with him was quick, too. There’s just something about him that’s so irresistible to them both, clearly, and maybe it’s his well-meaning cluelessness or his sweet dopey smile or his long-fingered girly hands or how sincerely he wants to be around Hyuna and Hyojong, to help them however he can, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what it is. Hyuna doesn’t care about pinning down what, exactly, makes Hui so attractive. All she knows is that she plans to keep him for a long, long time.

When she gets back to bed, the boys are spooning, and she smiles at them as she comes back over, sipping her water. “Room for one more?”

Hyojong nods and moves back, his arms around Hui, moving Hui with him to make a little more space for Hyuna to get in. Hui still has a warm post-coital glow on his face, and Hyuna makes a fond noise, leaning in to press a kiss to his cheek. Usually she’s not much for affection after sex, but there’s just something about Hui and Hyojong, preferably in combination, that makes her get all sappy. In an ideal world, she’d like to be between them — despite how sweaty that arrangement gets, it’s still pretty damn cozy — but she thinks being in the middle is a decent reward for Hui and everything he’s just been through, so she settles for this, kissing Hui again and lifting her head to smile at Hyojong.

“So what’s the plan?” Hui mumbles, still a little hoarse and bleary.

Hyuna loves it when she’s fucked a boy to this state, and it’s even better now that it’s Hui. “For the rest of the week, you mean? Or overall?”

“Overall,” Hui says, turning his face into the pillow to yawn.

“You mean with the heist or with us?” Hyuna asks, which was supposed to be a joke but comes out sounding very serious, and she can’t help but go pink. Jesus, this is embarrassing. She just fucked Hui into a new dimension, she’s a hot and powerful top, and yet she’s still fucking catching feelings for this dork.

Hui opens his eyes just enough to see her, a small, sleepy smile on his lips. “What do you think?”

“We’re setting fires in bathrooms and other places all this week and next,” Hyuna says, still pink, “and then next Saturday evening you wait outside and Dawn and I break in. Afterwards, when Dawn and I have the payload, we leave the museum by 20:50 and we go and get changed, then we meet two blocks away in front of the Starbucks by 21:00. If we’re not all there by 21:30, the new rendezvous point is this apartment.”

“Then what?” Hui says. “Also, why do you always say things in military time?”

“Because it makes me sound sexy and mysterious, don’t ask stupid questions. If everything went well, then I sell the paintings within the next couple days,” Hyuna replies. Behind Hui, Hyojong’s eyes are getting droopy, but he’s still holding Hui close, trying to listen to what Hyuna’s saying. “If not… we do have some contingency plans, but let’s not talk about them.”

Hui looks like he might want to ask about that, but he doesn’t, just nods. His eyes are warm and sleepy, too, and he’s really looking at Hyuna with open and sincere admiration and love. That’s a pretty strong word, but Hyuna knows what it must be like to get fucked by her and so she doesn’t blame him for getting his wires crossed. “Okay,” he says and yawns again.

The contingency plans are pretty simple; take the cash, take the burner phones, leave the paintings, and get on the first train you can catch out of Paris. Technically, everybody’s supposed to go separately, but realistically speaking there’s no way Hyuna would go without Hyojong or vice versa, and now that they have Hui, they won’t leave him, either. The real contingency plan, at this point, is to wait until they all come back to each other, and if that doesn’t happen, then contingency plan B is to mope for several years about what could have been.

However, it’s not like they’ve paid Hui yet, so there’s nothing for him to run off with, no incentive to leave them on their own. He could turn them in to the cops, but — and Hyuna means this as fondly as possible — he honestly doesn’t seem bright enough to do anything like that. Besides, now that she’s given him the strap he’ll probably adore her forever.

When Hyuna had been young, moving from house to house, relative to relative, her parents barely giving her the time of day (not that she even wanted to know what time it was, but it’s the principle of the thing) then sending her across whole continents for school so she’d stay out of their way, disrupt their life as little as possible, what she wanted more than anything — more than green hair extensions, more than her own racehorse — in the world was to be loved. To be seen and known and loved. If she had any interest in thinking critically about her life, she’d probably start figuring out that her obsessive dependance on admiration and attention comes from years of cold treatment by her parents and not, as she insists, from her Leo moon, but she doesn’t care all that much. What matters is that now, finally, she’s undeniably loved. She was loved when it was just Hyojong by her side, always tearing up and hiding it by refusing to look at her when they were saying their goodbyes at the bus station in Hwasun, watching her with his calm, serious eyes over the top of a painting as she cuts it out of its frame, and now there’s Hui, too. Things with him are new and kind of strange, but he looks at her and Hyojong both with curiosity and respect and it could be love, yeah. It might just get there.

They fall asleep just like that. Hui’s in the middle, Hyuna and Hyojong on either side. They haven’t all three shared a bed just to sleep more than a couple of times yet, but compared to their previous arrangement with Hyuna in the center, this is better and less sweaty. For Hyuna, at least. Hui’s body is soft and he’s not humming in his sleep tonight, and Hyojong’s arm cast over him is within grabbing range, so Hyuna grabs it, cuddling in close against Hui’s front and sliding her grip down to hold hands with Hyojong. How can what they’re doing be wrong (namely, robbing Paris of multiple legendary works of art, since Hyuna obviously doesn’t give a single fuck about “living in sin”) if it brings them all this? The next job they do together, Hyuna decides, they’ll let Hui come along into the museum with them. Who cares if he’s not trained enough yet — as long as he doesn’t touch anything, he can just be their moral support.

With these thoughts, and all tangled up in the sheets with Hui and Hyojong and their quiet snuffling breathing, Hyuna sleeps.

The next day around noon, Hyojong texts Hui and Hyuna in their group chat — made years ago upon Hui and Hyojong moving in together, after it had become apparent to Hui that Hyuna was effectively their third roommate — that he’s done with his errand and that things are good. This is really the sort of message that might be a little suspicious if presented in court, but they’d have to get to court in the first place, and all three of them are pretty slippery (metaphorically and literally), so it’d be difficult for the Paris police or Interpol to get them in their grasp.

Hyuna’s about to text back and tell him that she’s glad things are good, but he texts her individually to not come over tonight. Something about his wording is kind of suspicious, and after a few moments of thinking it over, she connects the dots; he must be making his move on Hui. Or, if Hyuna’s being honest here, Hui is probably making his move on Hyojong. Regardless of who’s making a move on whom, she can’t wait to hear all about it afterwards, and sure enough, Hyojong’s texting her again after an hour. He says, thx for the space. u can come over if u want. /sexiling

His insistence on texting her like he’s posting on a conspiracy theory forum from 2003 can be frustrating sometimes (saying the indvidual can stop climate change by “recycling” more is a capitalist invention of large corporations 2 absolve themselves of culpability in the crisis. im aware of that & thats why i put the empty milk carton back in the fridge. im woke /rant) but tonight, it’s cute, and she’s so happy for him — for them both, and for the three of them overall — that she almost cries. It’s not like they’ve talked labels, but now she has two boyfriends and her boyfriends are boyfriends. She doesn’t want green hair extensions anymore and she’s been there, done that with owning horses, and now she’s got the love covered — aside from continuing to be the ruler of her very own criminal microcosm, what more could she want?

Her own phase of the plan (renamed Plan Megawolf at Hyojong’s insistence and Hui’s tacit endorsement) goes off without a hitch. Hui had seemed apprehensive about taking a sparkler into the museum, so she leaves him with the battery/steel wool option and takes the sparkler herself. It’s a miniature one from a box of party favors, it won’t burn very hard or very long, and by the time the sparks and smoke from it reach the detector in the stairwell, she’s already leaving the Orsay. She can hear the fire alarm going off from down the block, and she smiles to herself, putting some sunglasses on as she walks away just to really cement her image as a cool sexy crime boss.

Things are going great. Hui’s next up on Thursday, and since he still seems a little nervous, Hyuna and Hyojong go over the exact plan with him really thoroughly, covering every detail until he has it down. Hyuna gets why he’s nervous, though. There’s a big difference between what he did last time and what he’s doing now, now he really is getting his hands dirty and there’s no going back, but she and Hyojong both had to cross this threshold eventually, and if Hui really does want to be their third in every way then he’s going to have to get over his performance anxiety. Besides, he seems more worried about doing it correctly than about getting caught, and that’s not too bad of a mindset to have going into this.

The trick to sparking steel wool with a battery is persistence, and Hyuna’s worried that Hui, nervy and impatient, will give up after two failed tries. She’s antsy all afternoon — he’s supposed to go on his lunch break, which has already been proven the perfect time to do various semi-illegal things — and ends up snapping at some beret-wearing Austrian tourists who just wanted to buy some jewelry, that’s how on-edge she is. But he finally texts the groupchat a thumbs up emoji about an hour after he was meant to be done, and Hyuna can breathe a little easier.

Adding Hui into the picture was a point of contention when he was just vying for a roommate gig, and the circumstances surrounding his joining Hyuna and Hyojong in their career were pretty damn extreme. He’s preppy and over-earnest and an all-around nice boy; Hyuna’s parents would probably love him. All of this is to say that Hyuna would never have picked Hui out of a lineup for herself, wouldn’t have known that she was going to choose him to be in her life someday, could never have predicted this. And yet she’s so fucking glad for it, because doing Plan Megawolf with just the two of them would have taken way longer and been way messier (Hyojong has a penchant for starting fires, and Hyuna somehow doubts that he’d be able to limit himself to just a cigarette if Hui weren’t around to keep him in line).

Maybe for different reasons than that, actually, but. Hyuna won’t let herself catch serious feelings until after the paintings are safe and sound in her apartment.

She gets home, takes a bath, has some dinner, and is about to congratulate herself and the groupchat with a pre-job well done when Hyojong texts her: come over plz. h is :/

Hui being “:/” could mean anything ranging from him having seen a trailer for a sad movie to him preparing to amputate his own leg for no reason, and there’s absolutely no way for Hyuna to gauge the severity of the situation from here. Texting Hyojong again will be useless, so she decides to treat it pretty seriously just in case it really is something bad, and she slips her feet into some Miu Miu slides and heads out without looking back except to check out her ass in the mirror she has by her door.

After a speedy and sweaty 15-minute walk, she lets herself into their apartment and finds them both in the kitchen. Hui is holding a large, steaming mug of some disgusting cinnamon-blend herbal tea, and Hyojong is eating olives directly out of the jar. He blinks at Hyuna once she’s in, and she blinks back at him, then looks at Hui. “What’s popping, fellas?” she says, being casual.

“Oh— Hyojong,” Hui says reproachfully, frowning at Hyojong and then looking at Hyuna. “You really didn’t have to come, I’m fine.”

“What are you wearing?” Hyojong says, eating another olive.

Hyuna looks down at herself. Since she’d just been having a lazy self-care night at home and didn’t change before leaving, she’s wearing an army-green pajama romper that has PARTY TIME embroidered across the front. “I thought Hui was dying,” she defends, stomping forward to smack Hyojong on the arm. “Can you be a little less fucking vague in your texts? What the fuck did that even mean? I thought he was about to jump off the roof!”

“I’m fine,” Hui repeats, starting to smile reluctantly. Now that she can see him more closely, he does look pale and wan, and his lips are red and chapped like he’s been worrying at them with his teeth. “Just… overthinking things, that’s all.”

“Come on, we talked about this,” Hyuna says, now stealing an olive from Hyojong’s jar as payback for him making her come all the way over here for no reason. “I’m the one that does all the thinking. You two are just there to be my arm candy.”

“I know, I know,” Hui sighs. But that didn’t seem to comfort him whatsoever, and Hyuna frowns, coming over to him and taking him by the arm.

“What’s up, then? What are you overthinking about?”

Hui shrugs, setting his mug of tea down. He struggles with himself for a moment, finding the words, then hesitantly says, “I just— I don’t want to put you two in danger.”

“You won’t,” Hyuna says immediately, rolling her eyes. “What did you even do? Did it not go well today? That’s fine, that’s not even the important part. Dawn and I already did two-thirds of the Plan, remember? We had you go last for a reason.” She’s teasing him to try and make him feel better, and she leans up to kiss him on the cheek to make sure he gets that.

That doesn’t work either, though, and the most he can muster up is a very weak smile. “Yeah. I guess so.” He sighs, once again taking a moment to plan what he’s going to say. “There were just… a lot of security cameras, like, a lot, and I just don’t know if you’ve considered that, and I don’t think I’ll really stick out in the footage from today but maybe you two did when you did your parts, and if somehow they connect this back to you it’s going to be pretty fishy that you were there right before the alarms went off, and this is your biggest job yet, right? Isn’t planning it in two weeks kind of risky? I know that you don’t have a lot of time what with them redoing their security soon, but maybe you shouldn’t just rush into this, you know? I don’t know, I’m not really making sense, I’ll get over it.”

Hyuna shakes her head, her eyes serious, lips pulled together in a frown. “Dawn said the exact same thing his first time,” she says. “You feel like you’re in over your head and you made a mistake, right? But don’t you trust me? Don’t you trust Dawn? We’ve been doing this for five years and we’ve never been caught. Nobody’s ever even come close. Yeah, it’s a big job, and yeah, we planned it fast, but we don’t have a choice, they’re going to change the whole fucking museum in, like, a week from now. You know the whole plan from start to finish. The alarm’s not going to go off when we go into the building, you’re going to be setting off alarms in a totally different place, our faces are going to be covered, we’ll have a good distraction when we come back out. Honestly, I feel like they’re probably just gonna shut off the alarm system altogether, since the constant fire alarm thing has gotten pretty old for them with evacuations and stuff. It’ll be fine. And you’re just worried about yourself…” She shrugs, glancing back at Hyojong. “We’re not gonna sell you out if we get caught. You’re just our clueless roommate and you never had any idea about what we do. You fooled us this long, yeah? Just keep it going. Cops are dumb as fuck, nobody’s gonna question that.”

Hui thinks about all this for a moment and picks his mug up again to take a sip of tea. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to kill your vibe. I’m just… getting cold feet, I guess.”

“Dawn, go get him a thicker pair of socks,” Hyuna says. “You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. Just do as we say and trust in the plan.”

“This is real,” Hyojong adds, his voice just as quiet as Hui’s. Hyuna hears the echo of when Hui had said that to her, last week when she was deep inside him, and something in her heart twinges painfully. “It’s dangerous, but if it wasn’t dangerous it wouldn’t be the same. You told me you didn’t want your life to be boring anymore. This is what it’s like for it to not be boring.”

Hyuna wasn’t there for that chat, but based on Hui’s reaction, it must have been some serious heart-to-heart shit. At first he scrunches up his mouth like he’s trying not to cry, but when he looks up at Hyojong again, his eyes are warmer and he’s almost smiling. “You’re right,” he says. “I do trust you, both of you. Do you trust me?”

“If we didn’t trust you, we wouldn’t be letting you do anything for us at all,” Hyuna tells him, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek again. Something about him makes her feel all poetic and protective in much the same way that Hyojong does, so she’s taking him seriously, not just making jokes at him as he bares his soul to them.

“Thank you for looking out for me,” he says softly, turning his head to kiss her on the mouth, gentle. “You came over here so fast, thank you. I’ll try and return the favor someday.”

“Return the favor by being the best drone pilot the world has ever seen,” Hyuna says. “And don’t second-guess yourself so much. You’ve been a big help to us already, yeah?”

Hui nods and holds out his free hand, which Hyojong takes (after setting down his now half-eaten jar of olives). “It does help to know that you were nervous about this, too,” he admits once Hyojong has come over to be by his side. “Obviously Hyuna’s never been nervous in her life, but I’m glad I’m not the only one that didn’t come out of the womb ready for art theft.”

“She stole the macaroni art they made at her preschool,” Hyojong blatantly lies in an attempt to cheer Hui up. “She’s always been like this.”

“That’s not surprising,” Hui says. His smile finally starts to look genuine, and Hyuna’s glad for it, even if it is at her expense. “Do you want to spend the night, Hyuna? So you don’t have to walk all the way back?”

Hyuna pretends to consider it, playing with the neckline of Hui’s shirt. “Depends. Are you gonna make fun of my romper, too?”

“I wasn’t making fun of it,” Hyojong says as Hui replies, “It’s kinda sexy, so no.”

Hyojong hears this and raises an eyebrow at Hui. “You don’t have to lie to her about it.”

“I’m not!” Hui laughs, watching with bemusement as Hyuna smacks Hyojong’s arm again. “She makes everything sexy, you know that.”

“You can sleep on the couch tonight,” Hyuna huffs, pushing Hyojong away from her and draping herself all over Hui instead. “How dare you say such hateful things to me.”

“We don’t have a couch, you said all couches had ‘bad energy’ and forbade Hui and me from ever getting one,” Hyojong says placidly and returns to the other side of the kitchen to have more olives.

Hyuna shakes her head, kissing Hui on the cheek and just below his jaw, nuzzling into his neck. “Are you feeling better?” she asks, much quieter, so that only he hears.

“Yeah,” he whispers back, putting his arm around her waist and smiling as he kisses her again. “Don’t be too mad at Hyojong. He ran to the store and bought this tea for me when I said I was out.”

Hyuna hums thoughtfully and turns her head to look at Hyojong, who makes a very cute face at her as he eats another olive and closes the jar, by now almost completely eaten. She can’t resist him, obviously, so she opens her arms to him and he returns, joining Hui and Hyuna for a very loose and badly organized group hug. Hyojong and Hui are warm and a little too broad for Hyuna to be able to wrap her arms around them both at the same time, but she tries her best anyway, her head nestled in Hyojong’s shoulder and her fingers pulling at Hui’s shirt. “What, you’re gonna make me say it? I can’t stay mad at either of you,” she mumbles.

Hui makes a very small noise that she can’t quite interpret and kisses the top of her head, and Hyojong, who knew that very well already, gives her a gentle squeeze. Then his hand runs in an exploratory sort of way down her side to fiddle with the hem of her romper, and he draws her away from Hui gently so he can check it out more thoroughly. “You know,” he says after a second, making her spin around to show him the back, “I guess it is kinda sexy.”

“Right?” Hyuna says, pleased, and leans in to kiss him as a reward. He kisses her back way more enthusiastically than she’d expected, and when she pulls back, he has a glint in his eyes that can only mean trouble. So naturally she kisses him again, and then he kisses Hui for good measure, and so of course there’s no better course of action than all ending up in Hui’s bed, both of them trying various methods to take her out of her romper before she shoves them off and does it herself, and then there’s no more separation between any of them, just skin on skin on skin.

It’s not like they have anything more important to do, after all. What’s the point of being in a multi-million-euro crime trio if you don’t even fuck the other two members regularly? Their plans for Saturday are made and set, and how they pass the time until then isn’t going to change the outcome. They may as well have fun until then, show Hui that it’s not all serious and stressful before the cash starts coming in, and they’ll figure out everything else as they go along.

For the first time in the history of Hyuna and Hyojong’s operation, the day before and the day of the heist go by surprisingly quickly, and Hyuna thinks it might have something to do with how they spent both days inseparable from Hui, barring a few breaks for work when they remember that they have to go. Spending time with Hui has become Hyuna’s latest hobby, pretty much, and she can tell that Hyojong’s just as obsessed with him, and Hui’s reaction towards the whole thing is just being mildly confused and flattered and letting them poke and prod him and tell him various outrageous stories about their lives to see how he reacts. Hyuna’s having so much fun watching Hui and Hyojong kiss while she reorganizes Hyojong’s closet for him that she very nearly misses her phone timer going off to remind her that she and Hyojong need to head out.

After that, it’s a mad dash to change into their double-layered outfits and triple-check that everything they need is in the backpack and the fanny pack (“Fuck it, okay, you win, are you fucking happy now? It’s a fanny pack, fine, fuck you”) before both giving Hui big kisses and running out. Hui’s scheduled to leave exactly two minutes after them, and they’ve already caught a train by the time he’s out of the building, but their phones are off; from here on out, all they have to rely on is the plan.

Hyuna knows that the weather doesn’t have a huge impact on how well any given heist goes, but sometimes she wishes that there was some effort on Mother Nature’s part to set the mood for them a little bit. It’s a dark and stormy night, despite Hyuna’s bright and sunny disposition, and she’s glad that Hyojong had the foresight to pack some extra plastic wrap and an umbrella — no way is she about to let L’origine du monde get soaked, all jokes about pussy aside.

They get to the Orsay right on schedule. Their point of entry is on the northeast side of the building, and Hui’s waiting on the Rue de Lille on the southwest. He’s got the drone controller but Hyuna has the drone itself tucked under her arm, and she and Hyojong both have lanyards around their necks with makeshift security badges hanging from them. It’s sloppy and cliché, but it works: if any innocent passerby sees them being shady, they’ll just assume they’re employees and forget all about it. And this time, they’ve foregone their usual black silk scarves for some paper air filter masks, just so they can get close to the museum with their faces covered but without making anybody suspicious.

Hyuna checks her watch. 19:47, which leaves them more than enough time to do everything they’ve come to do. They descend the stairs to the service door on the Quai Anatole France, and Hyojong keeps a lookout as Hyuna bends down to pick the lock, which only takes a minute or two of her working it to open for her like a particularly loose pistachio. And then they’re in, walking quiet, heads down, sticking close together.

Their first stop is a stairwell near the entrance, where Hyojong lights up a chip of pre-soaked hickory wood, then drops it in a metal bowl to contain the resulting fire. It’s very small, but very smoky, and they both stand there holding their breath until the wisps of grey smoke curl up all the way to the detector on the ceiling and —

Nothing happens.

“Holy shit, they turned the alarms off,” Hyuna whispers. “Why’d you have to pick a wood that smells so yummy when it burns? Now I’m fucking hungry.”

“We’ll go eat after,” Hyojong whispers back. “Let’s go.”

She nods and helps him put the fire out so they can clean up after themselves, and then they’re on the move again. As they walk, Hyuna considers leaving the drone turned off so they don’t even need to bother with getting it up to the Renoir and then back out, but Hui might panic at the unexplained change in plan, so she turns it on when they’re almost at the room with the Courbet, just as they’d discussed. It takes a moment to find the controller, and Hui must be at the ready, because it starts flying off immediately, the whirring of its propellers gratingly loud in the otherwise silent museum.

“It didn’t sound that annoying when we tried it out last weekend,” Hyojong grouches.

Hyuna shrugs, watching it go to ensure that Hui’s piloting skills haven’t diminished and that he won’t crash it into any walls, let alone any paintings, before it rounds a corner and vanishes from view. She checks her watch again and notes the time that the drone was let loose; they agreed beforehand that it would only be in play for five minutes, which won’t be enough time for Hyojong and Hyuna to steal either of the paintings they’ve come for but which will be long enough to get security’s attention away from any other possible illicit activity going on. “Let’s move,” she says, taking Hyojong by the hand and leading him through the halls and rooms until they get to room 20, where the Courbet awaits.

“Oh, wow,” Hyojong says.

Hyuna sighs dreamily. “Wow,” she agrees, taking a step closer to see the painting better, admiring it like she’s a regular museum attendee and not about to steal the fuck out of it. “How was this commissioned in 1866? I didn’t even know they had porn in Europe before photography was invented.”

“Photography was invented in the 1820s,” Hyojong says.

“Shut up, I’m trying to enjoy this beautiful vulva,” Hyuna hisses.

Hyojong shuts up and lets Hyuna enjoy, standing back to give her some space. It really is breathtaking, and Hyuna knows they have a limited amount of time but she’s gonna savor this moment regardless.

It’s as shocking from far away as it is up close. The pale skin, the white sheets, and in the middle of it all, the tangle of dark hair, just a hint of warm red pussy, the pink of her echoed by the nipple in the upper middle of the canvas. In the long history of this painting, there have been some critics that contended that this is a portrait of a corpse, not a living person, but now that Hyuna’s this close, this one-on-one with it, she can see that that’s not the case at all, it’s so alive, breathing and soft and touchable.

She’s not going to touch it — not directly on the canvas, at least — but she is going to steal it. Once she’s had her fill of staring, she gestures to Hyojong to come help her out, and together they take the frame down from the wall so she can start the liberation process.

“You think we’ll get a good offer for it?” Hyojong asks, watching as Hyuna starts to unscrew the clips. Just like last time, her screwdriver keeps slipping, but she gets them all out eventually, slices through the protective tape, and breaks into the backboard, then struggles extensively with the layers and layers of moisture-wicking felt between the wood and the canvas. “How’d you pick this one, anyway?”

“Are you kidding? Just look at it,” Hyuna says. She’s quiet and deep in concentration for a minute, wiggling the canvas oh-so-carefully until it comes out of the frame without sticking to the glass, then exhales and continues, “You seriously think I’d rob a museum that has a painting of female genitalia and just leave it there?”

“Okay, fair,” Hyojong says, hanging the frame back up. There is a whirring noise that starts faraway and suddenly gets a lot louder, and Hyuna’s about to freak the fuck out when she remembers the drone and breathes a little easier. She and Hyojong both wave at the camera when it enters the room, and the drone does a wiggle from side to side in response before landing on the floor so Hyuna can turn it off. Hui’s too cute for his own good, seriously.

Now that the drone is out of the way, Hyuna can get to work undisturbed. She smiles adoringly at the painting as she cuts it from the wooden canvas, and together she and Hyojong wrap it in clingfilm and roll it up ultra-carefully to put it into the bag. She can’t help petting over the bag, reverent, once it’s in, but she knows they’re on a tight schedule, so they keep going, heading through the rest of the museum to see what else they can find.

In room 10, Hyojong spots a very sweet Toulouse-Lautrec that makes Hyuna say “aww,” and anything that makes Hyuna say “aww” is something that she simply can’t live without, so they have that one out of its frame and in the bag pretty soon, too, fucky screwdriver be damned. They walk past some totally luscious Bouguereaus, and Hyuna eyes them and wistfully says, “Someday I’ll figure out how we can steal huge paintings like that.”

“Uh huh,” Hyojong says. “What time is it?”

Hyuna checks. “20:26,” she says. “We’re not running out of time yet, but we could stand to go a little faster. Ooh, look at all these sketches!”

The sketches in question are by some French painter whose name rings a hand bell but not a church bell, and Hyuna and Hyojong ease four off the wall, not even bothering to take them out of the frames. In the next room hangs a painting by the same artist, and upon seeing it, Hyuna and Hyojong simultaneously realize why the name was so familiar: it’s some silly painting of a white cat with very long legs that’s very popular online.

“We can’t, it’s on cardboard,” Hyuna says immediately when Hyojong starts forward to try and get it.

“Damn,” Hyojong says, pouting, and insists on taking a small and pleasant mid-1800s landscape in its stead. Hyuna lets him have his fun, but the frame is pretty bulky, so he holds it still while she starts taking it off.

“Man, fuck this thing,” she mutters when the screwdriver slips out of the screw again and again. “Remind me to get a new one of these, like, as soon as we’re done here. Well, maybe not as soon as, but tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Hyojong says. While she’s taking the canvas out, he looks more closely at the screwdriver, humming thoughtfully as he runs a glove-protected thumb over the metal. “Yeah, it’s all fucked up.”

“Thank you for your valuable insight,” Hyuna says, rolling the landscape up and adding it to their bag. “Give it back, the Van Gogh’s next door, let’s keep moving.”

Hyojong hands her the screwdriver back, and together they walk through the rooms of Cezannes and Gauguins until they reach the Van Goghs. The rain outside is making it even harder to hear their already-quiet footsteps, and as they stop in front of Two girls out of temper, Hyuna hears thunder rumble somewhere far away. All nicely cinematic, which she comments on to Hyojong as they take the painting down from the wall and set it down.

This is by far the most valuable and expensive work they’ve ever handled, which is why they’re both acting kind of weird. Hyojong is practically chatty by his standards, agreeing with Hyuna about the rainstorm and telling her about how he can never decide if he thinks Van Gogh is overrated or not and wondering how much this would sell for on a legitimate market, and Hyuna’s going even slower than she usually does, just to make sure that she doesn’t damage a single millimeter of the painting. This one is even better up close, she can see all his individual brush strokes and where the paint is so thick that it’s clumped up. She doesn’t stop and think about the magic and mystery of her job often, but now, as she breaks out a utility knife that set her back maybe three euros to cut out a painting worth at least ten million, she can’t help but remember that damn, life sure is crazy.

She looks around the room at all the other masterpieces by him and sighs. “I wish we had time for more of these, but they just wouldn’t sell,” she says glumly, which sets Hyojong off on another mini-tangent about what a tough market they’re catering to as she gets the paper covering off the back and starts on the screws. Her hands are shaking from excitement (or nerves, but Hyuna doesn’t get nervous, so it’s not that) and at first she can’t get a grip on the screwdriver, then she can’t fit it into the screws themselves. In her experience, all archival framers go for a Philips head screw, but she does have a spare flathead screwdriver with her just in case. She’s honestly not sure if either one would fit in these screws, though, which are somehow hexagonal and square all at once.

“What’s wrong?” Hyojong asks, stopping his own rant, because Hyuna’s frowning and swapping her screwdrivers out, but the flat screwdriver doesn’t fit, either, leaving Hyuna frowning even harder.

“Fuck,” she says. “No, it’s okay, I’ll just try again.” She puts the Philips back into the screw and tries it again, but of course it slips, and she huffs in frustration. “Give me the lock-picking kit,” she says, adjusting her grip on the screwdriver.

Hyojong finds it in the bag and hands it to her, and she rifles through it until she finds the skinniest lock-pick in the set, which she then wedges into one of the empty spaces the screwdriver leaves. She holds her breath, then turns the screwdriver’s handle, and — it actually works for a moment, but then the screwdriver catches on itself and slips out of the hole.

“Shit, this might take a while,” she says through gritted teeth, trying again and going slower this time. “But we’re fine, we have another half an hour, and honestly we may as well call it an hour since the go-home rendezvous time isn’t until 21:30. Now shh, I’m trying to focus.”

Hyojong goes quiet and lets her work, and when after five minutes she only has one screw undone, she has to ask him to try it instead, maybe he’ll have better luck. Indeed he does, and he takes out the rest of the screws out soon enough, and they start on taking the backing off together. They won’t be able to roll this one up, there’s too much paint on the canvas, but it’s a small enough painting that it’ll fit into the bag as-is. But of course there’s a ton of shit between the frame and the canvas, backboards and back mounts and dust covers and moisture barriers, and Hyuna gets why they’d want to protect a Van Gogh this thoroughly, but couldn’t they have considered that someone was going to steal it someday and made it a little less difficult to steal? This is taking forever, and when Hyuna checks the time, she sees that it’s past the time they were supposed to be leaving at, but they still have a while before they need to meet Hui, so there’s no need to rush yet.

They’re down to the last layer and Hyuna is wedging her knife’s blade between the canvas and the frame to pop the painting out, and Hyojong frowns, lifting his head to look out into the hall, the darkened body of the rest of the museum. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what? Don’t mess around,” Hyuna warns. She didn’t hear anything, though, and she pauses what she’s doing to listen more closely. “It’s just the rain.”

“Yeah,” Hyojong says, kinda doubtfully. He leans in closer to push very carefully on the other side of the painting, trying to touch the surface as little as possible but still help Hyuna ease it out, and after a couple of agonizing minutes of push and pull and waiting, Hyuna swivels the canvas to the side and removes Two girls, out of temper from the frame.

“Finally,” she sighs, getting out the last of the plastic wrap and starting to swaddle the painting. Hyojong hangs the frame back up, and in the crinkle of the plastic Hyuna’s ears must start playing tricks on her, because she hears something like a footstep, something like the echo of someone talking.

She goes still. Listens closer. “Dawn—”

There it is again, that noise — footsteps, probably far away but amplified by the museum’s marble floor and high arching ceilings. Not just one person, too, multiple people. Voices, speech, all men as far as she can tell. The buzz and click of a transceiver radio.

Hyuna shoves the painting into the bag and stands up. Hyojong has gone pale and his eyes are wide above his mask. “Hyuna,” he breathes. “Hyuna, what do we do.”

“Shut up,” she whispers. She’s so cold suddenly, she starts shivering, but Hyojong doesn’t move to comfort her, he can’t move at all.

Maybe it was her imagination or the rain or anything, anything other than this, but she can hear it clearer now, they’re getting closer. The room is small; they have nowhere to go. Nothing to hide behind. They’re on a high floor so they can’t break a window and jump out without risking their lives.

“Hyuna, what do we do,” Hyojong says again, and Hyuna needs him to be fucking quiet while she’s thinking, and she can’t think with him talking and the voices getting closer and closer. She grabs his hand and pulls him back against the wall — the walls are dark blue in the light, but it’s so dark that their clothes blend in, and if they stay still and bide their time until whoever’s in here leaves, then maybe— maybe—

The footsteps are so loud that they’ve probably come to the same floor as Hyuna and Hyojong. Hyojong’s not even breathing and she can feel him trembling, and she’s shaking, too, and she slides her hand down to link their fingers together and squeeze so hard that it hurts her bones. What’s left for her to say? She just hopes that Hui’s okay, that nobody saw him waiting outside the museum with the drone controller, that he’s home safe and sound and he reads about this in the news tomorrow and moves on with his life quick and thinks about them from time to time. Hyojong squeezes her hand back and she closes her eyes and tries to breathe.

She can hear them more clearly now. There are probably four or five of them, footsteps clicking, radios buzzing, and they’re talking loud, why are they talking so fucking loud? She tries to make out what they’re saying, but she can’t focus, her head is spinning, pulse roaring in her ears. She can’t hear anything but the rain.

Nothing but the rain, and a voice — a voice which sounds exactly like Hui, except for the fact that the voice is speaking English, perfect, unaccented English.

“As I said, there’s nothing to worry about, and there never was,” Hui is saying. They’re so close to the room Hyuna and Hyojong are in that she can all but hear the polite, professional smile on his face when he says it. “Aren’t you glad you were wrong?”

“This is very surprising,” another male voice says. “But you’re right, everything seems to be in place.”

With Hui, things have always happened so quickly. But this happens in slow motion.

Hyuna opens her eyes and the light in the room changes as five uniformed men walk down the hall just outside room 71. She and Hyojong are motionless against the wall, and all of the men are looking straight ahead and not checking inside, except—

Except Hui, leading the pack.

He turns his head and his eyes sweep over the room and he sees them, sees them both, holds their gaze as he says, “There’s nothing here. Let’s check the fifth floor just in case.”

He’s in a uniform, too. It’s dark blue and fitted to him and his vest, in white letters emblazoned across the front and back, says INTERPOL.

Hui looks away, looking forward, and the men behind him follow him, one speaking into the radio clipped to his belt that they’re going to the top floor. They all have guns — all of them — Hyuna feels sick. Hyojong’s grip on her hand is beyond painful but she’s numb all over, stuck to the wall, her legs growing roots into the ground. This can’t be real. This can’t be real. This isn’t happening, it doesn’t make any sense, there’s no way.

They stand there for a long time, until they can’t hear the footsteps above them anymore. Hyojong breathes out slow and shaky and says, “Hyuna,” like a lost child, like he’s waking up from a nightmare, his voice catches and Hyuna’s not even thinking anymore, she can’t think at all, she feels like she’s unconscious or long dead already, and she pulls at his hand and pulls him away from the wall.

“Let’s go,” she says.

Hyojong takes the bag and Hyuna leads him through the museum around the perimeter, taking side stairs down to the ground floor, fumbling through dark service hallways until they’re at the door they’d come in through again. Hyuna turns the handle and it sticks and she’s beyond emotion but she feels tears building in her throat, but she can’t cry right now they need to go they need to get out of there, so she tries again and it opens and they’re out on the street and it’s pouring rain and Hyojong’s eyes are wet already and Hyuna doesn’t stop until they’re far away, four blocks away, under a tree in front of the Starbucks where they’d agreed to meet Hui.

Hyuna pulls off her hat, takes off her mask, and sniffles.

It’s wet under the tree, no protection from the rain at all, and Hyojong gets the umbrella out and opens it, his movements automatic. He’s still covered up, and she reaches up to take his hat and mask off for him, and then they’re just standing there, wet and shivering and trying not to make it too obvious that they’re both trying not to cry.

Hyuna doesn’t know why her body brought her here on automaton, or why Hyojong isn’t protesting and saying that they need to leave the fucking country, not stand around waiting for Hui to come, because Hui’s gone, the Hui they knew is fucking gone, maybe he never even existed in the first place. But she can’t fathom it. It doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t add up. Maybe it’ll all have been a joke, a misunderstanding, maybe Hui will come and say that it was just a prank or maybe it wasn’t him at all, not Hui but a cold and distant stranger who speaks English and works for Interpol and didn’t do this to Hyuna, didn’t do this to Hyojong, didn’t do this at all.

They’re not touching much, because Hyuna knows that if Hyojong even takes her hand again she’ll burst into tears, and she’s cradling the bag with the paintings between them protectively. She still feels numb, disoriented, and she doesn’t know what else to do if not wait for Hui to come and make it alright again.

After what feels like an hour, Hyojong speaks. “What time is it?” he asks, sounding hoarse, talking quiet.

Hyuna turns her arm to check her watch. “21:28,” she replies. Her own voice is shaky and unfamiliar, but she braves on anyway. “I don’t think he’s coming.”

Hyojong nods just slightly, adjusting his grip on the umbrella handle, and he doesn’t look scared or mad or upset, he just looks lost, like he took a wrong turn and suddenly ended up in a parallel universe. “What should we do?”

“I don’t know,” Hyuna says. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes tightly to keep tears from building up. “I don’t know what to do, Dawn, I don’t—”

“Hey.”

It’s Hui. Hyuna whips around to see him. He’s back to being in the same thing he’d been wearing when they’d said their goodbyes and good lucks at the apartment earlier, and he has his own umbrella. For all the world he looks exactly the same, and if Hyuna didn’t look too closely she might think that he was the same, but his face is different — everything about it is different, his eyes, the set of his mouth, the way he’s looking at them. She can barely recognize him, and she steps back instinctively, standing between him and Hyojong.

Hui notices the gesture and his face does something strange, but it’s back to that smooth, expressionless version in another moment. “We need to move,” he says. “Where can we talk? Somewhere secure.”

“My apartment,” Hyuna says. Even though she’s protecting Hyojong with her body right now, keeping Hui away from him, even though she herself is too scared to make eye contact with him, she still wants to trust Hui, wants him to make everything okay, wants him to tell them it was all a joke and it’s alright. Behind her, Hyojong is holding onto her arm and not moving, and Hui nods, putting his free hand in his pocket, closing himself off to them.

“Lead the way,” he says.

And Hyuna does, helpless to stop herself as her body moves without her brain’s consent, leading Hyojong by her side and Hui behind them to the metro and down into the station, and it’s worse than a nightmare because she can’t wake up, it’s real, and she can feel Hui looking at them both as they walk but she doesn’t want to turn her head to see him just in case he’s not actually there at all, Orpheus and Eurydice past the point of no return.

But he is there, and they go through the turnstiles one by one, and they wait on the platform for the train together and board together. They don’t speak, and Hyuna still can’t look at him and she’s curling into Hyojong’s side and it’s horrible, it’s beyond horrible, and she’s still waiting to wake up or for Hui to say there’s been a misunderstanding, but she doesn’t, and he doesn’t say anything at all.

The train doors close and they’re on their way.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Hyuna and Hyojong sit next to each other in the jump seats perpendicular to the length of the train, and Hui sits a little ways away from them, facing out towards the train doors. Neither Hyuna nor Hyojong are saying anything, and they’re just sitting there with shell-shocked expressions on their faces, eyes fixed on the floor, Hyojong leaning against Hyuna and breathing in shaky and anxious. It doesn’t seem like Hui is going to hand them over to the cops just yet, but it’s still tense, and Hyuna can’t get the image of him in his Interpol uniform, gun strapped across his chest, out of her head.

“Act normal,” Hui says, voice low. The sound of him speaking makes Hyuna jump, and she lifts her head to look at him with startled eyes. “Act like you always do. It’s more suspicious if you don’t.”

Christ, he even sounds different. Hyuna glances uncertainly at Hyojong, who’s gone all but catatonic, and hesitantly maneuvers his head onto her shoulder and his hand onto her knee. She can go through the motions until they get back to her place, at least. “I wonder who won the game,” she says, trying to speak in her regular tone, talk about whatever comes to mind the way she usually does when she and Hyojong are riding home. “Won’t it be crazy if France wins this year? I was six when we won the last time, and I think we were here for the summer, it was really crazy, I sort of remember it. Obviously my family had moved back to Korea by then but we still came just about every year, I told you about that, I think? Not always during the summer, sometimes during the winter. Um.”

She doesn’t know what to talk about, and the ride is only half an hour long but it drags on forever, and she runs out of conversational topics more than once. Hui’s sitting there all calm, leaned back and looking at something on his phone, even though Hyuna remembers that they’d agreed that he’d leave his phone at home just like Hyuna and Hyojong. Her hands have started shaking again and she folds them in-between Hyojong’s, but that’s not much help — his skin is ice-cold. The bag with the paintings is on the floor, bumping around between their legs, and she jolts slightly every time it touches her, startled.

It’s hell on earth, it really is. Through all the numb cold hurt in her veins she’s starting to feel something else, something sharper, something like anger. What right does Hui have to come into her life with Hyojong and do this to them? If he’s been working for law enforcement all along and he was going to arrest them, why not just do it? Why play with them first? Over the couple of years Hyuna has known Hui, and especially over the past few months, she’s gotten to know him as a dopey but caring guy, someone who goes out of his way to make Hyojong feel comfortable, to give Hyuna something to smile about, and he seems like he’d never hurt a fly, let alone lead them on in a long game like this. It doesn’t make sense. And if that’s really what’s happened, then she’s beyond hurt and beyond pissed that he could be capable of that.

They arrive at her station and Hyuna gets up, taking Hyojong by the hand to lead him with her. She’s all charged up and mad, but the fight goes out of her the second she locks eyes with Hui, who looks for just a second like his old self, innocent and happy-go-lucky and sincere. A chill runs down her spine and, tongue-tied, she turns to go off the train, knowing he’ll follow her and Hyojong. Maybe they shouldn’t be letting him out of their sight in case he goes running, but at this point, it can’t get any worse, this is rock bottom as it is. Not even imminent imprisonment seems like a bigger challenge than surviving what they’ve already survived.

Hyuna’s apartment is only about two minutes’ walk away from the station, and they walk quickly and quietly, Hui shadowing close behind. He’s never been to Hyuna’s apartment before, Hyuna realizes dimly, and that sure fucking stings — she’d wanted to bring him here under very different circumstances than these. She’s back to feeling numb, almost paralyzed and helpless, because it just doesn’t make sense, nothing about this makes sense.

Hyojong gets Hyuna’s keys out for her, but he can’t clasp his fingers around her specific key, his fingers aren’t moving the way he wants them to, like he’s lost control of his body. He wordlessly hands the keychain over and even though her hands are still shaking slightly she manages to find her key and unlock first the building door and then, when they’re on the second floor, her apartment.

“Sorry it’s messy” starts and dies on her tongue; she doesn’t quite make it past the ‘sorry.’ Fuck, she still can’t accept that Hui isn’t who they thought he was, she’s still going off instinct. She clenches her jaw and goes into her apartment unapologetically, taking the bag from Hyojong and putting it under her bed for safekeeping. Hyojong follows her in, and only when she turns to see him does she remember that they’re still in their heisting outfits, and maybe her feeling like she can’t breathe is in part because of the sports bra and multiple layers she’s got on.

“Go wait in the kitchen,” she says to Hui without looking at him. It’s a small studio apartment, so he won’t be exactly isolated there, but it’ll still be better than him just standing there watching them change. Maybe that’s a little too harsh, considering that literally less than six hours ago she was watching lovingly as Hui and Hyojong played several friendly rounds of tonsil hockey, and yet she needs to be away from him at least for a moment so she and Hyojong can get their bearings.

Hui nods and goes through, leaving Hyuna and Hyojong semi-alone. Hyuna looks at Hyojong quickly and finds him still pale and unresponsive, and she nudges him lightly. “Get changed,” she says, voice soft, and starts pulling her own outer shell off. It takes Hyojong a moment to react, but he does eventually, neatly folding his shirt and pants on the foot of her bed. She also undresses quickly, not making a big fun show out of it like she usually does for him, and soon she’s back down to her shirt and jeans, feeling very plain and formal in this outfit and like what she wants more than anything is for Hui to go away so she can cry into Hyojong’s chest and then flee the country in peace.

He doesn’t, though. She can hear him moving around in the kitchen, and she barely has time to run a hand over Hyojong’s shoulder to try and soothe him before Hui’s coming back out of the kitchen and leaning in the doorway, watching them with his unfamiliar eyes.

Once again, Hyuna’s protective instincts surge, and she turns to stand in front of Hyojong. It’s a very futile gesture — she couldn’t fight Hui, and she doesn’t even know what to say, she can’t even make direct eye contact with him, but she does it nonetheless, holding her ground. Hui’s face does something like a smile in response, but Hyuna can’t move, can’t speak, she doesn’t know what to say because there’s nothing to say and there’s too much to say and she needs answers to questions she can’t even form. She finally lifts her eyes and looks at Hui, trying to come up with something to say, but before she can even catch a breath, Hyojong is stepping out from behind her and facing Hui head-on.

“Why?” he says, his voice clear and firm despite the shake in his hands. It’s a simple question, but it gets the point across, and Hyuna can see that Hui, this unfamiliar version of him, is caught off-guard by it.

“Why?” he repeats, raising his eyebrows. “Why what?”

“Why,” Hyojong says again, not backing down, standing taller. Hyuna knows it’s a front, that his courage won’t last, but she still feels something warm through her cold shock, looking at the broad expanse of his shoulders and the soft way his hair curls over his ears.

Hui stares at him briefly, then huffs and looks away, smiling all incredulous. “For you,” he replies. “I did it all for you. To protect you. You know that you’re only safe because of me, right?”

“I don’t know that,” Hyojong retorts. “I don’t know anything about you, Hwitaek.”

“Oh, don’t start,” Hui says, a note of warning in his voice. “You can’t even imagine the things I’ve done for you.”

“So tell me,” Hyojong says. His breath catches and he almost breaks, but he braves on. “Because right now I don’t fucking get it. Why would you tell us that you knew and not tell us about this? Why would you get involved with us at all? Why would you— why would you lead me on?”

Hui’s eyes are sharp and he pushes off from the doorframe, coming closer to them. Hyuna almost shrinks away but there’s something new starting in her, like that hot stab of anger from earlier and her usual heist-related restlessness combined, and she can’t be still anymore, swaying where she stands as he approaches them.

“Lead you on?” Hui echoes, and now she sees him, the real him, smart and dangerous, a wolf on the fucking prowl and she’s scared of him but she knows he won’t hurt them, she doesn’t know anything else but she knows that with every fiber of her being. “You think I was leading you on? You really think I could resist you?”

He steps in so close that Hyojong stumbles back, and then he has Hyojong crowded against Hyuna’s dinner table, hips on hips and his hand coming up to grab Hyojong by the hair and tug his head back so Hui can press his lips to his throat. “I’m the best thing that ever happened to you, and don’t you forget it,” he says, low, holding Hyojong still when he trembles. Hyuna’s helpless a foot away, and Hui reaches for her, too, grasping her wrist and pulling her in harshly against his side, his fingers vise-tight around her arm. “Both of you. You’re safe because of me. I haven’t let anything happen to you for years and I’m not going to, never. You’re mine now. Understand? You’re mine. And I protect what’s mine.”

“Hui—” Hyojong says, desperate, on the brink of tears, and shoves Hui away, but Hui doesn’t even have time to lose his footing before Hyojong is going after him, grabbing two fistfuls of his shirt and hauling him in for a kiss, bruising and messy and leaving them both reeling. “How could you?” Hyojong gasps into his mouth. “How could you do this to me?”

“You really wouldn’t even believe me if I told you how many times I’ve saved you,” Hui laughs, then groans when Hyojong bites his lower lip so hard he almost breaks skin. “I’ve been covering your fucking tracks since the beginning, you could at least be a little grateful—”

Hyuna snaps awake. “Grateful?” she says, and reaches up to curl her fingers in Hui’s hair and yank hard, pulling him off of Hyojong and ignoring his yelp of pain. “Why would I be grateful to you? A cop. A fed. A liar. What the fuck have you done for me, huh? You want me to get on my knees and say thank you, thank you for saving me?”

“Yes,” Hui says, his head tilted back in her hold, and his eyes are fever-hot and wild, a grin on his stranger’s mouth, red and wet from Hyojong’s savage kisses. “Yeah, I do.”

“Fuck you,” Hyuna says and jumps at him, her nails dragging down the back of his head as she wraps her legs around him and he catches her, staggering back but returning her kiss as much as he can when she’s holding his head back like that. “We should have gotten rid of you when we had the chance.”

“You can’t get rid of me,” Hui breathes, and he hisses out a harsh noise against her lips when Hyojong comes up behind him and bites down on the side of his neck. “I’ll find you anywhere. I found you in the first place, didn’t I?”

Frustrated, Hyuna thumps a hand against Hui’s shoulder. “What the fuck are you talking about?” she demands, then suddenly remembers that it’s true, Hui was the one to seek Hyojong out; Hyojong’s former roommate was an acquaintance of his, he’d said, and he also happened to be in need of someone to share an apartment with, luckily enough. Jesus Christ, how deep does this go? She’s so shocked by this forced realization that her grip on him slackens and he drops her down onto the table, then turns to look at Hyojong, whose expression is devastated and stunned like he’s just been slapped.

Hui reaches out a hand for him, softer and slower, and opens his mouth to say something, but Hyuna sits up fast and smacks his hand away. “Check if he’s wearing a wire,” she says to Hyojong, and Hyojong nods, then grabs Hui’s shirt and pulls it off him so fast he tears a couple of buttons.

“I’m not wearing a fucking wire,” Hui snaps, which doesn’t dissuade Hyojong at all from dragging his palms down over Hui’s neck and shoulders, tugging him in by the belt loops so they’re chest to chest as Hyojong undoes his jeans, their eyes locked, Hyojong’s hands pulling and pushing as he thoroughly checks Hui’s body.

Hyuna’s never seen Hyojong in a state anything close to this before, so angry and impulsive, and if she were wearing pearls she’d be clutching at them from her front-row seat on top of this table. She herself feels hot and dizzy, shaking on the precipice of something huge, and when Hyojong finishes frisking Hui he pushes him back over to Hyuna, who gets up off the table and grabs him by his wrists so he can’t go far.

“I’m on your side,” Hui tells her, voice low, and Hyuna laughs in his face, but her laugh dies out when he breaks free from her hold easily and grasps her instead, his hands on the back of her neck to keep her steady. “I’m on your side.”

“Prove it,” Hyuna counters. Hui’s touch on her neck is soft, careful, especially compared to the harsh way he leans down to kiss her, biting and licking and claiming until she nearly tastes blood. But she shoves him away after kissing back just as fiercely, her eyes blazing up at him. “I said prove it.”

“How? What else do I have to do?” Hui says, wiping his mouth and wincing. “You just can’t even comprehend that you might just be shit at what you do and that I’m the one that’s been pulling all the strings. All the evidence that ‘got lost’— the leads that got covered up, the contacts that were never made— don’t you think it’s weird you never sold art to an undercover cop? You never saw the headlines about how your jobs were actually carried out by organized crime? The fucking— the insurance fraud at the Marmottan? God, and then— you left hair at a scene— you paid for your fucking car upfront in cash, Hyojong, Jesus Christ— I can’t believe I’m the only one that’s noticed. The only reason you’re not both rotting away in prison right now is me. It was all me, all along, and this is what I get for it?”

Hyuna and Hyojong waver, looking uncertainly at each other. “That’s not true,” Hyuna says, her heart clenching painfully. “That’s not how it happened. We’re just—”

“Lucky?” Hui finishes for her, laughing bitterly. “Give me a fucking break. There’s no luck in what you do. It’s all hard work, it’s all me, putting in 24 hours a day cleaning up your messes. Do you have any idea how much lying I’ve had to do over the past five years? I might get more criminal charges than you do, if they ever catch me. Obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, accessory to grand larceny, breaking and entering, conspiracy, fraud, all of it.” He takes a deep breath, his hands clenching at his sides. “At least you two have each other,” he says, quieter, lower. “I’ve had to do all of this alone.”

It’s all starting to come together. Hui’s perfect memory for very specific details about their lives; how cagey he gets about revealing personal information; his ability to turn on a dime, think on his feet, lie quickly like he had at the Orangerie despite being so ditzy in everyday life; the way he comes home exhausted and overworked even though he supposedly just does secretarial tasks all day; his freak-out before this job; and finally, him looking up at Hyuna with radiant, dazed eyes, saying “This is real.”

Hyuna can tell that this is hitting Hyojong hard. He’s always hated lying to Hui, it’s given him so much grief over the years, and now to find out that not only was Hui carrying out an even greater deception, but that it was hurting him to do it, too? He’s visibly torn between hating him and pitying him, and it leaves his eyes welling up with tears again. “Hui,” he says, faltering. “I really— I really want to believe you.”

“So believe me,” Hui says, taking a step closer to him. “I’m not going to hurt you, I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Dawn. Look at me?”

Hyojong does his best, his lower lip trembling when he takes in a breath. “I thought I knew you,” he says. Now he is more hurt than angry, and it’s horrible to watch, making a lump start in Hyuna’s throat, too.

“You do,” Hui says, pleading, and closes the distance between them to press their foreheads together, wrapping his arms around Hyojong. Hyojong doesn’t hug him back, his breath shaky, cheeks colorless, just closes his eyes. “You do know me, Dawn. I would never hurt you or do anything to harm you, please believe me.”

Hyuna was frozen in place, but now once again she breaks out of it, staying where she is but raising her voice so he hears. “You don’t get to call him that,” she says, and Hyojong pulls away from Hui, wiping his eyes quickly before anyone can see. “How dare you? Who do you think you are? You don’t get to pull this whole sad act after lying to our faces about everything for years. Own up to it. You know he’s sensitive, you know he hated keeping our job a secret from you, and then you still thought it would be fine to keep fucking lying?”

“I didn’t lie,” Hui says, shaking his head. He comes for her instead, backing her up into the table, but she keeps him from getting too far, bracing her hands against his chest and sliding them up into his hair. “I just didn’t tell you. I never flat-out lied to you.”

Hyuna scoffs, but remembers saying almost the exact same thing to Hyojong what feels like a lifetime ago; it’s not lying, it’s just… not telling him, there’s a huge difference. Fuck. But now that she thinks of it, she can’t name the company where Hui works, doesn’t even know his official job title. He has been very careful not to lie, but instead of this technicality appeasing her, it only makes her angrier. Has he seriously thought every detail of this through? How long was he expecting this to continue for?

“You expect me to feel sorry for you for having to do all this alone, but who asked you to do it alone? You could have told us,” she says, sharply jabbing a finger into the middle of his chest. “As soon as you met us, you could have told us the truth, and then we would have all been in it together from the beginning. You knew we weren’t innocent already, so it’s not like you were trying to figure out if we were the culprits or not. Why wait? Were you ever going to tell us?”

Hui grabs her wrist before she can claw at him again, his jaw tight, eyes hard again. “No,” he says, “I wasn’t going to tell you. Does that matter?”

Hyojong makes a shocked noise, so surprised that he goes right back to being angry. “Yeah, it fucking matters.”

“Is this a game to you?” Hyuna snips, leaning up to bite sharply at Hui’s shoulder.

“If you’re going to come into our lives and say we know you and make us trust you, you’d better mean it,” Hyojong goes on, and Hui’s eyes flash and he turns, breaking Hyuna’s grip on him to look at Hyojong.

“You think I didn’t mean it? Come here,” he says, grabbing Hyojong by the shirtfront and dragging him in until he’s talking right into Hyojong’s face. “Let me make one thing very clear. I never led you on. Everything I feel for you, both of you, that’s real. I told you then and I’m telling you now since you don’t understand. Why would I do all of this for you if I didn’t feel anything? It’s all real, I didn’t fake a second.”

“Then act like it,” Hyojong says, jutting his chin up, unafraid. Hui practically snarls at him, teeth bared as he pulls him closer and they both stumble back, right against Hyuna, and Hyojong kisses him hard to shut him up before he can say anything else. Then Hyuna’s hands are working to get Hui’s jeans off and he wraps an arm around her, hiking her in tight against his side, and she’s so worked up that her brain goes blank for a second and she makes a noise like a purr, lifting up onto her toes to bite his earlobe sharply.

“You think he’s faking this, Dawn?” Hyuna asks, wriggling out of his hold so she can slip out of her shirt, leaving her topless in front of Hui. He gets distracted, eyes darting down, and she stalks closer, running her hand over his shoulder and down his side. “I think he’s telling the truth about this, at least, because he can lie to us all he wants about who he is and where he’s from and what he’s trying to do but this?” Her hand darts down quick and grabs the hard outline of his cock through his briefs and he gasps in a breath, but she doesn’t loosen her grip, palming him tight. “Nah, baby, this is real. Remember that, Hui? Is that what you were trying to tell me?” She makes her voice breathy like she’s getting fucked, musical like his, murmuring, “This is real,” right against his ear in a mockery of his words to her.

Hui shudders, his cock pulsing in her hold, and tries to reach out for Hyojong but Hyojong goes to Hyuna instead, curving around her possessively from behind, lips pressing to her shoulder as he looks up at Hui. Hui laughs breathlessly and looks away, but his hips rock forward when Hyuna grinds the heel of her palm into him, and he can’t stop himself from reacting.

“I told you, Dawnie, you shouldn’t have stood up for him,” Hyuna murmurs, her voice sing-song and mean as she looks up at Hui and keeps her grip on his dick just a shade too tight. “Always telling me about what an honest person he is, how trustworthy, how kind. I told you there was something up his sleeve, and see, I was right. Should have stuck with me, trusted me. I’ll never lie to you and betray you.”

“Okay, fuck this,” Hui pants, pushing Hyuna’s hand off of him. His eyes are dark and his cheeks are flushed, which is more like the Hui they’ve gotten used to, but he looks mad, too, and unfortunately, it’s pretty fucking hot on him, Hyuna can tell that even through her own anger. He steps in close to them, crowding Hyuna back. “As if you’re any better. Don’t fucking look down on me when I’ve given you everything. You’re talking a big game like you seduced me and like you own me, but look at you now, you’re so fucking into this, you love it. Didn’t even have to touch you to get you wet at the Orangerie, and you still think I’m the only one with a problem here? You’re not guilty at all?”

She bumps back against the table and he puts a hand between her spread legs, sliding up her thigh to squeeze her through her jeans and thumb right over the seam, making her moan and then quickly clamp her mouth shut. But it’s too late, he heard, and his eyes light up with that same hungry, feral energy he had going earlier. “You were right about me,” he tells her, leaning in to catch her mouth in a quick, biting kiss. “You said you didn’t make me bad, I was bad already. You were right.”

“Shut up,” Hyuna gasps, her hips shuddering down onto his touch. “I can’t believe I actually fucked you.”

“You did,” Hui agrees. He unbuttons her jeans and slips his hand inside, and of course she’s wet already, so sensitive it hurts when he drags his fingers over her clit. “Always wanted you to. Shame you never fucked Dawnie while I watched, though. That’s why I picked your case out in the first place, I was hoping I’d get a show.”

Hyuna shudders, so fucking mad she could slap him and so fucking turned on she could come, and pushes her hips down further onto his hand, making him touch her more. “And what about it?” she snaps. “Yeah, you get me hot, so what? I’m honest about it, you know that. At least I haven’t been lying to you for years and years about—”

“Oh, but you have,” Hui says. He stops touching her abruptly and pulls his hand out, leaving her whining, glaring up at him. “You really forgot? How you both lied to me, too, and how you also weren’t ever going to tell me?”

“That’s different,” Hyojong disagrees, defending Hyuna, and Hyuna feels a rush of love for him, but somewhere the wires get crossed and she just ends up shoving her own hand into her jeans to finish what Hui started.

Hui ignores Hyuna and turns to look at Hyojong, his eyebrows raised. “Yeah? How is it different? Please, enlighten me.”

Hyojong visibly falters and glances over at Hyuna, going red when he sees her, and since she’s no help, he has to try and go it on his own. “We just lied to you about that one thing,” he says. “You lied about everything. It’s different.”

“It seems the same to me,” Hui shrugs, pulling Hyojong close to him by the arm. “Don’t you think we’re even now? My lying protected you, you know. What did your lies do for me?”

“I— I don’t know,” Hyojong says, stricken, and his breath rushes out of him when Hui pulls him in tight and kisses him deep, Hui’s hands running over him like he can’t get enough.

Hyuna curls her fingers inside herself, pumping slow as she watches. “Tell him, Dawn,” she says, her voice just a little raspy, both from emotion and from arousal. “They paid for his rent, they paid for those expensive dinners you took him out on, covered all the emergency kitchen repairs, all the—”

“That was your job,” Hui corrects, and his hands are sliding down, and Hyojong’s breath is getting quicker. “What about your lies? Why couldn’t you be honest with me?”

“You know why,” Hyuna says, rolling her eyes. “If you weren’t a cop, you could have gone to the cops yourself.”

“Convenient,” Hui shrugs. He leans in for a kiss and Hyojong meets him halfway, needy pink lips parted, as Hui runs his hand lower still to circle his fingers around Hyojong’s dick. “And what would you have done if I’d told you?” he asks him, teasing. “Would you have paid me off?  Sent me away? Killed me?”

“Maybe,” Hyojong replies, bold, and his breath catches in a moan when Hui starts stroking him. Hyuna can’t decide between loving the show and wanting to cut Hui’s hands off for touching Hyojong after everything he’s done to them, so she kicks at Hui to get his attention and Hui, ever the multitasker, brings Hyojong over to the table to be closer to her.

Hui ends up leaning down over the table to kiss Hyuna deep while she rubs herself off, her other hand grabbing for any part of Hyojong she can reach, but Hui’s still stroking Hyojong, too, and after a moment Hyojong pulls Hui back up to him, kissing greedy and demanding, not at all like the usual shy, careful way he kisses. And then Hui somehow manages to wrench Hyuna’s hand out of her jeans so he can pull them down her thighs and get his hand on her instead, making Hyuna gasp and fall back against the table, body arching, hips grinding down onto Hui’s touch.

Everything from that point on is kind of a blur, happening in flashes like lightning; Hyojong stroking himself and Hui both in one hand, Hyuna coming on Hui’s fingers with her hand covering her mouth to hold back her scream, Hui’s face pressing into Hyuna’s neck as he braces his elbows on either side of her and she jerks him off, then something like Hyuna tugging Hui down to the floor, to his knees, so Hyojong can finish in his mouth and on his parted lips, Hyuna’s grip tight on Hui’s chin tilting his head back. Hyojong joins them on the floor to kiss Hui’s mouth clean, and then they’re all sitting there, half-dressed and covered in bite marks and sweat and come and staring at each other.

Hui breaks the silence first. “I didn’t want to lie to you,” he says, hoarse and breathing hard. Hyojong lifts his head from Hui’s shoulder to look at him, and Hui rubs his eyes with a tired hand, not meeting Hyojong or Hyuna’s gaze. “It’s— it’s not as simple as me wanting to tell you the truth but choosing not to. I didn’t know you yet, and— sorry, could I have some water?”

“Get it yourself,” Hyuna says, rolling over on the floor and sitting up so she can start making her way over to bed.

Normally Hyojong would unquestioningly, graciously go get some water for Hui, but he’s taking a leaf out of Hyuna’s book and so he doesn’t, just follows her, pulling the blanket aside so she can get in. Hui watches them go, then sighs, says, “Okay, okay,” and drags himself up to his feet.

Hyuna gets into bed, pulls Hyojong in with her, and reluctantly leaves space for Hui, moving them both back against the wall as they wait for him to finish in the kitchen. He comes out sipping from a glass and almost smiles when he sees the extra space in the bed, but doesn’t let the smile spread, just gets in and doesn’t touch them without them touching him first.

“Go on,” Hyuna says once he’s settled. Hyojong is curled up around her again, his cheek on her shoulder as he watches Hui mournfully.

Hui takes another sip of water, sitting up where Hyuna and Hyojong are lying down, and sighs. “I didn’t know you yet when it all began,” he says quietly. “I didn’t know if I could trust you, or if I really should be covering for you, if it was worth it. What happened was— I figured out it was you, and I didn’t really have enough evidence to prove it but I told you, I have good instincts, and I thought it was kind of interesting and I took it to my superiors and they all said, like, we don’t have any other leads so do whatever you want. I put together a small taskforce, and I was gonna go undercover with you, get information that would either exonerate you or incriminate you, and that would be it. I never meant to get this close. I definitely never meant for any of this to happen.”

“If you’re going to tell the truth,” Hyuna says lazily, playing with Hyojong’s fingers, “tell the whole truth.”

Hui, startled, blinks at her. “What do you mean? I am telling the whole truth.”

“Give me a break,” Hyuna says. “I see how you get when we’re doing something illegal. That wasn’t fake, I know that much. So spare me the dramatics, the ‘I didn’t mean to get attached’ bullshit. Don’t insult us by feeding us more of your lies.”

“I wasn’t,” Hui says, then makes a face, looking down at the glass of water in his hands. “Okay, maybe I… maybe I was hoping for something. Something like this. When I was younger, when I was first, um, in police academy—”

“Jesus, here we go,” Hyuna sighs, but Hui continues regardless, determined.

“I knew I didn’t care about being a regular police officer, I never cared about traffic laws and peacekeeping or whatever, I was only ever interested in major crimes,” he goes on. “And not even murder— I wanted to go international. Because… at the back of my mind, ever since I was a kid, I couldn’t stop thinking that it would be so— so easy to do bad things if you had power already, why didn’t everybody just do that? What was stopping powerful people from bending the rules that they themselves had made? It never made sense to me.”

Hyuna tilts her head slightly to look back at Hyojong. “Dawn, he’s a real psychopath,” she breathes, and Hyojong shakes his head, eyes widened, disappointed and intrigued all at once.

Hui hears Hyuna’s remark and goes a little red. “No, I’m not,” he protests. “I’m not. I was just curious. About what it would be like to have that kind of power. That’s why I never cared about anything other than major crimes and big-picture stuff, I just wanted to get up the ranks and see what it was like to be in control. You can think of it as scientific curiosity, if that makes it make more sense. I just wanted to try. And then I got too good at my job, and Interpol recruited me straight out of police academy, and they moved me to Lyon— I spoke French already, thank fuck— and then you were the first case I ever got. It really was like fate.”

“You’re so corny,” Hyuna says, rolling her eyes. “How were we your first case? Seems like a pretty big assignment for a rookie.”

“First major case after getting to France,” Hui insists, sincere, sounding much more like his old self. “And they didn’t even give it to me, I guess, I just sort of volunteered myself for the art theft division and they put me in charge of all those cases since I was a direct recruit and nobody else cared much. It really didn’t take long for me to figure out there was a connection and that it was you, just so you know. All it took was stopping a few paintings at customs and tracing back from the carriers to the buyers, and I always ended up just short of figuring out who was actually selling, and at first I thought there was a whole gang of you because nobody could give me a straight answer about who had sold them the paintings but when more than one person said it was an Asian guy who couldn’t speak French too well— sorry, Hyojong— I got a little experimental. I knew it wouldn’t be one of the organized crime groups based in Paris, the M.O. was too different, but I didn’t tell anyone else on my team that, for whatever reason. So to track you down, I had to comb through all the immigration records in the months leading up to the first break-in, the one at the Musée de la Vie Romantique, and I thought it was a dead-end until I found you by accident, and the only thing that tipped me off was that you and Hyuna were living together at the time, you’d put her as your primary contact and sponsor in France, and she had an arrest record from her time living in England, so. That was that.”

“Well, fuck,” Hyuna says. Of course she’d known living with Hyojong at all would cast suspicion on them both, but when he’d first come to France she’d been so happy to have him there that she couldn’t stop herself. That ended after the first year, but evidently the damage had already been done.

“See what I mean? You’re really lucky that it was me who found all this out and not anyone else,” Hui says, glancing down at Hyuna with a brief flash of amusement. He stops smiling after a moment, though, taking another sip of his water and looking down at Hyuna’s patterned bedsheets with his serious eyes.

“When was all this?” Hyojong asks very quietly.

Hui hums thoughtfully, setting his water down on Hyuna’s bedside table. “I started my taskforce after your second job. I knew it was you after your third. Got clearance to go undercover and move in with you after your fourth. You know the rest.”

Hyuna wants to make some sort of joke — she’s tired of being angry, she got it all out of her system midway through trying to bite Hui’s throat out — but she can’t come up with anything, there’s just too much to process. “Did you tell them that you’ve been working with us?”

“Of course not,” Hui says, raising an eyebrow. “I’m trying to make it seem like you’re innocent. That’s why I risked bringing the police to the Orsay tonight.” His voice suddenly changes, and he sounds more upset than serious, looking away from them again. “All signs pointed to you planning on breaking in specifically today, because of the World Cup game and all the Plan Megawolf stuff and how you typically do your heists on the weekend, and you were supposed to be out by then, I have no idea why you were still in there, I waited to let them in as long as I could. If I’d known there was a chance you’d still be inside I would never have brought them in, that was never part of the plan.”

“Yeah, well, my screwdriver’s a piece of shit,” Hyuna mutters. “Sorry I fucked up your plan.”

“It’s not your fault,” Hui says, “and I didn’t mean it like that, you know I didn’t. Seriously, I’m really doing as much as I can to prove that you have nothing to do with this. The insurance fraud thing, that was one of my covers, and then we caught a member of the Pink Panthers and he confessed to a few jobs, including one of yours, and I didn’t even prompt him to, he might have just lost track. We got the hair evidence right before our offices moved, and it, uh, got lost in the transition, which is a good thing, too, because I’m pretty sure it was Hyuna’s hair and we would have checked the DNA against international databases, and I don’t know if your record in England had fingerprints and DNA, but just in case.”

Hyuna somehow hadn’t been sure if bleached hair could be read for DNA, but she’s not about to ask and confirm. “Huh,” she says.

“You’ve done really well,” Hui adds, much softer. “Considering that you’re independent of any organization. I really am the only one to have found you, and I’ve worked hard to make sure nobody else even gets close. The insurance fraud at the Marmottan isn’t just my invention, they really do have shady management, and I’m obviously your alibi for these last two jobs, so… it should be fine.”

He’s looking at them both with an expression that’s almost hopeful, much in the same way that a cat looks at its owners after bringing a dead rodent to the foot of the bed. Hyuna has no intention of praising him the way she might a cat, though, because this is just way too much to take in, and the revelation that she’s not the genius mastermind criminal she thought she was because it’s been Hui doing the masterminding all along is a hard pill to swallow.

The silence drags on for a while, and Hui, now looking more awkward than expectant, tries to restart the conversation. “I understand if you can’t trust me from here on out,” he says. “But I haven’t sold you out yet, and I’m not going to. I obviously can’t prove anything I’ve told you tonight, and again, I get if you don’t want to trust me, or if you don’t want to be around me. My priority here is making sure you’re safe and protected, and as long as that’s the case, I’m fine with whatever else.”

“Guilt-tripping might work on me, but not on Dawn,” Hyuna warns, and laughs when Hui scrunches up his face in dismay. “I’m serious, he might not be able to forgive you for a while.”

“Let him speak for himself,” Hui says, once again trying for hopeful, and looks at Hyojong over Hyuna’s shoulder.

“I think,” Hyojong starts to say slowly, then stops, pensive. Having sex before having this conversation was a mistake, because now he’s a little sleepy and acting like a pushover, but Hyuna’s sure things will be different tomorrow morning. “I think… I believe you, but I don’t trust you,” he concludes after yet another long pause.

“Okay,” Hui says immediately. The eagerness in his expression is just like how it used to be, but it still looks different somehow, and Hyuna can’t stomach it, turning away so she doesn’t have to see a familiar look on his unfamiliar face. “Okay, that’s fair, and I really appreciate it, Hyojong. I hope you can trust me again someday.”

Hyojong makes a very quiet noise into Hyuna’s shoulder, and Hyuna pets his arm soothingly, sighing. “This does explain why you’re such a weirdo,” she says glumly. “You were just covering up your secret identity.”

“Ah,” Hui says with yet another familiar expression, that awkward, self-conscious smile that Hyuna’s always privately found so cute. “No, that’s… a lot of that really was just me.”

“Whatever,” Hyuna says. She adjusts her position, laying her head down fully on her pillow, but something’s still bothering her: the fact that Hui sought them out, that he found them first. She purses her lips and, after a moment, asks, “How much do you know about us?”

“What do you mean? Pretty much everything, honestly,” Hui shrugs. “I’ve been putting together a file, but I haven’t had reason to add anything for a little while. Hyuna, you were born in Paris but moved back to Korea with your parents after six months, and you lived in Seoul until you were in your teens, at which point you moved to England for school. Hyojong’s from a small town in South Jeolla, born and raised, and you met at some point when he was 17 and you were 19, I’m not sure how—”

“I was on a trip with my class,” Hyojong mumbles into the back of Hyuna’s shoulder. Her heart squeezes painfully again and she grips his hand a little tighter.

Hui nods, absorbing the new information, and goes on. “From then, you maintained a close relationship over email with a few occasional in-person visits until Hyojong moved to Paris two years later. Hyojong started a course at a local university in Korea but didn’t finish. You’re both only children. Hyuna’s from a wealthy family and they still send you money, which has been a really convenient cover, by the way, and Hyojong, you… I mean, you told me yourself that your parents were just happy that you were moving to Paris to pursue your dream of being an artist and they don’t check up on you often. Obviously I know about your jobs and where you live, and I can tell you about how you broke into each of the museums you robbed, the Musée de la Vie Romantique, the Jacquemart-André, the Cognacq-Jay, the Musée National Jean-Jacques Henner, the—”

“I get it,” Hyuna interrupts, frowning. “You know all of that about us, but we don’t actually know anything about you.”

Hui realizes he’s been caught in a trap and pulls a slight face. “I can tell you right now,” he offers softly. “Do you want to know?”

“What do you think?” Hyuna says, some leftover anger getting the best of her, and Hui raises his eyebrows, leaning back.

“Okay, okay, let me think,” he says. “I really was born in Gwacheon, and I did go to school in Seoul, but I started police academy young, when I was 17. Interpol came by and did some recruiting when I was in my second year, and it all happened really fast from there, them moving me out to Lyon and unleashing me, um… I speak English because we had to take two languages as part of our basic training, and I picked English and French because I always wanted to go to France when I was younger. I’m not really allowed to keep in touch with my parents too much, but I think they’re doing well. I’m actually happy with my career. I guess you could say I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to do.”

Hyuna rolls her eyes, but she can’t deny that it’s kind of intriguing to know that there’s so much she still doesn’t know about him, there’s so much left to learn. “All cops are bastards,” she tells him. “You don’t have a whole lot to be proud of.”

“I’m not a cop,” Hui corrects quickly. “I’m not. I didn’t finish academy, I’m an analyst at best. Employees of Interpol can’t even make arrests.”

Hyuna and Hyojong had both been on the brink of being done with this whole chat, but that little tidbit makes them both perk up, confused. “Uh, what?” Hyuna says. “You can’t?”

“I couldn’t arrest you even if I wanted to,” Hui nods. “All we do is help national police departments compile data and make recommendations on what to do from there. I swooped up your case before anyone else could, and since I’m pretty much in charge, I’m the only one from Interpol that could make the recommendation for the arrest, but obviously I’m not going to do that, so you’re essentially bulletproof.”

Now that’s interesting, and Hyuna turns her head to look back at Hyojong, who’s similarly troubled by this. “So as long as you don’t tell on us to the Paris police, nobody can arrest us?” Hyuna clarifies.

“Well, no,” Hui says with a slight smile. “Right now they’re all deferring to me and my team since we’re the ones with jurisdiction over international art crime, but obviously if they catch you red-handed they’ll be able to bring you in. As it is, though, they don’t have enough even to put out a warrant for you or anyone else, and until I make a recommendation, they’ll trust my judgment and leave it alone. I’ve basically been stalling them for the past three years, and I intend to keep doing that as long as possible.”

“But why?” Hyojong asks. Earlier when he’d been asking Hui the same question it had been heartbreaking as fuck, but now he just sounds sleepy. “There’s plenty of criminals out there. Why us?”

Hui thinks about this for a long moment, so long that Hyuna thinks maybe they’re finally done with this and they can all get some rest. But eventually he looks down at them and says, “I think… when I first heard about your cases and narrowed it down to you, I saw what I’d always wanted to be. I didn’t know people like that really existed. It was just a fantasy thing for a while, your glamorous criminal lifestyle, the art, the money, all of it. And then I met you, and even before I really got to knew you I could tell it would end up being more than that. At first I was just protecting you because it was fun to see what you’d do next and I didn’t want the fun to stop. But then it turned into more. And now here we are.”

“Here we are,” Hyuna agrees, quieter and more sincerely than she’d intended it to sound.

Maybe Hui doesn’t look so different after all, she decides. He’s more serious and way more intimidating, obviously, but it’s still the same face she thought she was starting to love. Now she has to reevaluate everything, see if he’s still worth her and Hyojong’s time — and fuck, she’s not going to be able to trust him with Hyojong for fucking ever — but it’s not a lost cause, she doesn’t think. Not that she’ll tell him that anytime soon, though.

Behind her, Hyojong has fallen asleep, breathing soft against her bare shoulder, and Hui slides down the bed so he’s lying down, too, on his side to look at them both. Hyuna doesn’t want to just be making nonstop eye contact with him, so she closes her eyes, and before she knows it she’s falling asleep, too. The last thing she really remembers before she’s out is the light touch of Hui’s hand on her arm, and his voice saying something real quiet, maybe “I’m sorry,” maybe “sleep well.”

In her dream, she’s a pirate captain and Hyojong is her first mate and Hui appears only in flashes like a visitor from the future trying to warn them of some unavoidable calamity, then the dream changes, and in this one she’s sitting at a table cleaning scrapes and bruises on Hui’s hands for him, tying gauze around his beat-up knuckles, and Hyojong comes in playing the guitar and they all eat fresh cherries from each other’s fingers and mouths. Then she’s not dreaming about anything at all, and she’s cold despite being sandwiched comfortably between two warm young men; she forgot to close the windows when she was leaving this morning, and her thin blanket isn’t enough to counteract the chill. So in her sleep she pulls Hui and Hyojong closer, their arms both cast over her body, her face almost pressed into Hui’s shoulder, Hyojong’s legs all intertwined with her own.

She’d be content to sleep like that for as long as humanly possible, since being asleep means she doesn’t have to face the consequences of her mistakes, but she’s awoken by Hui jolting back, and that, in turn, makes her jerk awake and try to sit up, and finally Hyojong makes a sleepy noise and stretches out his body as Hyuna and Hui stare at each other in panic and try to figure out why anybody had to wake up in the first place.

“What’s going on?” Hyojong mumbles blearily, and Hui tries to pull back more but something stops him; he lifts his arm and Hyojong’s lifts along with it, because they’re bound together at the wrists with a pair of plain silver police-style handcuffs.

Hyuna rubs her eyes, wondering if she’s still asleep, and Hui looks bemusedly at the handcuffs, bringing his other hand over to rub at his wrist where the metal has bit into his skin. “Why am I handcuffed to Hyojong?” he asks.

“Oh, yeah,” Hyojong says. He drops his head back onto the pillow, his cuffed hand hanging limply in mid-air. “Didn’t want to take any chances.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Hui says, both frustrated and trying not to smile. “Can you let me out, please?”

Hyojong shrugs, already well on the way to falling back asleep. “They’re Hyuna’s, she has the key.”

“What? They are?” Hyuna says, leaning in to see them closer. “Huh, I guess. Gimme a second.”

Hui doesn’t bother asking why Hyuna has handcuffs, just lifts his and Hyojong’s arms up higher to give her room to slide out from between them and get the key from a box at the foot of her bed. Hyojong must have had to go pretty deep into her sex toy chest to find these, and she wonders how he accomplished it in the middle of the night without waking her or Hui up, but he can be pretty sneaky and determined when he’s got his mind set on something, so it’s not all too surprising. The key’s near the bottom, and she brings it back and unlocks the cuffs from around both of their wrists, then tosses it vaguely in the direction of the box again.

“Thanks,” Hui says, rubbing his wrist and making a face. “You can go back to sleep if you want, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Hyuna shakes her head, lying back on her mountain of pillows and blinking up at him. “Is Hwitaek Lee your real name?”

“Jesus,” Hui says, extremely startled, and even Hyojong coughs in sleepy shock by Hyuna’s side.

Hyuna doesn’t back down, raising her eyebrows. “Well? Is it?”

“Yes,” Hui huffs, but she must still not seem convinced, because he insists, “It is, I can dig up my passport for you if you really don’t believe me.”

“I’m just messing with you,” Hyuna says and turns away from him onto her other side so she can snuggle up with Hyojong. “Do you want breakfast?”

“Me? Sure,” Hyojong says, yawning into Hyuna’s hair.

“I can cook something,” Hui offers. He must be trying to overcompensate for his deception, and honestly, Hyuna’s fine with it as long as he’s suggesting it himself.

“I don’t have much in the fridge, but knock yourself out,” she says, making no move to get up or help him cook or navigate her kitchen. Hui waits briefly to see if Hyuna’s going to move, but she obviously doesn’t, and he sighs and gets out of bed himself, stretching before heading into Hyuna’s kitchen to see what the grocery situation is.

Hyuna and Hyojong stay in bed, slowly waking up together while Hui clatters around in the kitchen, and now Hyuna can’t be sure if even that’s real or fake, the comfortable background noise of Hui knocking things over and being generally clumsy; maybe that was part of his cover, just adding to the whole clueless image. He’s still doing it now even though they know, though, so maybe at least some of it was genuine. Around ten minutes later he calls them to the table, and they both crawl out of bed slowly, Hyojong mostly naked and Hyuna finding a bathrobe somewhere to bundle up in, to join him for breakfast.

He’s made coffee (using magic or something, since Hyuna doesn’t have a coffee maker) and sunny-side-up eggs accompanied by slightly stale toast. Hyuna munches on the toast while Hyojong risks trying the coffee, and Hui pokes mildly at his eggs and nearly jumps out of his skin when Hyuna drops her fork down on the table with a clatter and says, “So what’s your endgame here?”

“My what?” Hui asks politely when he’s calmed down again.

“If you don’t want to turn us in, and you don’t want our money, what do you want?” Hyuna clarifies. “To just watch us forever? At this point, you’re not doing a whole lot for our operation, and you waited this long to get involved, so… is that really it for what you want? Nothing more?”

“Oh, that,” Hui says. He thinks about it, tearing a corner off his piece of toast. “I want to rob the Louvre, two weeks from now.”

Hyuna and Hyojong laugh, and Hyuna expects Hui to join in but he doesn’t.

“Um,” Hyuna says, still sort of smiling. Hui remains impassive, raising his eyebrows, and Hyuna glances briefly at Hyojong, who seems just as confused as Hyuna. “You’re kidding, right?”

Hui shrugs. He’s not even smiling. He’s clearly dead serious about this, and Hyuna’s smile fades from her face for good.

“Okay, what?” Hyuna says, looking at Hyojong again, then back at Hui. “The largest museum in Europe? I know we’re good— we, collectively, the three of us— but we’re not that good. I never even tried to plan a Louvre job, it’s just too hard. And in two weeks? I can’t pull something together that fast, there’s literally no way.”

“I know,” Hui says nonchalantly. “But I planned it. I’ve been planning it for the past five years. Wanna hear it?”

On the 31st of December in the year 1999, a professional burglar stole a Cezanne painting worth three million pounds from the University of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. Despite cutting a literal hole in the roof and setting off a small smoke bomb, the thief went unnoticed, the noise of the break-in covered by the fireworks celebrating the dawning of a new millennium. The thief was never apprehended and the painting has yet to be found; Hui wants to take a leaf out of this book and rob the Louvre on Bastille Day.

More to mask the break-in itself than any noise, he assures them both. Getting in will be easy enough, thanks to Hyuna’s after-hours building access, and no breaking or cutting or sawing will be necessary. There are plenty of former employees who left their badges with the main office of the Carrousel when they quit, including at least two managers, and Hyuna’s boss Thierry — the Carrousel’s general manager — never bothered to revoke the old badges’ security clearance, so it’ll be as simple as swiping a managerial pass and going in. (Once Hyuna has the passes, Hui will thoroughly check on their actual owners to ensure that they’ll have good alibis and won’t be framed for the crime, of course.)

Getting around the Louvre’s security isn’t as hard as one would think, primarily due to how fucking large the building is. It used to be a fucking palace, after all. They simply can’t afford to have multiple systems watched by multiple specialized teams of people, so all the security is on one network, video surveillance, intruder detection, alarms, all of it (more on that later, Hui promises). And even though it’s a multi-stage operation for things like the Mona Lisa, which is guarded by cameras with facial recognition technology and sensors that detect changes in moisture or temperature, it’s much like the Orsay in that only the most important items are protected. And there’s one area of the museum where there’s essentially no security whatsoever: the restoration workshop, operated by the a wing of Center for Research and Restoration of Museums of France in the Pavillon de Flore, on the Louvre’s south end.

The C2RMF also have an office in the Carrousel which connects directly through to the one in the Louvre itself. Getting in through there will be significantly easier than trying to break through the metal grates that close over the main entrances at night. And although it’s full of paintings being restored, already out of their frames, not secured whatsoever, Hui is insistent that they’re not going to take anything from the workshop, just continue on through to the main halls of the museum to get to Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds, Seashore by the Moonlight, Carriage on the Beach at Scheveningen, The Bolt, and Gabrielle d’Estrées and One of Her Sisters.

(“Gasp!” Hyuna says. “That’s the painting with the nipple-pinching!”

“There’s two erotic paintings for you, two landscapes for Hyojong, and a fun one about deception and sneakiness for me,” Hui nods. “I had to go through the entire catalogue of the Louvre to find these, that’s the only reason it’s taken me five whole years to plan.”)

Hui’s even already got their route mapped out; all of those paintings are on the second floor in the Richelieu and Sully wings of the museum, and to get there, they’ll have to head very quickly through the entire Denon wing, currently closed, then follow a specific pathway through the rooms until they reach their exit point. Why such a specific path? Because of the aforementioned heightened security on more notable works, which they will be trying to avoid as much as possible.

But, Hui says, security won’t be a problem, since it’s all on one network. He’s got backup plans already in place, but the main plan is to execute a DDoS attack on the servers running security. The relevant malware has been installed on the Louvre’s computers for a while, and he’ll be able to start the attack as soon as they’re on-site with a cheap laptop that he bought in cash long enough ago that the receipts will be long-gone. And if the attack fails and they do end up setting off some alarms, the system will send an automatic alert to a pre-approved recipient; normally this would be the Louvre’s chief of security, but Hui had the number changed to a 1st arrondissement chief of police who, he claimed, would have a much faster response time, since the need for a middleman would be eliminated. “Lemme tell you, this guy never, ever checks his phone,” he says, sounding very proud of himself.

However, they won’t be able to start the attack until Hui can get his laptop onto the Louvre wifi, hence choosing to break in via the conservation lab instead of a more traditional entrance that might be closer to their targets. Once that’s done, though, they’ll have free rein over the museum, and after stealing everything, they can just head out through an emergency exit door without caring if they set the alarm off or not — the noise will be covered by Bastille Day fireworks.

“And that’s it,” Hui finishes, a little out of breath from talking nonstop for so long. “What do you think?”

Hyuna has been stunned into silence since he broke out the map, and she can’t even formulate a proper thought on it, let alone something to say. But Hyojong shrugs and leans back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the table. “I wasn’t really paying attention, can you give me a summary?”

Hui rolls his eyes, but Hyuna sees him hiding a smile. “All you have to do is show up. I took care of the rest. On July 14th, Hyuna’s breaking us in, then we’re stealing five paintings, and the alarm system should be turned off so we can go in and out without anyone noticing.”

“Sick,” Hyojong nods. He doesn’t look too happy about the prospect of trusting Hui that all of this has been taken care of and that they’re not just walking into a trap, but he doesn’t voice whatever concerns he has, just takes another sip of his by now very lukewarm coffee.

Hui watches Hyojong for a moment, visibly confused by this reaction, then looks to Hyuna. “And you?” he asks, sounding hopeful.

Hyuna has to think about that for a moment. How can she even respond to all of this? She’s finally starting to see the scope of what Hui has done for them over the years, how woefully inadequate her own planning abilities are. Hyojong might still doubt Hui, but at this point, Hyuna honestly can’t afford to.

“I’m in,” she says.

Hui’s face lights up. “Really?” he says, sitting up straighter. God, he looks just like he used to, just like he did when Hyuna agreed to hang out with him or when they invited him to participate in their Petit Palais job. “Do you have any— any questions about any of it?”

“Not really, you pretty much covered everything,” Hyuna says. “You’re coming in with us, right?”

“If that’s okay,” Hui says, a little hesitant. Either he’s so used to his ditzy-cute image that he’s forgetting that he doesn’t have to act like that anymore or he genuinely is like this when he’s excited about something. Both options are equally painful, and Hyuna sighs, looking away.

“You planned it, so you should be able to participate,” she shrugs. “It’s fine by me if you’re there.”

“Thank you,” Hui says. His voice is quiet and sounds sincere in a way that’s all too familiar, and Hyuna nods, her lips pursed tightly to keep her from reacting much more. “Thank you for taking a chance on—”

“Don’t,” Hyuna interrupts before he can finish that sentence. She knows what he’s referencing, and she doesn’t appreciate it at all. Reconciling this new information about Hui with her and Hyojong’s past relationship to him is just too damn hard, and it hurts her heart to think that she might have started falling for a person who straight up doesn’t exist. She can’t even imagine how Hyojong must be feeling about all this, but he seems to have gone into repression mode, never to deal with it again.

Hui goes quiet, then stands up to clear off the table. “We should leave soon,” he says after washing the dishes and carefully arranging them on Hyuna’s drying rack. “Interpol knows where you live, but they think you think I don’t, so the less time I spend here, the better. We can still use it as a safehouse from here on out if we have to, though.”

“Oh, yeah,” Hyuna says, a slightly bitter twist to her mouth. “Welcome to my apartment, by the way. Didn’t really get the chance to give you the grand tour last night.”

Hui’s face falls yet again and he looks around briefly, then nods. “It’s nice,” he says, but it doesn’t sound genuine or enthusiastic, and Hyuna only feels worse.

“Get dressed,” she says to Hyojong, who’s just been sitting at the breakfast table in unbuttoned jeans slung low on his hips. It looks sexy and all on him, but it’s just another reminder of last night, of everything else that Hyuna has to fucking deal with. Hyojong nods and gets up, heading over to the rack of clothes Hyuna has against the other wall. Over the years, she’s stolen plenty of hoodies from him, and he steals one back right now, pulling it on over his head and then gesturing to himself as if to ask if Hyuna approves.

“Are you working today?” he asks once Hyuna’s waved her hand vaguely to indicate he looks fine.

“Fuck, I hope not,” Hyuna sighs, getting up as well to find her phone and look through her work calendar. “Are you?”

“Later,” Hyojong says. And glances nervously at Hui, as though Hui actually has the authority to tell him if he’s permitted to go to work or not.

Hui looks very uncomfortable at the attention and holds his hands up palms-out. “Do whatever you want! Seriously, just act normal, we can’t let them know you know.”

“Act normal,” Hyuna repeats. That’s what she’s been doing all morning, and yet now she wants to act out to spite him. “Right.”

She goes over to pick clothes out for herself, confirming on her work calendar that she does not, in fact, have to go into the office today. Fuck, stealing that pass is going to be a lot easier said than done, but out of the three of them, she’s obviously the only one who can do it. All it’d likely take is batting her eyelashes at the relevant parties and she’ll have the office all to herself, but then that would immediately draw suspicion to her as the perpetrator of the theft. Great, yet another thing she has to worry about. How typical of a man to present her with a plan like it’s God’s gift to mankind and yet still expect her to do all the heavy lifting.

“Are you okay?” Hui asks, emerging from the kitchen, and Hyuna just glances over her shoulder to shoot him a dirty look.

“Peachy,” she replies, yanking on a blouse and skirt combo that she’s always thought makes her look like a starry-eyed optimistic peasant woman who stays strong even in the face of overwhelming adversity, the type to be the protagonist in a Soviet film about World War Two. “Thanks for asking.”

“Hyuna,” Hui sighs, but backs off immediately and meekly when she throws him an even dirtier look.

That’s exactly what she’d hoped would happen, and yet it still doesn’t make her feel better. Now that she thinks back on it, Hui has obviously been acting extremely suspicious the whole time she’s known him, and she still somehow didn’t pick up on it. Neither did Hyojong, but at least he was sort of in love with Hui and therefore blinded to the truth. Hyuna has no excuse, and it’s pissing her off.

“If we need to go, get dressed, it’s you we’re waiting for,” she tells him sharply, and he nods and goes over to pick up his clothes from last night and pull them on. She catches Hyojong’s eye and he looks a little uncomfortable with Hyuna’s tone, but honestly? She couldn’t care less right now. There’s nothing she hates more than a man telling her to calm down (except, like, global warming and the wage gap), so it’s no wonder that her mood’s gone from bad to worse in no time flat.

Hui finally finishes dressing and even finds time to check himself out in a mirror Hyuna has hung by her door, making sure his hair looks good. Hyuna watches him disapprovingly as she puts her shoes on and gets her purse. She can’t believe that there was a time when she actually liked him, and yet — and yet, unfortunately, she still likes him very much. She can tell that Hyojong does, too, by the way they’re both watching him with big mournful wanting eyes and he’s none the wiser.

She makes herself stop looking at him to look under her bed instead, just to confirm that the bag of paintings is still there in one piece. It is, of course, and she straightens up again and heads for the door, breezing past Hui without even acknowledging him. Then again, it’s not like he’s going out of his way to talk to her, either, so they’re essentially back where they began, all the way at the start of this whole twisted story; she ignores him out of spite, he ignores her out of cluelessness or something, and Hyojong is caught in the middle.

Back at Hui and Hyojong’s apartment, they all three very quickly realize that not a whole lot of conversation can happen when they’re like this, and Hui kind of awkwardly says, “You… don’t have to stay long if you don’t want to.”

“Thanks for the permission, as usual,” Hyuna says, crossing her arms. “I’ll stay as long as I want.”

“I wasn’t saying you couldn’t,” Hui sighs and goes into his own room, leaving Hyuna and Hyojong alone in the kitchen, both avoiding each other’s gaze.

Now Hyuna has to actually stick around as a point of pride, but aside from having sex with Hui and/or Hyojong individually and/or simultaneously, or talking about having sex with them, there’s not a whole lot to do here. They don’t even have a TV, and all the books Hyojong has are about DIY birdhouses, for some reason. “Guess I’ll have a snack,” she says resentfully, going into the kitchen to explore.

Hyojong follows, quiet and a little morose as usual. She can tell that he’s quieter and more morose than he would be on any other day, though, and once she’s secured a snack for herself, she turns to look up at him and offer him several Lay’s roasted chicken and thyme-flavored potato chips. “What’s up?” she whispers.

He crunches down a few chips and sighs very mournfully. “I’m just worried,” he whispers back.

“About the operation?”

“About, you know, us.” He glances out of the kitchen, but Hui’s door is mostly closed, and unless he has the kitchen bugged — that’s not out of the realm of possibility, and Hyuna makes a mental note to check later — he won’t be able to hear. “I just… don’t know what this means for what we had going. And I’m not just talking about the sex.”

“Yeah,” Hyuna says, feeding him another chip. “Me, neither.”

Hyojong looks at her as she continues offering him chips, his eyes worried and melancholy. “But you always know.”

“Well, I don’t know this time,” Hyuna says. He finally turns his head away so she’ll stop feeding him chips, and she sets the bag down on the kitchen counter, frowning thoughtfully. “I honestly might go back to my place. I need some space to fucking think, you know? Last night we were all so caught up in tearing each other’s clothes off that I didn’t get the chance to think about things.”

“Oh,” Hyojong says. He seems like he might ask her not to leave him here alone with Hui, but he doesn’t, just nods.

Hyuna thinks that’s kind of strange and raises her eyebrows at him. “Do you want to come with me?”

Hyojong shrugs. “I’m actually good. I think.”

“Suit yourself,” Hyuna says, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek. “My door’s always open to you. Are you gonna talk to him?”

“Haha, definitely not,” Hyojong says with a small, nervous laugh. “But I’m fine. I have a minifridge in my room and several unfinished birdhouses to work on, I’ll be fine.”

At this point, it’s just better not to ask. “Okay, okay, call me if you need anything,” Hyuna says and kisses him more fully, her fingers curling around the nape of his neck. He kisses back, but then breaks the kiss to just wrap his arms around her, his hands a warm, firm presence on the small of her back and his head leaning down on her shoulder.

“It’ll be okay,” he says quietly. “Please try not to stress about it too much.”

“You’re one to talk,” Hyuna huffs, but relents, hugging him in return and pressing up on her toes to squeeze his shoulders better.

He’s right, though. At the end of the day, they do have each other, and if they had to cut and run and leave Hui forever she’d never get over it, but at least they’d still have each other. That’s been the one constant over these last few years, regardless of how she felt about Hui.

Now she feels stupid for hoping maybe Hui could be another constant, but whatever. Hyuna’s definitely cried over spilled milk before (she was five years old!) but she’s not going to cry over this.

She goes home via the grocery store, even though she knows that not even eating an entire package of ladyfingers is going to make her feel better. She tries anyway, though, only to find that — as expected — it doesn’t make her feel better, and instead she just kind of has a stomachache to go with her heartache.

Because, despite her best efforts, she’s all broken up about this. It’s hard enough as it is for her to let new people into her life, and the one time she makes an effort for someone other than Hyojong, he spits in her face, calls her a stupid slut, and threatens to send her to a maximum security facility for life.

Not that Hui did any of those things, of course, but that’s how it feels.

As she eats ladyfingers in the bath, Mitski playing from her phone speakers, Hyuna contemplates just how horrible this situation is. Hyuna and Hyojong were lying to Hui while Hui was lying to them, and even though he claims he was doing it to protect them, she still doesn’t know if she can believe that. After all, he’s lying to Interpol, too, and she has no way of knowing exactly how much of the truth he’s told them. What’s his plan for what Interpol will think after the Louvre is robbed of five paintings? Won’t he be a suspect, too? Maybe this is all a mission that’s doomed to fail, and he’s trying to get Hyuna and Hyojong to stop their criminal activities at his own expense, ready to go to prison himself if it gets them out of that line of work. Or maybe it’s a trap, and he’s been helping them so far but Interpol figured it out and gave him a better offer to turn them in. But would they have blackmailed him, suggested some kind of bargain, or just asked him and he’d gone willingly? There are just too fucking many unknowns and she can’t wrap her head around all the possible outcomes. One thing’s for sure, though: she definitely doesn’t trust Hui.

Possibly the most unfortunate part of all: she’s still super into him, if not even more so after this reveal. She’d thought he was a sweet and harmless airhead, but he turns out to be a whip-smart cunning ruthless mastermind? It’s hot as fuck. Morals aside, an orgasm is an orgasm, or at least that’s how Hyuna justifies it to herself when she’s done rubbing one out. That doesn’t quite justify her picturing Hui in his sexy cop uniform while she comes, though, but it’s not like anybody else needs to know about that.

She stays away from Hui and Hyojong’s apartment for the next two days, but she knows she can’t stay away forever if they’re going to pull this Louvre thing off. In the time she’s had to think, she’s decided that if Hyojong’s in, so is she, and the next step is stealing the passes from the main office. She’s also formulated a vague plan for how to accomplish it and she’d like to run it by Hui, despite her reservations about his trustworthiness (or lack thereof).

Act normal, Hui had said. Fine, if that’s what he wants. Hyuna’ll act as normal as humanly possible.

Normal, for her, is just about kicking down their front door in lieu of announcing her presence any other way, big sunglasses on, a silk bomber jacket draped around her shoulders. “Let’s talk shop,” she says loudly.

There is a crash from the kitchen as Hui, surprised, knocks over several pots and pans, and Hyojong’s door opens and he sticks his head out, looking like he’s just been woken up from hibernation. If they hadn’t been texting periodically during the day, Hyuna might honestly assume that he’s been asleep the whole time she’s been gone.

“Shop?” Hui says, coming out of the kitchen. “What shop?”

“You and I both know that it’s just an expression, so you can stop playing dumb now,” Hyuna tells him.

Hui nods, a little confused, and gestures for her to come sit down at the table. “What shop do you want to talk, then?”

“Dawn, get out here, let’s talk about how I’m gonna steal some security passes without getting caught or drawing any attention to myself,” Hyuna says. She sits down, not because Hui told her to, but because she wanted to anyway.

“Okay,” Hyojong says, rubbing his eyes, and heads over to sit in the other chair. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Hyuna agrees, smiling at him very fondly. He’s a sight for sore eyes, really, and looking at him is way better than looking at Hui, who’s just come over to occupy the final seat at the table.

“Are we making small talk and catching up first, or just getting straight into it?” Hui asks.

He probably thinks that’s funny, a little tongue-in-cheek, but Hyuna fixes him with her sternest unimpressed bitchy look and he settles down real fast. “What do you think?”

“If you have your own ideas, I’d love to hear them,” Hui says, not even bothering to answer her rhetorical question. “I do have a few, but I don’t want to step on your toes.”

“Better not, these shoes are Manolo Blahnik,” Hyuna says coolly. “Here’s my idea. The general manager disabled the security cameras in his office because he jerks off in there, I’m pretty sure, so I don’t need to worry about being caught on tape. I know when he and his secretary go on their lunch breaks, and when they’re both out — there’s about a fifteen-minute overlap — I can just head in, go through his cabinets, get the passes.”

“What if someone sees you going in?” Hui points out.

“I left my cardigan there the last time we all had a managers’ meeting,” Hyuna replies, raising her eyebrows.

“And if someone remembers that you were in there? Do people go in and out of that office a lot? You can’t stick out in anyone’s memory,” Hui says. “It’s not a bad idea; I’m glad you know their schedules.”

Hyuna rolls her eyes. “Don’t condescend to me,” she says. “You hate my idea, fine, but just say that if that’s how you feel. Don’t bullshit.”

“Fine,” Hui shrugs. “I hate your idea. It’s too risky and it’ll make you the prime suspect once they notice the theft. What you need instead is a distraction that’s not coming from you. Is there anyone who works for you who’s due for a promotion? Ideally someone you’re kind of close with so they won’t think it’s strange that you’re going with them to the GM’s office for moral support.”

Hyuna, frowning deeply, thinks about this for a moment. “Not anyone who’s due for a promotion, but I do have a kind of… problem worker who I was considering firing,” she says.

“That works, too,” Hui shrugs. “Will they make a big scene if they get fired?”

“I could honestly turn it into a full-on fight, she’s even crazier than me,” Hyuna says. “Then we’ll definitely have to go have my boss mediate.”

“And when you’re up in his office, keep it going so he has to separate you and maybe take her out of the room to go see HR or something. Then you’ll be alone in the office and it won’t be suspicious. Her tantrum will be the main event, yeah? Nothing that you do will stick out in anyone’s memory.” Hyuna must involuntarily make a face at him, because he sighs and continues, “You’re a very memorable person, you know what I meant.”

Hyojong coughs very quietly to get their attention and Hyuna looks at him, wanting his input. “Will she be okay if you really fire her? Like, we’re not just getting her fired for the sake of our plans, right?”

“Aw, oh my God, you’re such an angel,” Hyuna coos, reaching over to brush her hand down the curve of his cheek adoringly. “Yes, she’ll be fine, she’s always bragging about her modeling gigs, and she really does give me a fuckton of trouble. Like, I’m pretty sure she tried to steal some of our display pieces once, but whatever.”

“Okay,” Hyojong says, appeased, and that’s the extent of his contribution to this planning session.

“You should do it sooner rather than later, I think,” Hui says. “And we won’t have a chance to test these passes before the 14th, so are you absolutely sure that they’ll still have clearance?”

“Positive,” Hyuna says, leaning her chair back. “I’ve used them before, like when I legitimately did forget my cardigan at work or when I lost my own pass or when we were having a Christmas party and I needed to let Santa in through the staff entrance to surprise everyone.”

Hui nods, and he looks like a strange in-between of his old self and his true (or just new?) one. “Don’t text me, not even on a burner, about anything. Okay? Not even a ‘I had a good day today’ text. I’m serious.”

“Jeez, I get it,” Hyuna says, frowning again.

“I’m not trying to be mean or even harsh,” Hui says. “These are just things I’ve noticed in the past, and—”

“If we suddenly start being super good and flawless at heisting, that’ll be suspicious,” Hyojong mumbles. Hyuna feels warm like she always does when he stands up for her, and she smiles at him very briefly before going back to frowning.

Hui concedes with a tilt of his head. “Do whatever you think is best,” he says. “You don’t have to take all my suggestions, you know.”

“Oh, I’m very aware,” Hyuna says and stands, getting her jacket from the back of the chair. What right does he have to boss her around? Like, aside from the obvious, which is that he’s singlehandedly been keeping them out of trouble all these years. Other than that, how dare he?

“Are you going already?” Hyojong says, a little sad.

“You know you’re welcome to come over any time if you want to see me,” Hyuna shrugs, very deliberately speaking only to Hyojong. At this point, his attitude is bothering her more than the lying, and while she maybe shouldn’t punish him for the lying, she can sure as hell punish him for the attitude.

Her exclusion doesn’t go unnoticed, and Hui half-smiles and glances away. “Thanks for stopping by. Have a good night.”

Hyuna just sniffs indignantly in response, then blows Hyojong a kiss and heads out. She’s extremely loath to admit it, but that was actually helpful, and now she has a real plan that won’t get her in too much trouble. She loves stirring up drama at work as it is, she knows exactly where the passes are kept, and, just like sitting down earlier, she’s doing it just because it needs to get done, not because Hui suggested it.

With the concept of sooner rather than later in mind, Hyuna checks Chloé’s work schedule — she’s a part-time Instagram model and full-time pain in Hyuna’s ass — and texts her to come to work a little early tomorrow because they “need to discuss her performance.” Chloé doesn’t text back, just leaves Hyuna on read, and Hyuna knows it’s gonna get ugly tomorrow.

She’s not nervous or anything (being bitchy and superior to her employees is pretty much in her job description), she’s never nervous, but she can’t help but wish she had a little bit of moral support going into this. Hyojong would lay down his life for Hyuna if she asked him to or, honestly, even if she didn’t ask him to, and she figures Hui’s kind of committed to her, too, but it’s not the same anymore.

She ends up missing her train in the morning because she got caught up trying to feed a very large squirrel that may actually have been an extremely small dog, and by the time she gets to the Carrousel, Chloé is already there and already pissed that she’s had to wait, which isn’t super promising. Then again, it’ll make for a better scene, and Hyuna does the rest on autopilot, turning off her nerves: she fires Chloé, lets her yell various insults at her but then hits her with even worse ones, laughs when Chloé demands to speak to the general manager, and continues arguing with her the whole way up to his office.

From there, though, things get a little dicey.

“Really? Really? If that’s how you feel, you disgusting little demon, you may as well take it to HR, see what they think,” Hyuna retorts to Chloé’s latest inane bullshit, and Chloé just scoffs in her face.

“You wish. Everybody here’s obsessed with you, I wouldn’t stand a chance,” Chloe says, “and you know it.”

“I mean, I’m sorry that I’m so popular, I can’t help it that people adore me,” Hyuna shrugs. That was the bait that Chloé was supposed to take, but she fucking didn’t, and Hyuna doesn’t really have a plan B. If Chloé and Thierry don’t leave the office, Hyuna’s screwed. Fuck.

For the first time in Hyuna’s career (the incident at the Orsay notwithstanding), she starts to get kinda freaked out.

“You see? She’s the one that should get fired, not me,” Chloé insists, jabbing a finger in Hyuna’s direction. “She’s so condescending and she probably draws on that mole under her eye, everybody thinks so.”

Hyuna gasps. “How dare you! Nobody thinks that!”

“And now she’s calling me a liar again,” Chloé says. “She does that all the time, by the way.”

Hyuna purses her lips and says something brilliant, witty, and cutting in response, but that’s just the autopilot taking back over. Hyuna’s actual brain is a mess, and she doesn’t know what to do if they don’t go. Maybe she can get the passes some other way, but if she’s in Thierry’s office more than once that’ll definitely be memorable. The heist is off, and it’s all because of her.

She’s so in her head about this that she’s missed the last fifteen seconds of conversation, and is therefore very surprised to regain consciousness due to Thierry saying her name. “What’s up?” she says, playing it cool.

“I think it would be best to get a statement to HR,” Thierry says, meek and apologetic. Chloé’s the worst, but she is right that everybody’s under Hyuna’s thumb, and Hyuna feels very briefly grateful to Thierry, who is otherwise kind of a spineless worm in the form of a human man and hits on Hyuna at every inter-store mixer after exactly three drinks. “Just as an exit interview formality, you know.”

“Do whatever you want,” Hyuna sighs, waving a hand. Fuck, that’s a huge fucking relief, but she can’t show it, just leaning back coolly in her chair and getting her phone out. “I’ll be here.”

“It won’t take long,” Thierry promises, and leads a spitting angry Chloé out of his office.

He closes the door behind himself, and Hyuna exhales, sagging momentarily in relief. So the HR bait hadn’t worked on Chloé but it had worked on Thierry, and now the plan can proceed smoothly. Thierry’s secretary is right outside, but when the door is closed she’ll leave Hyuna alone, and there aren’t any windows, solidifying Hyuna’s theory that Thierry just uses this place to jerk off. Gross.

She gets up, stretches her legs, and heads for the other side of his desk. He keeps the old passes in a drawer in his filing cabinet along with Starbucks napkins and scented hand sanitizers, and she’s about to lean down, a handkerchief around her fingers, to open the drawer, when the door clicks and Thierry comes back in before Hyuna has time to rush back to her chair.

“Oh,” Thierry says, blinking at her.

Hyuna has frozen in place, halfway leaned over, and quickly smiles at him as prettily as she can. “What’s up?”

“She left her purse,” Thierry explains, picking it up from the floor. “What are you doing?”

“Stretching my legs, looking around,” Hyuna shrugs. Alarms are blaring in her mind; that’s a weak fucking excuse and she can tell it didn’t work. Panicked, she glances down at the desk and sees a framed photograph of Thierry arm-in-arm with a woman, and continues, “Your wife is so beautiful!”

Thierry goes a little blotchy. “That’s my sister, but… thanks?”

Everything is falling apart. This is why Hyuna needs Hyojong, this is why they’ve needed Hui without even knowing — she can’t do shit on her own, that’s so clear now. She can lie, but sometimes when she’s under pressure she folds and now there’s no escape. She digs her fingernails into her palm and makes a thoughtful noise, smiling at him again. “Then I guess good looks must run in the family.”

Thierry’s blotchiness continues, but now it seems like a positive kind of blotch than negative. “If you say so,” he says, cautious like he’s not sure if Hyuna’s joking or not.

“I do,” Hyuna nods, then turns away from the desk (surreptitiously slipping the handkerchief into her sleeve) to examine another framed photo, this one on the wall. “You look cute in this one, too.” He does not. It’s some sort of graduation photo and he looks very amphibian, but she’ll say anything to get him to stop being suspicious and to fucking leave.

“You’re too kind,” Thierry says, blushing fiercely. “I’ll— I’ll just go take this to her, then I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Okay,” Hyuna says, smiling at him over her shoulder.

Thierry mumbles some more meek niceties and retreats, this time leaving the door just a little open. Not enough for the secretary to be able to see the desk from where she’s sitting, but certainly enough to keep Hyuna nervous as fuck. But she has to persevere, and she wraps the cloth around her hand again and crouches down, hidden behind the desk, to open the drawer.

The drawer is a huge mess, so it takes some digging to find the pass stash at the very bottom. Then Hyuna’s feverishly sorting regular employees from managers, and she knows she can’t take too many or Thierry might notice, and she finally finds one but she was actually friends with this woman and can’t in good conscience risk framing her for the theft so she keeps digging, and she knows time is running out, and she’s gonna freak out again, she literally can’t do this, she’s holding her breath to keep from panicking even harder but the feeling of breathlessness is actually making her panic more, but then she finds one more manager pass and then another one right after, and the passes are in her dress pockets and she’s closing the drawer and standing up and the whole ordeal is over.

She goes back to her chair and flops down into it, feeling like she’s just run a marathon. Her ankles, a part of her body that she hadn’t known was capable of trembling, are trembling, and she’s sort of breaking into a cold sweat. Fine, she’s been nervous before, even about jobs, but she’s never been nervous like this, and she doesn’t know what’s making it so bad this time around when Hui’s clearly covered all the bases for her.

Hui might be the problem, actually. She’s so pissed and stressed about that whole clusterfuck that it’s making everything else seem worse in comparison, less stable, less normal, and now she can’t even flirt with poor Thierry without overthinking it? Disaster!

Thierry comes back, flushed from dealing with Chloé, and says, sounding breathless like a schoolgirl with a crush, “Sorry that took so long, here I am! I’ve filed the exit paperwork for her, and she won’t be bothering you any longer, so—”

“Cool,” Hyuna says, not looking up from her phone and getting out of her chair. “Bye.”

“What? Oh, alright,” Thierry says, crestfallen. “Let me know if you have any other problems with—”

“Bye,” Hyuna repeats more insistently and goes out of the door. She’s done what she came there to do and therefore has no reason to flirt with Thierry ever again. Besides, he seems like the kind of sad fuck to be into a kind of hot-cold hard-to-get flirtation, and she doubts he’ll be suspicious of her earlier kindness.

Once she’s out of his office, she can breathe a little easier, the passes bumping against her hip with each step she takes. As discussed, she doesn’t text Hui to let him know it went well, and also she’s not entirely sure that it did go well. She almost got caught and almost freaked out, neither of which ever happens. She really can’t look back on the events of this morning and say yeah, that went great.

By some miracle, she survives the rest of her work day and heads back to Hyojong and Hui’s apartment. Having the passes should make her feel great, but instead they’re burning a hole in her pocket and she flinches every time she accidentally touches them. Nothing catastrophic even happened, she doesn’t know why she’s so fucked up over this, but she can’t help it — she can’t do this on her own.

“How’d it go?” Hui asks as soon as Hyuna walks in. He looks like he’s been pacing around, fidgeting, apprehensive, and his hair is a mess from how he’s probably been running his hands through it. He stops when he sees her, though, expression confused. “Are you okay?”

Hyuna wordlessly reaches into her pocket to get the passes out and hands them to him. Hyojong, meanwhile, is coming out of his room to see what’s going on, and she glances at him briefly and tries for a smile.

“Great work,” Hui says, turning the passes over in his hand. “I’ll run checks on these people as soon as I can.”

“What’s wrong?” Hyojong says. Hyuna looks up at him again and he’s frowning, going past Hui so he can take Hyuna’s hands.

“Nothing,” Hyuna starts saying, but Hyojong shakes his head, giving her hands a squeeze and leading her over to sit down. “Well— it’s— I’m fine, I got the passes, that’s what matters.”

Hyojong pulls her into a chair and tugs another one over to sit right by her side, still holding onto her hands. “But what happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Hyuna insists, which is technically true. “I mean, my boss walked in on me when I was about to grab them, but—”

“What?” Hui says, alarmed, and comes over to take the third chair. “You got caught?”

“Back off, obviously she didn’t get caught,” Hyojong says in a tone of voice that’s about as close to snapping at someone as he can get. He turns to Hyuna, much softer again. “Did you get caught?”

“Can both of you please shut up?” Hyuna full-on snaps, pulling her hands back from Hyojong and batting at him until he leans away. “I almost got caught, but then I said he looked handsome in his stupid graduation photo and he left me alone.”

“Oh. Well, that’s great, then! Is that it?” Hui says, evidently trying to be reassuring.

Hyuna scowls at him. That shaky nervous feeling from earlier is coming back despite her best efforts to be chill. “I guess that’s it, yeah. Chloé gave me all kinds of trouble but that’s what she does, and I got the passes, so no harm, no foul, right?”

“Why are you acting so weird, then?” Hyojong asks gently.

“I’m not,” Hyuna says, crossing her arms. She’d wanted support and encouragement, not an interrogation, and Hyojong’s bedside manner isn’t exactly comforting. “I just had a shitty day and I want to forget all about it, Jesus. Is that such a fucking crime?”

Another hand, warmer than Hyojong’s and softer, reaches out to hold Hyuna by the wrist. “Thank you for doing this,” Hui says. Hyuna’s instinct is to bristle at his condescending-ass attempts to calm her down, but he doesn’t look condescending: his eyes are solemn and he sounds serious. “I know it wasn’t easy, but you did it regardless. Thank you.”

“What if we get caught because of me,” Hyuna’s mouth says before her brain can stop it from being stupid. Her heart squeezes anxiously as soon as she’s said it, though, because obviously that’s been the issue the whole time, that’s why she’s acting so weird and feeling so screwy even though nothing even happened.

“We won’t,” Hui promises. “I won’t let them catch you. And you didn’t do anything to get yourself caught, anyway. He won’t remember you were in there, and you won’t get in trouble. I swear.”

“How do you know?” Hyuna says. She turns one of her hands over to grasp Hui’s, and even though she’s still mad at him, just the direct skin-on-skin contact makes her feel more at ease. She’s not happy about it, but if it’s helping, it’s what she needs.

“I just know,” Hui shrugs. He looks like he’s struggling with something for a moment, looking down at their linked hands, and then he rubs his thumb over her index finger and continues, “You are going to be brought in for questioning, though. Everybody who works at the Carrousel will be. I’m telling you this in advance so it doesn’t surprise you when it happens, and so we can plan for exactly what you’re going to say to whoever’s questioning you.”

In some strange, backwards way, that actually does make Hyuna feel way better. If everybody’s a suspect, then she’s not being singled out, and there are a ton of shady people who work with her. “Okay,” she says, blinking at him.

Hui reaches out with his free hand to brush a long strand of hair out of her face, moving slow and cautious so he doesn’t scare her into lashing out. “It doesn’t matter if he saw you today,” he says very quietly. “No matter what evidence they have on you, I can spin it in your favor. I’ll throw anyone to the wolves if it means you’re safe. Hell, even if they caught you red-handed, which they never will, but if they did, I’d be able to come up with something to get you off the hook. Please just trust me. Let me do all the hard work. You don’t even have to be nervous, because I’ll be nervous for you, too. You don’t have to do it alone, both of you. I’m here to share the load and carry you when things get heavy. Please?”

Hyuna’s had a long, hard day and her judgment’s impaired. It must be, because instead of laughing at how ridiculous he sounds, she makes a small noise and turns her face to breathe into the soft, clean skin of his palm. “Okay,” she breathes again. “Come kiss me.”

Hui doesn’t need to be asked twice and he moves forward to press their lips together, slow and gentle, and she just melts, all the stress and fear from her semi-successful mission vanishing like Hui’s doing a fucking magic trick on her via his mouth. She kisses him again when he pulls back for air, then he kisses her again, and finally he breaks away and turns to Hyojong.

“Will you trust me?” he asks him, just as quiet and serious as he’d been with Hyuna.

Hyojong’s grip on Hyuna’s hand tightens. After a moment, he nods just slightly, and Hui leans forward to kiss him, too, slowly enough that Hyojong could have pulled away if he’d wanted to. He doesn’t, of course, and Hyuna watches them kissing for a while, trying to swallow around the lump in her throat.

“I’m still mad at you,” Hyojong mumbles into Hui’s mouth.

“So am I,” Hyuna agrees, scooting her chair all the way over so she can lean her head on Hui’s shoulder.

“I figured,” Hui says and stops kissing Hyojong to kiss Hyuna instead. “Take all the time you need. Do you think you’ll forgive me someday?”

“No,” Hyuna says, biting at his lower lip lightly, and she laughs quietly when he seems genuinely upset. “You’re such a baby. Obviously we’ll forgive you. Just not right now.”

“Can we still kiss sometimes even though you’re mad at me?” Hui attempts.

“No,” Hyuna says, continuing to kiss him.

“Okay,” Hui says. He’s smiling into her mouth, and Hyojong, jealous as ever, tugs insistently at his shirt until Hui kisses him instead.

They stay like that for a while, kissing by the kitchen, until the ugly knot in Hyuna’s chest has loosened completely and she breaks away and sighs, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and brushing her hair out of her face. “Thanks for the pep talk, guys,” she says. “Dawn, want to come home with me?”

Hyojong exchanges uncertain glances with Hui and shakes his head after a moment. But then he thinks better of it and amends, “Maybe later.”

“Keep me posted, and you get started on those background checks, hotshot,” Hyuna says, getting up from her chair and pointing a threatening finger at Hui.

“I will,” Hui nods. “Get home safe.”

Hyuna waves at them both and leaves. It’s warm enough outside that she could walk home, but she takes the metro anyway, figuring she may as well treat herself after the day she’s had.

In an ideal world, she’d have a long time to be mad at Hui, to process how she feels, to come up with a solution or a compromise. But now that they’ve got less than two weeks to pull this thing off, she doesn’t have that kind of luxury, and heisting in this condition, all of them awkward around each other, can only end in disaster, so she knows she has to suck it up and wait it out until they’re done. After that, she can reconsider.

She tells Hyojong about it first, naturally. “I think we should stop being mad at Hui for now,” she murmurs. They’re in her bed, his shaggy blond head on her shoulder, his arms around her waist. “And don’t say you stopped being mad at him already, because I know that’s not true.”

Hyojong sighs, turning his head to kiss lightly into her neck. “I guess,” he mumbles. “It’s hard to be mad at him, though.”

“I know, but we have to be mad at him or he won’t know he did anything wrong,” Hyuna says. “Which he did. You know that, right? I know he’s been protecting us but that doesn’t mean he did the right thing by keeping it a secret. And he used us. He has this fantasy of being a law-breaking gentleman thief and he’s using us to make it real.”

Hyojong makes a noncommittal noise.

“I mean it!” Hyuna insists. “It’s hot and all, remember when I told him all about the dirty, dirty things we do and fucked him? I’m into it. But that doesn’t make it not shitty. You know?”

Hyojong very clearly doesn’t know, but Hyuna continues anyway.

“Basically, I’m still mad at him, but we should stop for now so that we can get the job done,” she says. “When we have the paintings and we’re all safe, then we can be mad at him again.” She thinks about it for a moment, then adds, “I guess that means we can go back to fucking and stuff, too.”

Hyojong scrunches his face up so hard that she can feel it against her shoulder, then looks up at her. “Um…”

“Dawn,” Hyuna says very sternly. “What did you do.”

“Why do you think I did anything!” Hyojong says, defensive, and Hyuna just frowns at him until he sighs and turns his face away. “Okay, um, maybe we were making out the other day, and then we maybe slept together. He topped, before you ask.”

“Maybe? Or definitely? And he topped? Jesus, you’re so bad at this,” Hyuna says, amused and annoyed. “We’re supposed to be icing him out, not letting him give us his icing.”

“Gross,” Hyojong says, wrinkling his nose.

“I can’t believe you,” Hyuna sighs. “I truly am surrounded by snakes.”

“You know I don’t have to do everything you do, right?” Hyojong says, and it’s so out of the blue that Hyuna almost chokes.

She tugs lightly on his hair until he lifts his head, and she blinks at him, confused. “I do know that,” she says, her voice softer than it’s been. “Do I boss you around too much?”

Hyojong shakes his head no. “I’m just saying,” he shrugs. “It’s not the end of the world. I kinda forgave him already, but you can stay mad at him if you want. I’m not gonna be mad at him just because you are.”

“Okay,” Hyuna says, still a little stunned. “That’s fine.”

Hyojong leans up to press a gentle kiss to her mouth so that she knows he’s not mad at her, not even frustrated or annoyed. “But if you’re done being mad, then I’m stoked.”

Hyuna nods and kisses him back, petting her hand softly through his hair. “I’m sorry,” she offers, and even though he smiles and kisses her again in response, she still feels bad. She knows she can be way too fucking prideful, which has been difficult to come to terms with (in no small part because ‘prideful’ is one of the worst words in the English language, matched only by ‘winningest’) but she needs to acknowledge it so she can stop hurting Hyojong. And now Hui, too.

At the end of the day, he has been helping them. He’s done more for her and Hyojong than anyone else ever has done. Sure, he lied about it and he’s kind of using them, but Hyuna lies to people and uses them all the time. She even used Hui for cover before she knew that he knew about what they were doing, so it’s not like she’s totally innocent, either. Maybe there’s a case to be made for not being mad at him anymore at all.

Nah. She’ll still be mad at him once they’ve robbed the Louvre. Hyojong tried it, though.

If she’s temporarily not-mad at Hui, she needs to tell him soon, and she tells Hyojong to tell Hui that she wants to all three have dinner tomorrow evening. Hyojong says, “That’s cool, but all we have to eat is gummy worms and stale Pringles, the two main food groups, so you’ll have to bring your own dinner if you want to eat anything from a different food group.”

“Men,” Hyuna sighs and starts making a shopping list once she’s kicked him out for the night.

But she ends up being too lazy to go grocery shopping, let alone cook, so she shows up with two bags of various Thai appetizers and mains, sits Hui and Hyojong both down at the table, then makes them serve themselves while she stares ominously at them. “Now,” she says, folding her hands in front of her on the table, “you’re probably wondering why I’ve gathered you here today.”

“To say you’re putting a hold on being mad at me until we finish the Louvre job?” Hui says, doling out skewers of chicken satay. “Hyojong already told me.”

Hyuna glares at Hyojong, then remembers what he’d said about not having to do everything she does and tries to soften her glare into a scowl. “Is your name Thor?” she asks.

“I’m Hyojong,” Hyojong says very mournfully.

“Because you just stole my thunder,” Hyuna finishes, her scowl going back up into a glare.

“Why would Thor steal thunder when he’s the god of it?” Hui says mildly.

Hyuna throws a peanut at him. “I’m going to be mad at you forever,” she tells him.

Hui just laughs, his eyes sparkling, chair leaned back, and Hyuna gets caught up staring at him. She doesn’t care if that laugh is part of his persona, she decides. She’s had crushes on cartoons before — what’s the difference in that and having the hots for a big liar? They’re both fake, there’s literally no difference.

“I’m glad,” Hui says once he’s calmed down and he’s just smiling at her again. “Not that you’re going to be mad at me forever, but that you’re not mad at me right now.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Hyuna says.

“I won’t,” Hui promises her.

He’s still playing along, bantering with her, but something about that exchange makes her smile start dropping and she frowns, looking down at her bowlful of peanut beef. He really shouldn’t get used to this, any of it. It’s a fun job, but she’s always known that she won’t be able to do it forever, and she’s pretty sure Hyojong knows that, too.

“Hey,” Hyojong says, gently nudging Hyuna’s leg under the table. “What’s up?”

“Hm? Nothing,” Hyuna says quickly. “Just thinking about how I’m in threesome withdrawal.”

“Oh?” Hui says, starting to smile, and leans forward. “Can I refer you to a treatment program?”

“That’s not sexy,” Hyuna chastises.

Hui, unfazed, takes her by the hand and guides her over to start unbuttoning his shirt. “Is this sexy?”

“No, and your food will get cold,” Hyuna says, trying not to laugh.

“That’s what microwaves are for,” Hui breathes in a sultry sort of voice. “To make it hot again.”

Hyuna pinches his nipple to make him shut up and ignores his resulting yelp, choosing instead to go back to her food. “Did you check up on the passes?”

“What? Oh, yeah, I did,” Hui says, rubbing his chest. “Julie Dupont moved to Brittany, and according to her Facebook she has a big party to throw on the 14th. Christine Lavalle still lives in Paris, so I think we should err on the side of caution and go with Julie.”

“I kind of remember her,” Hyuna muses. “I think she was the Printemps manager, her card’ll get us in no problem.”

“How are we getting into the building in the first place?” Hyojong asks.

Hui and Hyuna both make faces of various sorts, then Hyuna raises her eyebrows at Hui. “Yeah, you never went over that. Are we magicking the security guards out of existence?”

“Obviously not,” Hui says. Unbothered, he steals a peanut from Hyuna’s plate. “Hyojong, how many more firecrackers do you have?”

Hyojong hums in thought. “Maybe… two more? I have some noisy ones, you know, the spinny kind, they make a lot of noise…”

“Great, so you see where I’m going with this,” Hui says. Hyojong just stares blankly at him and Hui sighs. “We need a distraction. There’ll be fireworks going off starting around 11, and there’s that free concert thing happening at 9:30, but we need to be going in half past 10 at the absolute earliest. All we need to do is set the noisy firework thing off right before we want to go in, and close enough that it’ll be audible to the guards. They’ll leave to go check if someone’s setting fire to the building, and we just slip right through with Julie’s pass. I’ll cut the security cameras as soon as we’re in.”

“How long do you think the whole thing will take? From entry to exit?” Hyuna asks.

Hui, despite being some kind of unparalleled criminal genius-wunderkind, starts counting on his fingers. “In at 10:30… then it’ll take us about five minutes to run through the whole Carrousel and get to the C2RMF entrance. From there, we have to make our way to the Sully wing via Denon, and it’s a big fucking museum, that might take ten minutes. Let’s call it fifteen. How fast can you strip a painting?”

“It depends,” Hyuna shrugs. “Probably around ten minutes if I’m being really sloppy and I don’t care if I tear the canvas a little. Usually it takes, like, twenty, maybe half an hour.”

“What about Hyojong?”

“The same,” Hyuna says. She doesn’t like his tone, she feels like he’s judging her, so she purses her lips critically. “How fast could you do it?”

“I don’t know,” Hui answers. “But I should train. And we’re bringing a power drill or three.”

Hyuna and Hyojong exchange looks. “Train? How?” Hyuna says. “Like, you’ll go out and buy a painting and then bring it back here and see how fast you can get it out?”

“Exactly,” Hui shrugs. “I suggest you both do the same so we can be as fast as possible. Ideally, I’d like to have all the paintings out in half an hour.”

Hyuna laughs, leaning her chair back and pointing her fork at him. “You’re funny.”

“I’m not joking,” Hui says. “Between the three of us, it should be possible. Five paintings, three people. Two of us get two paintings, one gets one. Whoever’s slowest, which’ll probably be me—” Hyuna hates it when he gets faux-humble but it does, admittedly, make her want to shove her tongue down his throat kind of a lot— “can just do one.”

“I think we can do it,” Hyojong says. It’s a surprisingly optimistic sentiment, and Hyuna smiles at him, gently rubbing her ankle on his under the table. “Especially with the drill. No more screwdriver problems.”

“We’ll just have to be more careful so we don’t damage the paintings,” Hyuna says. “And we’ll need a bigger bag going in. I mean, you’ve seen what we’re usually working with, and now you want to bring in three drills and a laptop.”

“Suitcase,” Hui says. “Duh. You two already do that little tourist shtick when you’re heading home. The suitcase’ll fit right in.”

Hyuna’s considered taking a suitcase in before, but since they’re always crawling through windows and vents and hiding in supply closets as if they’re house centipedes or something, it’s never been a real option. This situation is different, though, and it just might work. “Okay,” she says and steals some mango sticky rice from Hyojong, who doesn’t protest.

Hui looks pretty damn pleased with himself. “Okay?”

“Calm down, John Green.” Hyuna offers him the rest of Hyojong’s mango sticky rice, which Hui politely takes, then returns to Hyojong. “We already said we’d do your stupid plan, you don’t have to keep rubbing it in.”

“I’m not,” Hui says, appropriately chastened.

Still got it, Hyuna thinks to herself. “Anyway, so how long?”

“Oh, right,” Hui says. “So thirty minutes is the ideal time for getting all five paintings, then we go out the side exit, which we’ll be right next to after the last painting. Let’s call it forty minutes, max. Add all that up… An hour?”

“Kind of long,” Hyuna comments. “That’s how long the Orsay took, and we all know how well that went.”

“It actually went very well,” Hui disagrees, a flash of unfamiliar coldness in his tone. “You didn’t get caught, I exonerated you for the night, you took your paintings and got home safe.”

“Yikes, never mind, an hour’s fine,” Hyuna sighs.

“Plus security will be down all over the museum. I’m not sure about their communications channels, those might be off the overall network, but either way they won’t be able to find where we are, and like I said, it’s a big fucking place. We’ll be fine.” Hui takes a final bite of his food, pushes his plate aside, and looks up at Hyuna thoughtfully. “Are you still nervous?”

Hyuna goes red. “No,” she says vehemently. “Fuck you. Go do the dishes.”

“Sure,” Hui says very mildly and smiles at Hyojong as he stands. “Come with?”

Hyuna’s about to snap at Hyojong for him to stay with her and ignore the traitor, but remembers what he’d said about her bossiness and just glowers harder as Hyojong gets up and goes with Hui to the kitchen.

She can hear them talking in there, quiet low voices, the sink running, and she tries not to think about what she’d almost thought about earlier. Obviously this has an expiration date. Hui’s been extending it longer and longer for them, but what if something happens to him? If he gets found out, then they’ll get found out, or even if they don’t, they still won’t be able to do it without him. At this point, Hyuna’s pretty sure that she wouldn’t even want to, and she’s even more sure that Hyojong definitely wouldn’t.

If they’re not stealing paintings anymore, will the spark still be alive? Does Hui only like them because of what they do? Back before she’d known about him she’d been so sure that he was genuinely into them both, and he keeps insisting that that’s real, but it’s still a huge unknown. She hates unknowns.

The boys are both still in the kitchen washing dishes and Hyuna’s withering without attention like Tinkerbell, so she gets up to join them (with no intention of contributing to the dishwashing, of course). As she’d expected, Hui is washing and Hyojong is drying, and Hui is leaning over the sink with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his hands covered in soap.

“Hey,” she says, and he turns to look back at her. “You.”

“Me,” Hui agrees, confused, and starts turning back to finish up the dishes but she crosses the tiny kitchen in three steps, shuts the water off, and pulls him up against her.

“Cool,” Hyojong says from somewhere behind Hyuna, and Hyuna leans in to kiss Hui, pressing in so quickly that he stumbles and has to grab her waist for stability. His hands are wet and soapy but she doesn’t care, kind of likes the way it makes her shiver when he moves his hands and her dress sticks to her skin, and he’s not exactly complaining, either, kissing her back with that same new fierceness from that horrible night after the Orsay.

“Can’t help yourself, can you?” Hui starts saying, but Hyuna bites at his lower lip and pushes at his chest.

“Be nice,” she murmurs, reaching a hand back to pull Hyojong close. “Be nice like you used to be.”

Hui breaks apart from the kiss, frowning, wide eyes looking a little hurt. “I’m still me,” he tells her softly, glancing at Hyojong. “I told you that all of that was real and I—”

“You talk way too fucking much,” Hyuna sighs. “Let’s go to bed.”

She leads them both behind her, Hyojong’s hand in her right and Hui’s in her left, and when they get to Hui’s room she focuses on Hyojong, pulling him into bed with her, straddling his lap, kissing him until he’s gasping quietly against her mouth and his hands are wandering and he’s got half her dress undone. This is almost an experiment, seeing how it feels to leave Hui out even though he’s three feet away, and Hyuna decides she doesn’t like it. Simple as that.

“Call him over here,” she whispers to Hyojong, tilting her head down to kiss into his neck, and Hyojong nods, letting go of her with one hand so he can reach for Hui.

“She’s asking for you,” Hyojong says and squeaks a surprised noise when Hyuna bites him in response.

“Snitch,” she complains, but her smile when Hui comes up close behind her, sweeping her hair aside so he can kiss her neck, is instinctive.

Fuck, she knows she’s being melodramatic since it’s barely been a week since he’s touched her up on her thighs and kissed down between her tits and she’s even had Hyojong since then so she really has been getting enough dick and all, but she’s fucking missed this, all three of them together, pressed together way too close and yet still not close enough.

Maybe she should be embarrassed about this — tough bad bitch Hyuna seeing stars from slow and gentle vanilla heavy-petting — but after everything they’ve been through over the past few days, that’s exactly what she needs and wants, Hui behind her and kissing Hyojong over her shoulder, her leg wrapped around Hyojong, three pairs of hands clumsy and all over the place, but it’s better this way, better than shoving and biting and trying to out-quip each other.

She doesn’t even know whose fingers are inside her and who’s rubbing her clit, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. She loves them both.

Hui’s moaning quiet against the back of her neck, trying to hold himself back from coming too quick, because now she’s got his cock between her thighs (they were all too lazy to get up for a condom and this was the best compromise Hyojong, well-versed in medieval-era sexual practices, could come up with) and everything is wet and tight and he can put his hands wherever he wants; currently he’s got one arm looped around her so he can play with her nipples. For once Hyojong’s not being jealous, and he’s very much in on the action, his hand slipping low between Hyuna’s legs as he kisses her so he can give Hui and Hyuna both some more friction as Hui thrusts forward.

Hyuna squeezes her legs together more tightly and Hui shudders, squirming behind her, almost trembling. She loves the way he’s sucking on her earlobe and she loves the sharp, hot bursts of pleasure she gets each time Hyojong presses his hand just right and the head of Hui’s cock grinds up against her clit, and now she’s moaning just as much as Hui is, breathless against Hyojong’s mouth.

Hui gasps out that he’s gonna come and Hyuna grinds back against him, adjusting her legs to give Hyojong room to draw his fingers around the head of Hui’s cock and tug, rubbing wet dirty circles until Hui’s coming all over Hyuna’s thighs and Hyuna’s so turned on that she’s past the point of being able to complain about how turned on she is. Her dress is way beyond ruined, sweaty and soapy and clinging to her, and she feels feverish and shaky, moaning helplessly when Hyojong gently pushes her onto her back and moves down between her legs.

One hand tangles in Hyojong’s hair and the other digs fingernails into Hui’s arm, and then she’s squirming and electric as Hyojong buries his face between her legs, licking Hui’s come from her skin and kissing into Hyuna’s pussy, tonguing her, sucking at her, and she comes so many times consecutively that she kind of loses track.

Hyojong apparently came at some point during the process of eating Hyuna out, and he’s flushed pink and breathing hard when she pulls him up by the hair and wraps her body around him and pulls Hui in close behind, too. Her head’s nestled into his chest and Hui’s lips are pressed to her shoulder and she’s caught between sleep and waking, and this just feels so fucking right.

“We can’t do this anymore,” she breathes.

On either side of her, Hui and Hyojong make confused, worried noises, but she shakes her head quickly.

“I mean the art theft thing,” she says. “We can’t do it anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Hui murmurs, one of his hands sliding lightly over her side, making her sigh and stretch out to get closer to them both.

“Isn’t it tiring for you? Covering up for us all the time? You deserve a break, too,” she says. Her palm is pressed flat to Hyojong’s chest, feeling his heartbeat. “And hiding from the law all the time is no way to live. We’re always looking over our shoulders, being careful with what we say, where we go, how we spend our money. It sucks.”

“Plus, we’re kind of running out of museums,” Hyojong agrees very quietly. “There’s not gonna be any museum that’s harder to rob or more, like, impressive to pull off than the Louvre.”

Hyuna’s surprised that Hyojong’s going with this so quickly, but then she realizes that he must have been worrying about this, too, and she aches for him and leans forward to kiss his throat lightly. She knows this life has been hard for Hyojong, despite it being fun sometimes, and he didn’t know what he was getting into when he met her. Of the three of them, he’s the only one that went into this totally innocent, and now there’s no going back, he can’t undo what he’s done. “We’ve done well,” she says. “What other option do we have? Moving to New York City and starting over from there, working our way up from the Frick to the Met? Nobody wants that. Would it be the worst thing in the world if this is where we peak and where we stop?”

Hui, uncharacteristically quiet this whole time, hums contemplatively. “No, it wouldn’t,” he says. “I have been meaning to talk to you about this, actually, um. It’s kind of a new development.”

Hyuna frowns, wriggling around until she can look back at Hui. “What is it?”

“Some of your paintings have been turning up more and more recently,” Hui says. “There’ve been a few we got from private collectors at border control over the years, but this is different. We found Henner’s Herodias in a container with semi-automatic rifles being smuggled into Spain, Gauguin’s Bouquet of Flowers used as payment in a massive heroin deal — you get the picture. Actual criminal organizations use stolen art for money laundering all the time, we’ve always known that, but this is the first time I’ve come across any of your paintings in that context.”

“Oh,” Hyuna says. She feels the cold hand of fate gripping her by the throat and shivers, and Hyojong, by her side, has gone even quieter as he processes this new information. “Yeah. I don’t fuck with that at all. We have to stop after this one. Deal?”

“Deal,” Hyojong echoes, and Hui repeats it right after.

“Are you still gonna like us if we’re not crazy messy criminals anymore?” Hyuna asks Hui, and she meant for that to be kind of light and teasing but it comes out super serious and she can’t look at him after she’s said it, choosing instead to look across the room at Hyojong’s jacket draped over Hui’s desk chair.

“Yes,” Hui says.

He doesn’t sound particularly convincing, and Hyuna forces herself to look at him, eyebrows raised, expression coolly neutral. “You sure?”

“I’m sure,” Hui says. He takes a long moment to think about it, then runs his tongue over his lower lip and starts to speak again, hesitantly. “It’s not like I’m a compulsive thief or liar. I don’t need to do this to be interested in you. I mean… Is that where it began? Yep. Is robbing the Louvre what I’ve always wanted to do? Yeah, I guess so. But it’s turned into more than that. I think— I think I’ve known it’s more than that for a while, and I proved it to myself once and for all when I told you that I knew about what you were doing and asked to help.”

Hyuna has been wondering about that, honestly, about how partially exposing himself fit into his plan to never tell them the full truth, and she makes a soft noise to encourage him to keep talking, even though she’s not entirely sure she likes what she’s hearing yet.

“I wasn’t planning on doing that,” Hui admits. “It was really spontaneous. Hyojong confessed, and it kind of freaked me out— in a good way!— and I just sort of thought, like… I want to try. I was sick of waiting, like, I’d been waiting for years to really sink my teeth into this and nothing had changed, and I was also sort of hoping maybe you’d figure out of your own accord how obvious you were being, but it hadn’t happened yet, so I thought… fuck it. Got nothing to lose. I thought maybe if I actually tried it for myself, I’d be able to get over my stupid crushes on both of you, since I still thought maybe I was only in it for the, y’know, crime, but that didn’t happen at all. The crime and the crushes stayed separate and then I liked you both more and more and obviously I loved the planning and the stealing and all that, but I loved the time we spent together outside of it even more. I really wasn’t expecting that. Wasn’t expecting you.”

He’s quiet again to collect his thoughts, then smiles very briefly at Hyuna and continues. “You called me a psychopath once and I think you were joking, but I think I probably was, at some point. I’ve never really cared about anyone as much as I care about the two of you. I’ve had relationships, friendships, sure, but before you, there wasn’t anyone I really wanted to spend time with, confide in, be around even if I was in a bad mood or whatever. Even if we weren’t doing this, both the art theft and the…” He goes a little pink, gesturing to how the three of them are tangled up naked in his bed. “And this, I’d still want you in my life. You’re interesting people, you’ll always be interesting to me, but you’re good people. You’re people who matter very deeply to me. And I don’t think I can imagine my life without you, but even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. That’s a moot point, though, because it’s not happening. I’m really sincerely so sorry for leading you on and lying to you and making you feel like you can’t trust me, because I know that it almost made me lose you, and that’s just the worst.”

Hyuna and Hyojong are both lying still, watching him as he speaks, and Hyuna feels tender like a bruise, teetering on the precipice of something important, something genuine, something real.

“This is real,” Hui says, soft, telling a secret straight out of Hyuna’s heart. He’s said it before more than once, but it’s even worse this time, and Hyuna has to close her eyes. “This. Not just what we do after dark in museums. We’re real, and I’m not letting go of that.”

Nobody’s asking you to, Hyuna wants to say. You don’t have to let go. Just stay. Let’s stay just like this.

Once Hui’s done speaking, the only sounds in the room are the muffled rush of cars passing by on the street, the leaves of a linden tree brushing against Hui’s window, and Hyuna’s eyes are closed and she’s thinking about the past five years, then about her whole life leading up to this point. Always never quite fitting in, popular but for the wrong reasons, a stranger in paradise until Hyojong and then, eventually, Hui came along. She thought breaking the law and stealing things and outwitting people is what she was meant to do and the only thing she’s really good at, and maybe she’s scared Hui won’t want them anymore but maybe she’s even more afraid that there’ll be nothing left for her to do in life at all once it’s over.

If she still has them, though. If she still has them, if this is still real, maybe it won’t be so bad.

“We can go back to our lives,” she says. “Our regular lives. Live like real people do. Call our moms and try to get promoted at work and kiss each other on the cheek if we happen to meet by chance on the street. Maybe we can all move in together, if you both want. Get a new place, where the shower’s not in the kitchen and where there’s enough room for all Dawn’s plants and Hui’s scarves and my books. We can settle down, save up, be boring. Eat salads for lunch. Pay taxes. Complain about the weather.”

Her voice shakes just slightly, but she keeps going, building up to her point. “And this can be what we did when we were young. We can remember it when we’re feeling low or particularly suburban. Say ‘we had some good times, didn’t we.’ We’ll be the only ones who know about it, but nobody else needs to know. We’ll be enough.”

“We are enough,” Hyojong says.

After that, there’s not much else left to say. Hyuna’s embarrassed by her sappy outburst and hides her face in Hyojong’s chest, and Hui’s tired out from talking so much all at once, too, his arm draped loosely over Hyuna and Hyojong both. Sometimes Hyuna feels so old but it’s times like these when she feels so young, and when she can feel herself in the future looking back on right now. She pulls Hui and Hyojong closer around her and waits for the future to come.

In the morning, they all act like nothing’s changed and like this isn’t their last hurrah. Hyuna declares today as a “training montage” day, like out of a corny action movie, and after they’re all back from work, the three of them set out for the flea market stalls lining the banks of the Seine to buy as many suitable framed paintings as they can. Then they get lunch at Ladurée, walk through the twisting winding streets of Saint-Germain-des-Prés holding hands and stumbling over cobblestones, getting into playful arguments about the best flavor of yogurt and whether the beret Hyojong is wearing suits him or not. And, once they’ve picked up a couple of cheap electric screwdrivers (“We have a drill at home,” Hyuna had insisted, and Hui had insisted back, “Two types of power tools are better than one,” and Hyuna just laughed and said, “I know that. Why else would I get two boyfriends, one of whom is a Virgo? You’re a tool if I’ve ever seen one”), they go home to train.

It’s been a confusing couple of weeks and Hyuna’s felt out of place and all-around weird, but nothing gets her back on top faster than Hui being totally disastrous at stripping canvases. Hyojong had been overly careful at first, too, but he got the hang of it after seeing Hyuna do it a couple of times. But Hui’s clumsiness is back with a vengeance and he keeps dropping the screwdriver on his feet and giving himself papercuts on the canvas backing, and Hyuna’s laughing at him as much as she’s trying to teach him how to do it right.

“I’ve never done this before,” Hui defends, fucking up yet again.

“And what about it? You think they taught me how to steal paintings in school? I just had natural talent, then I refined it,” Hyuna shrugs, gesturing to the canvas with a utility knife to get him to start over. “I didn’t have a sexy teacher to show me the ropes, so you’re really starting from a place of privilege here, don’t forget that.”

“Done,” Hyojong says from the other end of the apartment, and there is a beep that indicates the stopping of a stopwatch. “Eleven forty-three.”

“Come get your kiss,” Hyuna calls back. “Then you can be done for the day.”

Hyojong emerges from his room with the freshly stripped painting, sets it on the table for Hyuna to see, and leans in to kiss her. “How’s it going, Hui?”

“Bad,” Hui says miserably.

“You tutor him, I’m gonna eat some peaches,” Hyuna says. In truth, she’s not a bad teacher, but her patience is running low (especially because Hui looks so kissable today and Hyojong is being clingier than usual), so she’d rather remove herself from this situation than risk fucking up Hui’s attempts to self-educate.

The training montage continues through the night and the next couple of days; under Hyojong’s direction, Hui gets significantly better at taking the canvas off without fucking it up, and even Hyuna’s getting faster, her best time clocking in at nine minutes exactly. If they can keep this energy going, they’ll be able to get all five paintings in under half an hour, and Hyuna can’t help but feel pretty damn proud of them. Hui’s timed it so the majority of the thieving will be going down during the fireworks show and they’ll be leaving right as it’s ending, and then they can do what they always do, blend in with tourists, get home safe, sell the paintings off eventually.

Or maybe not, honestly. Robbing the Louvre is just a point of pride for Hui, he doesn’t care about the payout at the end, and Hyuna definitely doesn’t want to encourage any more weapons or drug trafficking. They might just hold onto the paintings, or find some private collectors a few years down the line, or turn them in for a reward, or just mail them back to some other museum instead. Hui did pick these paintings carefully, after all, and it would be a shame to just let them go. Much to think about, but they have some time to think.

As the 14th draws nearer, Hyojong starts getting a little more gun-shy about Hui. Not because he doubts him, of course, but just because he seems to kinda miss Hyuna, what they had going before, the life they built together. That’s Hyuna’s theory, anyway. It’s also entirely possible that Hui is just bad at sharing a bed and Hyuna kicks way less than he does. He’s been spending more nights with her than at home, and she’s gotten so used to having him around that it honestly barely even comes as a surprise when she wakes up with him in her arms and realizes that it’s Bastille Day, that today’s the day.

It doesn’t feel any different than any other day. The sun’s still cutting through the blinds at exactly the wrong angle, Hyojong’s still warm against Hyuna’s front, she’s still just waking up from a dream about him that’s left her warm, too, and she sighs, nestling a kiss between his shoulderblades and gently rubbing her hand over his chest to wake him up. He sleeps more than she does, but he’s made it very clear that if she’s awake, he also wants to be, just so he doesn’t miss her.

“Dawnie,” she breathes, kissing the back of his shoulder, the tattoo on his nape. “Baby, wake up. We have a big day today.”

Hyojong hums so softly she almost can’t even hear it, shivering all drowsy when she noses into the hair at the base of his nape, then continuing to shiver as she slides her hand down his chest. They were covered by just a sheet as they slept — he runs hot and she likes to cuddle — and he tries to pull it up over himself more, but he’s warm to the touch all over, and she runs her hand lower, feeling out his abs, the scratchy-soft line of his happy trail, which makes him make another drowsy noise and push his face against the pillow.

She’s always thought his morning wood is so cute, how he just can’t help being turned on, and he’s so irresistible like this anyway, warm and pliant and responsive to each touch. When she curls her fingers around him he does the sweetest little moan for her, his cock even hotter than the rest of him, so hard he’s straining. Hyuna rubs her palm down the length of his dick and he squirms, hips canting forward, already leaking wet because of whatever he was dreaming about, and she sighs lovingly as she leans in to kiss up the side of his neck and nuzzle just behind his ear.

She kisses him again and murmurs, “I love you,” just to really make him lose it and also because she means it with everything she has.

“Love you,” Hyojong mumbles back, breath huffing fast and needy against the pillowcase. She can get him to the point where he’s muffling his noises in the sheets and whining in the back of his throat, but he’s acting too impatient for that, so she loosens her grip on him in order to let him move if he wants.

He does, and he turns over so they’re face-to-face, pressing close to her all needy. “What do you want?” she says, amused and teasing as he cuddles up to her, still hard and shivery when she touches him. “You wanna fuck?”

By Hyojong’s hoarse soft noise she guesses that his answer is yes, but she wants him to say it. She leans in to nibble at his lower lip and wraps a leg around him so he can feel just the hint of her pussy against his body, rubbing forward, and he grabs at her, one hand on her ass and the other on the small of her back. But he’s still moving slow and sleepy, making small sounds into her neck and squirming to try and get her to touch him again. “Yeah,” he breathes. “I wanna, wanna fuck.”

“Were you dreaming about me? About Hui?” Hyuna asks, distracting him as she reaches over him to take a condom from her nightstand. She’s on the pill and he’s clean, so maybe they don’t even need one, but that’s a conversation for another time when he’s less needy and incoherent from sleepiness.

“Yeah,” Hyojong says again, one of his hands finding its clumsy way between her legs, making her shudder in surprise and fall down on top of him, the condom dropping to the floor. “Oof.”

“Sorry,” Hyuna says, moving so she’s not crushing him anymore, and reaches all the way down to pick the condom back up. When she returns to her previous position, he’s needy again, seeking out kisses which she gives him even though they both taste sour with morning breath and he’s too sleepy to kiss her well. There’s nothing that gets her hotter than this, the way he’s so into her that he can barely help himself, his cock wet and twitching lightly whenever her fingers curl around him, so she moves his hand down lower to get it where she wants it, rubbing barely at her clit, teasing at her to get her even wetter.

They honestly might not even make it to him sticking it in, they’re both so caught up in all this dirtysweet heavy petting, but now Hyuna wants his dick and she tells him so, slotting their legs together and grinding on him until he gets the idea.

His face is buried in her neck and he’s sucking a lazy hickey into her skin as she rolls the condom onto him and rubs the head of his cock against her, and neither one of them is doing very much work once he’s inside, just moving together and letting their bodies’ natural friction get them both off. He’s still all twitchy and sleepy, and she can’t stop squeezing down around him, letting him work out any tension she feels in her body, any tightness, all her stress just melting away.

“No matter what happens today it’s still gonna be you and me,” she says, mouthing at his ear. His hand finds her tits and she moans hoarsely, pulling him closer to her. “You know that? You know, baby? Just you and me.”

And Devil makes three, she wants to add, but then he’s licking this one spot on her neck that just makes her seize up all over and see stars, and he’s coming soon too, his hushed little whimpers muffled in her neck and his shoulder trembling.

It always takes them forever to unstick once they’re done, so he stays inside for now, breathing quiet into her skin as she breathes into his hair. She loves this part, how quiet they both get and how she can feel his pulse beating through his body, and he’s staying still and silent, too. He could probably fall back asleep if she let him.

“Do you trust him?” Hyuna asks, more or less out of the blue. She’s been trying not to give the matter too much thought but there’s too much space in her bed now, and she’s cold on her side where Hui’s arm usually goes. “Do you want to keep him?”

“I wanna keep him,” Hyojong says with barely any hesitation. “I don’t know if it matters if I trust him. Does it matter?”

Hyuna thinks about it and presses a kiss to the top of Hyojong’s head. “Maybe not,” she concludes. “I kinda… I kinda do trust him, though. I think we’ll have to wait and see how it goes today.”

“Wow,” Hyojong yawns.

Hyuna’s quiet for another few minutes, petting Hyojong’s hair, thinking about life, the universe, and other things. Finally, she pushes his hair back from his forehead so she can kiss it and says, “Dawn, I’m really sorry.”

Hyojong makes a confused noise, lifting his head to look at her. “What? Why?”

“For getting you into this mess,” Hyuna says. She takes a deep breath so she can keep talking without crying, but this is a sore subject even to think about. “You didn’t want to be a criminal. You just wanted to be my friend. But I couldn’t be happy with you just being my friend, I had to fuck up your life and make you do all this for me. I’m really sorry. I think we’ll be fine today and Hui’s not gonna stab us in the back but I’m still really sorry for stealing your life from you.”

“All you steal is paintings,” Hyojong says. “Stop being fucking stupid.”

“I’m trying to have a moment here,” Hyuna insists, blinking quick to get tears out of her eyes.

“I know, but don’t,” Hyojong says. He pulls away from her and sits up, looking down at her. “You didn’t force me to do anything. Hui’s right, you’re not subtle at all, I knew something was up with you when we first started hanging out. And even if you kinda influenced me when I was younger, I’m older now. I’m older now than you were when we met. Fucked up but true, right? Anyways, I can answer for myself. I want to do this, I like doing it, and I’ll miss it when we’re not doing it anymore.”

“But it’ll be okay as long as you have me, right?” Hyuna whispers. They sort of reach for each other at the same time, and he leans down again to kiss her lightly, nudging their noses together. “You won’t miss it too much if you have me?”

Hyojong shakes his head, kissing her again. “If we’re together—” and somehow when she says that she can feel a third person in his sentence, in the room, watching over them and standing with them— “I’ll be okay. Won’t you?”

Hyuna keeps doing this, getting all emotional for no real reason and then feeling embarrassed as fuck afterwards, but Hyojong is the one person in the world who won’t judge her for it. She nods, drawing him close for another kiss, sighing out a shaky breath as she swallows back her tears. “Duh,” she says. “Now let’s go get dressed.”

When they get to the other apartment, Hui is sitting at the breakfast table reading a newspaper with a slightly manic glint in his eye. Hyuna understands why — he’s about to live his crazy childhood dream of being a control freak on an internationally significant level — but it’s still ominous. “Ah,” he says when they come in. “You’re here. Good.”

“Well, yeah, no shit we’re here, we have a museum to rob,” Hyuna says, leaning on Hyojong for support as she pulls her shoes off. “You okay?”

“Looking forward to getting this show on the road,” Hui nods. He sounds kind of like an infomercial narrator, and Hyuna rolls her eyes, coming over to rest a gentle hand on his shoulder and lean in for a light kiss.

“Happy fête nationale,” she murmurs.

Hui hums in response, returning the kiss until Hyojong comes and steals one for himself. “We should leave the house not too long before we want to be setting off that first firecracker, just in case someone remembers seeing three people with a suitcase hanging around the Louvre,” Hui says when everybody’s done kissing. “Hyojong, are we good to go on that?”

Hyojong holds up a finger, telling him to wait, then vanishes into his room, presumably to retrieve the firework in question.

Hyuna, meanwhile, sits down at the table with Hui, trying to picture him in the rest of her life from now on. “So what’s up?”

He’s holding the newspaper upside down, bless his weirdo heart. “Uh,” he says, blinking over at her. “Just going over the plan, mostly, and—”

“We decided to keep you,” Hyuna blurts out.

Hui, startled, turns the newspaper right side up for lack of anything better to do. “Keep me?” he clarifies.

“Fuck, I wasn’t going to tell you until later,” Hyuna frowns. “But… yeah. We’re keeping you.”

They stare at each other briefly and Hui blinks again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says carefully.

“How many more times do I have to say it? We’re keeping you, you’re stuck with us,” Hyuna explains, her patience starting to run thin. “You’re in the gang, you passed the test, you’re one of the team. Think of us as the Three Musketeers or the Powerpuff Girls or Ferris, Sloane, and Cameron from Ferris Bueller.”

“The witches from Macbeth,” Hui suggests, unhelpful as usual. At least he’s listening, though, and understanding what she’s saying.

“Sure. For the record, I’m Ferris,” Hyuna says, “you’re Sloane, Dawn is Cameron. In personality, not in backstory. Why are you looking at me like that?”

Hui’s eyes are back to their pre-Interpol-reveal starriness and he’s smiling just slightly, and he doesn’t stop smiling when she calls him out. “Like what?”

Hyuna goes very faintly pink and pushes at his shoulder. “Like that. Cut it out. We’re keeping you, and we want to stay together, and let’s work hard today, okay? Do I need to explain it any more or do you get it?”

“I get it,” Hui assures her, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. “Thank you.”

Hyojong comes back from his room with two rolled-up firecrackers in his hands. “Here,” he says. “You need anything else?”

“My laptop’s already in the suitcase,” Hui says, nodding to said suitcase, which is waiting unassumingly by the door. “Go ahead and put those in the pockets of whatever jacket you’re going to be wearing, so we don’t need to waste time on unzipping the suitcase whenever we get there.”

“Are we doing anything before we go?” Hyojong asks, talking while he walks back to his room to get his jacket. “Or are we just chilling here being anxious?”

“Let’s be real, it’s option two,” Hyuna says, glancing at Hui.

“Fair enough,” Hyojong says and remains in his room.

“I’m not anxious,” Hui clarifies, frowning. “I’m just focused.”

“Whatever,” Hyuna shrugs. She eyes him for a moment, then leans in to kiss the side of his head, choosing to kiss his hair instead of his cheek. “It’ll go great.”

“Oh, I know,” Hui says. “I’m really not nervous. All I’m doing is savoring the first day of the rest of my life.”

Hyuna rolls her eyes and gets up. “You’re so dramatic,” she tells him, but she can’t help but smile to herself as she goes through to the kitchen to find something to eat, since she and Hyojong skipped breakfast.

She ends up cooking for all three of them, and they act like it’s any other day, all of Hui’s melodrama about the first day of the rest of his life temporarily forgotten or possibly just ignored. Hyuna does have the faint beginnings of a feeling like that, knocking around somewhere in the back of her head, but she thinks about other things instead, fussing over Hui’s heisting outfit and humming the Marseillaise to annoy Hyojong and letting Hui and Hyojong both carefully, slowly, pin her hair back from her face so she doesn’t risk leaving any strands in the Louvre.

They leave the house half past nine. Hui’s pulling the suitcase and Hyuna’s bequeathed her fanny pack to Hyojong for tonight, and although before they left, Hui instructed them to act casual, none of them can quite pull it off. All together, they look like three aliens who have recently landed on Earth and are trying their best to be human, but they keep going without blinking for too long or moving their hands in unnatural ways or laughing at things that aren’t even a little bit funny. In short, they’re all nervous as fuck.

The first day of the rest of their lives, Hyuna muses. Ain’t that something.

The center of the first arrondissement is fairly full of revelers, but the Louvre has been closed since six and the vast majority of the Bastille Day festivities are elsewhere. Hyuna, Hyojong, and Hui make their way out of the metro station and walk along the street at a regular pace, not really speaking anymore, until they’re a block away from the entrance to the Carrousel.

“Both guards are inside,” Hyuna says quietly.

Hui nods, then nods again to signal that it’s time for them all to put their masks on. It’s not uncommon to see people in masks walking around downtown, so they don’t even stand out; if anything, they look even more like stylish tourists. As is by now customary, Hyuna helps Hyojong with his, and just on a whim puts Hui’s on for him as well, meeting his eyes over the top of it. His eyes crinkle slightly at the sides when he smiles, and she looks away, smiling to herself as she puts on her own.

A small group of pedestrians cross the street ahead of them and Hyojong’s gloved hand, halfway into his jacket pocket to withdraw the firecracker, stops moving until they pass. He’s about to try again when more come, then more still, and Hyuna is looking at him and she can tell that he’s wavering, not wanting to risk anyone getting hurt but knowing they’ll run out of time if he waits too long.

“Go ahead,” Hui says under his breath.

Hyojong glances at Hyuna, uncertain, and she wishes she could give him the all-clear, but she wasn’t expecting this many people, either, and she doesn’t want anyone thinking it’s a bomb or a gun or anything like that, and how did none of them think of this? Hui’s supposed to be the mastermind, and this is such a huge part of their plan, and if they can’t even make it into the building—

“Plan B,” Hyojong says.

“What’s Plan B?” Hyuna asks, alarmed.

“The B is for backup,” Hyojong explains.

He reaches into the other pocket of his jacket and withdraws a small canister; from the label, Hyuna gathers that it’s another firecracker, but evidently this is one that Hyojong’s more comfortable using around a decent amount of people. Before Hui or Hyuna can ask him what it is or what his backup plan consists of, he’s lighting it up and kneeling down, shielded by Hyuna, to gently roll it into the street, which has been closed off to traffic just for tonight.

It sparks up immediately, then stops, and at first Hyuna thinks something is malfunctioning but then the sparks start again, shooting red and blue up to the sky and hissing so quietly she can’t even hear it from where they’re standing. A quiet firecracker seems very much against the laws of nature, and yet she’s looking at one, because Hyojong had the foresight to bring it just in case and now here it is, almost garishly bright in the darkness of the evening.

She can’t hear the firework, but she can hear the reactions of the people around it, which is precisely what Hyojong was intending. Children begin to scream, adults also begin to scream, and then everyone starts cheering and clapping and shrieking. For the sake of appearances, Hyuna and Hyojong and Hui join in, but even as they clap they’re walking up and up, towards the building entrance.

Then there is a pop and a crash as the sides fall off the firework canister, and coincidentally, a car alarm just down the street turns on with a wail. The crowd of spectators reacts with an outrageous amount of shock and awe, and two uniformed figures step out of the passageway leading to the Louvre and onto the street.

“Go,” Hui says.

Hyuna goes in first, then Hyojong, then Hui. It’s as simple as slipping in behind the backs of the guards, who are now trying to figure out what’s going on with this firecracker. The three of them go quickly down the stairs, wait with bated breath as Hyuna presses Julie Dupont’s security pass against the door, and all exhale at once when the light above the lock flickers green.

In the darkened mall, their footsteps make more noise than they should (considering they’re all in soft-soled shoes and Hui’s carrying the suitcase so it doesn’t rattle) as they run through to the C2RMF entrance. They’re still quiet, but audible enough that Hyuna wants to get out of there as fast as possible, and without even needing to signal to the other two, they all simultaneously pick up the pace, following the hallway running fast like shadows until they’re at the door.

There, they stop. Hui reaches into the outer compartment of the suitcase to pull out a truly ancient laptop, bulky and very unsexy, which he opens up and sets on the ground. It’s already booted up, saving them all a lot of time, and Hyuna and Hyojong both act as lookout while he does whatever he needs to do with the WiFi. It seems to involve routers and boosters of some sort, and Hyuna remembers him explaining that he was doing a DDoS attack but she’s never been super sure on what that means, but if it gets the job done, that’s what matters.

Hyuna doesn’t know exactly how long it takes, maybe three minutes, but she watches the little red light on the nearest security camera flicker and die out, and from behind her she hears the noise of Hui snapping the laptop shut. “We good?” she stage-whispers, turning to look back at him, and he nods, visibly smiling even behind the mask. “Then let’s go.”

Julie’s pass gets them through this door, too, and although Hyuna’s never been in this part of the Carrousel she still somehow knows the way into the Denon wing of the Louvre. It’s so strange to just walk boldly through the middle of the room with no regard for security cameras or anything like that, but she trusts that Hui shut them all off, and by this point her vision is tunneling on the goal ahead, the five paintings waiting for them past this next door.

The rest Hyuna remembers in flashes, like a dream. Sometimes when she looks back on it she can’t remember what parts really happened and what parts she dreamed up. The door to the Louvre opens easily and then they’re in, still going fast, and the Louvre at night is very dark and very quiet, the statues and paintings unmoving but somehow alive regardless as Hyuna runs past them with Hyojong and Hui at her sides. She remembers their faces in flashes, too, Hyojong illuminated by the light coming through a stained glass window, the edge of Hui’s cheek lit up as they run under an emergency exit sign. The echo of their footsteps on the marble stairs up to the second floor wakes her up sometimes even now, and sometimes she wonders if she’s remembering it all wrong, if it wasn’t like that at all. But she could really swear that it was exactly just like this, so cold that she can see her breath when she exhales, none of them speaking to each other, just running through the dark museum until they reach their destination.

Hui sets a timer; they have thirty minutes. As Hyuna takes the painting of Gabrielle d’Estrées down from the wall, she thinks about some photos she’s seen of cats in Saint Petersburg’s Hermitage museum, let loose at night to catch mice and returning to their basement home during the day. The three of them — she can hear the sound of Hyojong’s electric screwdriver, Hui’s drill far, far away — are like wolves let out in the Louvre, feral creatures in the most refined place on earth.

It’s honestly a little funny, Hyuna muses. Her whole career, or, arguably, her whole life, has been building up to this job, and it’s over so quickly. The first painting takes her ten minutes — the screws are old and rust flakes off as Hyuna sinks the bit of the electric screwdriver into them — and the second, nine. Fragonard’s The Bolt is less pretty up close than from afar, but Hyuna loves it anyway, and she loves Hui for picking it out for her in the first place.

Hyojong walks by her as she’s in the middle of taking it down and gives her the fright of her life, but once she sees that it’s just him, she’s encouraged to finish her work faster, since he’s presumably done and going to check up on Hui.

As Hyuna rolls up The Bolt and tucks it under her arm along with the first painting, she wonders if maybe this is a little underwhelming. She doesn’t even have time to look around, let alone banter with Hyojong or Hui. Usually she budgets time for that, for chatting and exploring, but Hui’s left no room for anything but cold, emotionless theft. Rookie move on his part, honestly.

But when she turns and goes down the darkened hallway to rendezvous with Hui and Hyojong, a burst of light out of a window catches her eye, and she looks out to see fireworks, distant but still bright. She can sort of hear them, too, the boom-hiss as they launch and burst in the sky, and she wishes they were closer so she could really feel it in her chest and all the way down through her fingertips. Maybe this is enough, though. She has two priceless works of art under her arm and her two lovers are waiting for her in the next room. It might not be the largest art heist of all time, but it’ll make it into the history books, and when Hyuna and her two boys are older, they can read them and remember this night. The cold air, and the fireworks, and the quiet way they look at each other whenever one of them walks past.

They all meet up again in the final room of the Sully wing, and Hui unzips the suitcase so they can all deposit their respective paintings inside. The paintings look so funny all rolled up and bound in plastic, and you’d never guess how much they were worth or what they meant if you saw them like this. Sometimes when Hyuna remembers it, she thinks maybe that was an illusion, a mistake, that she didn’t really watch them taking the paintings down and putting them into the bag and zipping it back up, but that would make even less sense. The truth is stranger than fiction, after all, and not even her mind could dream something like this up.

And that’s it. They have the paintings, security is still down, and they go out of a side door and rejoin the flow of foot traffic on the street. By the sounds of it, the fireworks show is just ending, and Hyuna takes off her mask and her hat and her gloves and grabs Hui and Hyojong both by the arms and squeezes them so tightly, too tight, but neither one of them complains.

“We did it,” Hyuna says, voice low.

Hui shakes his head tightly, looking straight ahead. “Can’t say that yet,” he replies. “Wait until we get home.”

Hyojong leans in to Hyuna’s side and whispers, “We did it.”

“Stop,” Hui insists, but Hyuna looks at him and sees that he’s smiling, too.

“Were you expecting it to be over so fast?” Hyuna asks. She knows it’s dangerous to talk about these things out on the street, and she’s never done it before, but she can’t help it, this is too exciting. They really did it.

“It’s not over, but no,” Hui says.

It is over, though. The last heist of Hyuna and Hyojong’s career as criminals, and Hui’s first and last formal heist. Hyuna turns her head to look back at the suitcase as Hui pulls it behind himself, and she can’t stop smiling even as tears prick her eyes.

“Are you crying?” Hyojong says, alarmed, and wiggles his arm out of Hyuna’s hold so he can touch her cheek with his hand. “What’s wrong? You’re not sad, are you?”

“I’m not, I’m not,” Hyuna assures him, trying to bat his touch away, ducking her head so he doesn’t see as her eyes prickle again, the lights of the city swimming when she blinks. “Stop it, I’m not sad.”

“But you’re crying,” Hyojong says. He stops walking, and so does Hui, and Hyuna tries to keep going but they’re both holding onto her so she can’t.

“I’m happy,” Hyuna says, gently shoving at his chest. “Okay? Is that what you wanted to hear? I’m really happy. We pulled it off and now it’s done and I just lo— I’m really happy to be here with both of you.”

Hui leans in and presses a kiss to Hyuna’s temple. “I’m happy, too,” he says quietly, “but we really need to get out of here, just to be on the safe side.”

Hyuna laughs wetly and leaves Hyojong alone to shove at Hui instead. “You’re such a romantic,” she says. “Come on, Dawn, let’s go home before Hui’s panties can get even more twisted.”

“I’m just saying!” Hui laughs, but he looks very relieved when Hyuna starts walking again, leading them both by her sides.

They walk about another block to the metro, all holding hands tightly so they can stream single-file into the station. It’s crowded as fuck, unsurprisingly, and they’re surrounded by drunk teenagers and retirees, and Hyuna knows they have to go into their little tourist routine right now so she pulls Hui and Hyojong closer and switches to Korean, chattering as usual about something inconsequential even though everything is different now.

The world looks different, too. She wonders if the boys can see the change or if it’s just her. The roar of the train down the tunnel is louder; the Bastille Day rosettes on people’s lapels brighter in color. She looks up at Hyojong, then at Hui, and thinks— fuck it. May as well.

“I love you both,” she says. The train is pulling up to the platform and her hair is blowing around her face and she can’t look at them again or she really will start crying. “Like, I’m in love with both of you. You know that, right? I just wanna make it really clear. I love you.”

“Hyuna,” one of them says, she can’t even tell which one, but then the train is stopping and the doors are opening and she steps forward to board without looking back, and they follow.

They sit all in a row, Hyuna in the middle, and now they can both lean their heads on her shoulders. The moment feels more emotionally charged than sexually, but Hui’s hands are a very specific kind of fidgety, and Hyuna has no doubt that things are going to get a little rowdy as soon as they get home. For now, she puts his hand on her knee, takes Hyojong’s hand just for the holding, and that’s how they ride. Hui’s holding onto the suitcase tightly, overprotectively, and Hyuna and Hyojong both watch it as it jostles back and forth.

The metro is always loud at all times of the day, but it’s even louder now than usual, even considering it’s a Saturday night. And it’ll likely keep being loud for the next few days; according to Hui, France is in the final of the World Cup and the deciding game is tomorrow. It’s like the universe is smiling on them, telling them they picked a good day to do it — all the news tomorrow will be focused on is the game, not checking the collection of the Louvre. Chances are it’ll go undetected through the weekend, actually.

No, Hyuna decides, that wasn’t underwhelming. That was the perfect coda for the past six years of her life. If the alternative is something explosive, a shoot-out with cops, getting separated from Hyojong and Hui, anything along those lines, then fuck yeah, she loves how boring and easy that was. This way, they have a real shot at a happy ending. She’s never been certain of that even being a possibility for herself, but. Now it’s seeming like they just might get one.

They’re back at the apartment in another twenty minutes or so. Giggling, they chase each other up the stairs, and when they’re inside, Hui locks the door and barricades it with a chair, and then they unzip the suitcase and take the paintings out. They look so weird in the light of Hui and Hyojong’s foyer, but Hyuna loves it, and she tells them both she loves it, and they all end up on the floor, the five paintings fanned out around them in a circle as hands meet skin and they kiss and touch and undress, pawing at each other lazily, comfortably, with all the certainty of young immortals looking forward into the next thousand years of their endless lives.

After all, Hyuna had been right, of course. Hui’s in a mood, and that gets Hyojong in the mood, and Hyuna’s been in the mood for the past two weeks so it’s not like she needs much convincing, either. The floor is cool but not uncomfortably so, and Hyuna’s got two warm, eager bodies pressed up against her to keep her from catching a chill.

It’s hard to believe that just earlier today, she’d been all wrapped up with Hyojong, too, and even though what they’re doing right now is pretty similar, everything else is completely different. It feels more ritual than erotic, like a ceremony, like they’re promising to each other that they’re in this for the long haul, that it’s more than just the art theft and intrigue. They’re taking turns with each other, first Hyojong’s mouth on Hui while Hui kisses reverently down Hyuna’s neck, then Hui between Hyuna’s legs, then Hyuna rocking her body up against Hyojong as Hui swallows him down, and all their movements are lazy, slow, even when Hyuna spreads her legs and welcomes Hyojong inside, then misses Hui too badly to let him be away from her and has him make love to her instead, the hard hot press of him only adding to the fever she feels all over her body, burning wherever Hyojong or Hui touch her. Their touches are still careful, languid, exploring like it’s the first time, and when they’re done, they lie right there, naked and breathless and surrounded by art worth millions and just staring at the ceiling.

“Remember,” Hui says, turning his face to press it into Hyuna’s hair. “You’re going to get brought in for questioning. Don’t worry, everyone who works with you will be. You might even get brought in for follow-up questions, but that’s still normal. Okay?”

“Got it,” Hyuna mumbles. “Dawn, carry me to bed. I’m ready to wake up in a new world.”

After some grumbling, Hyojong gets up, leans down to wrap his arms around Hyuna, and carries her through to Hui’s room, Hui following behind and yawning. Across town, maybe someone’s noticed the missing paintings and broken security system already, or maybe they haven’t, but either way, our three heroes fall asleep to peaceful slumber, undisturbed by Hui’s kicking or Hyuna’s hair going everywhere or Hyojong’s bad habit of grinding his teeth in his sleep. They have each other (and several extremely valuable stolen paintings), and that’s all they need.

France wins the World Cup, and the theft doesn’t make the news until Monday.

But when it does, oh, boy, does it make the news.

Hyuna spent almost all of Sunday planning with Hui and Hyojong exactly what she was going to say to establish her alibi for Saturday night. “I cooked myself lunch, and you came over for dinner,” she recites. “That was at around nine, and Hyojong took a post-dinner nap while Hui and I had wine and talked about movies. When Hyojong woke up around eleven, we went up onto the roof to try and see the fireworks, and I ran into my 95-year-old neighbor Claudette while I was coming down the stairs to get more apple cider from my apartment.” (Claudette is excellent as an alibi; her memory is dreadful, but she gets so excited to see Hyuna that she always insists she’s seen her even when she hasn’t. This may or may not be due to the presence of a ghost in the building that looks exactly like Hyuna, but Hyuna hasn’t been able to confirm this yet.)

If asked whether she knew that she’s under investigation by Interpol, Hyuna is to act very surprised and confused. If asked about her past criminal record as it pertains to theft, Hyuna is to be contrite and talk about how that was a long time ago and she’s grown since then, after all, she’s the manager of a successful jewelry store in the Carrousel of the Louvre, surely that’s an indicator of having grown from some childhood mistakes. If asked about her whereabouts on the nights of any other thefts, Hyuna is to wrinkle her nose, say “If you’re going to keep asking me questions… shouldn’t I get a lawyer or something?” and then add, “I was at home, though, with Dawn and Hui. But that might have been date night, I’ll have to check.”

All in all, Hyuna feels pretty prepared to go into this. Even though she’s never been brought in for questioning regarding the art theft, she’s been questioned before, and she knows how to throw police detectives off their game. Plus, Hui keeps reassuring her that this is just routine, she’s not an actual suspect, everybody who has access to the Carrousel is going to get questioned.

She walks into work right on time, and as soon as she goes through the same glass doors she’d snuck through two nights ago things are immediately different. There’s more security than usual and metal detectors where there previously hadn’t been, and confused tourists are bunched up in an extensive line, the hallway congested with traffic due to all this heightened security.

“Employee?” one of the security guards asks Hyuna, and when she nods and shows him her badge, he briskly ushers her through one of the metal detectors and shows her where she needs to go.

Her destination is the head office, messy and chaotic with employees from all the Carrousel’s stores being herded around by police and secretaries. Hyuna checks in with one of the cops, who takes her phone and purse for safekeeping until she can be questioned and tells her to come back in half an hour for questioning. Apparently, there are so many employees to be questioned that they need to do it all in shifts, and someone has to attend to the aforementioned confused tourists outside.

Hyuna’s not nervous, and she really means it this time. After everything she’s been through, she can certainly handle a little routine interrogation. The first half-hour of work passes by smoothly, although she does have to answer a few questions along the lines of “What’s going on up there? Is it true someone robbed the Louvre? How is that even possible?” with “I’m not sure, but it seems very interesting!” which is her pre-agreed-upon answer for situations such as these.

After thirty minutes have passed, she temporarily relinquishes control of the shop to one of her employees, then returns to the main office for her interrogation. Naturally, they’re running very behind schedule, so she has to wait in the hallway for a few minutes, making small talk with the female cop outside about the World Cup. But finally, her turn comes, and she goes into the office, which has been turned into a makeshift interrogation room. There are two chairs and a table, and one cop standing up and one sitting down.

“Please, have a seat,” the one already sitting says. “You’re Hyuna Kim?”

“That’s me,” Hyuna nods, smiling gently and sitting down, smoothing her skirt out on the chair. “What can I do for you gentlemen today?”

“We just have a few questions we’re asking everyone in connection with the recent robbery of the museum,” the cop answers. His nameplate says M. GERMAIN, and his partner’s says F. DUMOULIN. M. Germain is an unsmiling 50-year-old with salt-and-pepper hair, but despite being serious, he doesn’t seem like a hardass, so chances are Hyuna will have him wrapped around her little finger by the end of this interrogation.

“I heard about that,” Hyuna says with a sigh. “It’s just unbelievable.”

M. Germain checks his notes and looks up at Hyuna again. “Can you account for your whereabouts on Saturday the 14th between the hours of 10 PM and midnight?”

Hyuna thinks about it for a moment. “I was at home with my friends,” she recalls. “They came over for dinner, and we went up to watch the fireworks whenever they started. I’m not a suspect, am I?”

“Everyone is,” Germain says, as serious as ever. “What friends are these? What are their names?”

“Hyojong Kim and Hwitaek Lee,” Hyuna says. “I can spell it if you’d like.”

“No need,” Germain says, making a note of something on his clipboard. “But if we were to contact them, would they tell us the same thing?”

“Of course,” Hyuna frowns. “We had, um… what did we have. Rigatoni, I believe. I can spell that, too.”

“Please take this seriously, mademoiselle,” Germain sighs. “How much do you know about what happened here two days ago?”

“Nothing more than whatever’s been in the news,” Hyuna shrugs. “I really can’t believe someone broke in. I thought this place was supposed to be impenetrable!”

“It is,” Germain says, “hence us considering it an inside job.”

Hyuna’s eyes go round with surprise. “Oh. I see,” she says. “That makes a lot of sense. Well, if there’s anything I can do at all to help your investigation, I’ll be glad to do it.”

Germain opens a folder on the table and withdraws a printout of Julie Dupont’s security pass. “Do you know this woman?”

Hyuna leans over the picture to see it, humming. “Yeah, that’s Julie, I think? She was the manager of all of Printemps, she left a year or so ago… moved up north, last I heard. Does she have something to do with the robbery?”

“That’s classified,” Germain says. He returns the printout to the folder.

As far as interrogations go, this one is pretty weak, and Hyuna can tell they’ve standardized all the questions to fit every employee of the Carrousel so they can wrap things up faster.

“Do you think she might have something to do with it? How well did you know her?” says F. Dumoulin, speaking up for the first time.

“I didn’t know her very well,” Hyuna says thoughtfully. “We only spoke a couple of times. From what I could tell, though, she was a hard worker and a good person. I can’t imagine her being capable of doing something like this.”

Germain writes something else down. “You have a criminal record, don’t you?”

As practiced, Hyuna’s cheeks heat up with shame and she nods hesitantly. “From a long time ago, yes.”

“Theft, wasn’t it?”

“Shoplifting,” Hyuna corrects.

“Which is a kind of theft,” Germain says.

Hyuna concedes this with a small, rueful smile. “It was a very long time ago,” she reminds him. “I was young, and it was a mistake. Now I’ve really turned my life around and I have no interest in doing that sort of thing anymore. That was very different from this, anyway. It was small and spontaneous and random, and I just happened to get caught. I never did it again after that.”

“Hmm,” Germain says. He shows something he’s just written down to Dumoulin, who nods and leans down to say something very quietly to him.

Hyuna glances at the door, looking a little discombobulated but not stressed. “Anything else?”

“No computer science background,” she thinks she hears one of them mumbling to the other one, “decent alibi… We have all we need.”

Germain lifts his head. “No, that’ll be all. You can go back to work. Thank you for your time.”

Hyuna loves it when she aces a test. She stands up and smiles, and it’s a polite, friendly smile instead of the bright, triumphant one she wishes she could be doing. “Thank you for your service!” she replies. “Best of luck with the investigation!”

Both policemen acknowledge her well-wishes with a nod, and she goes out of the office feeling like she’s walking on air. She’s told she’ll only be able to retrieve her phone and purse at the end of the workday (nobody’s searching either of them, it’s just to prevent her from texting anyone and warning them about the questioning), which she’s fine with, since she wasn’t meant to text Hui or Hyojong about how it went today anyway.

Over the course of the rest of the day, the police interview the rest of the employees of the Carrousel. Hyuna’s coworkers come back confused but innocent, and Hyuna spots a couple of cops walking through to get to the food court, looking frustrated and equally confused. Hyuna knows it’s too early to properly gloat over her success, but she can’t help gloating just a little. One-third of the culprits is right beneath their noses and they have no idea, and despite a lot of evidence to the contrary, she’s only human.

“How’d it go?” Hyojong asks as soon as Hyuna bursts through their front door.

“Amazing!” she declares, beaming and letting him pick her up in a big hug. “Least stressful part of this whole thing!”

“What did they ask you?” Hui says, coming out of the bathroom in a robe with a towel slung around his neck. “I got interviewed, too, actually, and that didn’t go so well, but…”

“There were two detectives, neither of whom was sexy, and they just asked where I was on Saturday and if you’d be able to confirm it and they asked about my criminal record and I did it just how we talked about,” Hyuna says between kisses all over Hyojong’s face, so enthused that she just can’t help herself and he’s just sort of letting it happen.

“Good, that’s great,” Hui nods. “Told you it’d be fine.”

Hyuna separates herself from Hyojong with great difficulty and goes over to give Hui a kiss, too. “What happened with you?”

“Oh, nothing too dramatic,” Hui sighs. “I just got chewed out, kinda. I told them that I’d been warning them since day one to focus on the Louvre, that it was likely going to be a target, but they all ignored me and said it was impossible, so I’m technically not culpable, and I wouldn’t say I’m in hot water, but it’s definitely lukewarm.”

“The frog is being boiled,” Hyuna agrees. “What happens if you get fired?”

“Then… I get fired,” Hui shrugs. “It’s not the end of the world. If I get fired, it’ll be for incompetence, not being suspicious. Honestly, I don’t even care if I do. I accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish, so it’d be fine.”

“Good,” Hyuna says and soundly kisses him. “Can we celebrate yet?”

Hui thinks about it while they kiss, his hands settling lightly on her waist. “No. Wait a couple of days.”

“Ugh!” Hyuna says. Hyojong is coming up behind her, pulling the towel down from around Hui’s shoulders. “What am I gonna do to stay busy in the meantime, then?”

Hui hums, kissing her again, letting her lick at his lower lip as his hands move from her waist to slide down and lower along her back. “I’ve got a few ideas,” he says, and things develop fairly naturally from there.

The next day at work is totally normal, as though nothing out of the ordinary has ever happened in the history of the Louvre. Hyuna makes superficial conversation with some of her coworkers about how crazy that was, who they think did it, how they think it was done, et cetera. Thankfully, she hasn’t seen or heard from Thierry, so hopefully the incident in his office has been entirely and universally forgotten.

Hui doesn’t get fired, either, not even brought in for any kind of serious discussions about his ineptitude with regard to preventing this theft, but he assures Hyuna and Hyojong that this is a really good thing. “If Hyuna and Hyojong were the thieves,” he’d argued to his higher-ups, “I’d have been able to figure them out and stop them by now. We were together that night, I don’t know how many more times I need to say that. Surely they’re exonerated now, right? And I can stop this undercover charade?”

Another thing: Hui is going to have to stop living with Hyojong soon. It’s simply too suspicious for them to all maintain such Interpol-mandated close contact if Hui is no longer actively investigating them, and he claims that the investigation will formally close within the next month or so. Once he gets his own place, though, they’ll be able to reconnect without any worries or concerns.

“I’ll be dead by then,” Hyuna says glumly, and Hyojong agrees with an equally morose nod.

“Come on, it’s not an actual death sentence,” Hui says, trying to cheer them up and failing miserably, since then they both immediately start saying that that would be preferable to this. “Seriously! We can still see each other all the time, and I can still spend all day and night with you, I’ll just have to officially live somewhere else for a while. We can go apartment-hunting together?”

“I’ll be dead by then!” Hyuna insists. “Why can’t you just tell them you’ve grown fond of us and you’d like to keep living with Dawn now that you know he’s not a wanted criminal?”

“I just can’t,” Hui sighs. “It’s too risky. Honestly, I’ve been thinking that I might quit soon, just so they stop keeping tabs on me.”

“Are they going to stop keeping tabs on you if you quit?” Hyojong asks in his typical sad monotone.

“I mean… mostly,” Hui shrugs. “And…”

Hyuna hates it when he takes that tone. It means something bad’s about to happen. “And what?”

“And we won’t be able to text as much,” Hui says, then hastens to add, “for a little while. Just until we establish that we’re living apart. We can stay in touch, and we can see each other and all, I’m going to tell them that I’m attached to you guys now so I’d like to check up on you every once in a while, but we can’t constantly be in the groupchat, you know?”

There is a long, mournful silence, and Hyuna breaks it by sighing very tragically. “This is worse than the night we found out you were Interpol,” she says.

Hui rolls his eyes and leans in to kiss her, then Hyojong. “You’ll be fine. We’ll just have to schedule dinners and dates. You know, like how normal people do?”

“Since when have we been normal?” Hyojong points out.

“Fair enough,” Hui concedes with a smile. “Either way, we’ll be fine. Obviously I’ll miss you both so much until we can get our own place together, for—” Here he breaks off and starts getting shy, glancing between them and biting lightly at his lower lip. “For the three of us, you know. For real.”

That’s a very corny way to lighten the tension, but unfortunately, it totally works. Hyuna and Hyojong, appeased, spend the rest of the evening alternating being in Hui’s lap while they browse through real estate websites, picking out apartments first for Hui to temporarily live in, then for the three of them to inhabit together. It’s not bad, Hyuna decides. Domesticity. Something she could get used to, and hopefully will, soon enough. After this hellish hiatus, however long it’s supposed to be.

The formal investigation of Hyuna and Hyojong by Interpol ends two weeks later, and so does Hui and Hyojong’s cohabitation. According to Hui, the reasoning he’s meant to give is that he’s moving in with his cousin, who just arrived in Paris on a work visa, and Hyuna and Hyojong help him pack up his things (“You don’t have to do a good job, just make it look like I’m not living here anymore!” Hui says, raising his voice over Hyuna’s exaggerated melodramatic theatrical wailing) so he can move into a shiny new apartment in a refurbished building in the fifth arrondissement.

Kind of crazy, really. Hyuna and Hyojong have spent the past three-four years, give or take a few months, under Interpol’s surveillance, and although they had no idea about it for most of that time, it’ll still be strange to live without it. They kiss Hui goodbye, then wave handkerchiefs at him hanging out of the window as he goes down the street with his suitcases. Hyuna’s getting a little teary-eyed even though they’re all meeting up for dinner literally three hours from now, and Hyojong teases her for it but she can tell he’s feeling vulnerable, too.

Living as a free woman is interesting. The paintings are still in Hyuna’s possession — they need to decide what to do with them, actually — but other than that, she doesn’t really have a whole lot to worry about. No new heist to plan, no sales to organize, nothing to hide. She just goes to work, hangs out with Hyojong at lunch, meets up with Hui every other day or so in semi-covert situations, and lives her life.

They both miss Hui, though. He can call them melodramatic all he wants, but it’s true. He’s wormed his way into their lives very steadily and inextricably over the years and now that they’ve finally gotten used to the slippery bastard, he just up and leaves? They spent so much of their lives without him but now being without him even impermanently feels wrong. There’s too much space in Hyojong’s bed and something is always missing when they fool around together. Hyuna feels like she can’t touch enough of Hyojong, do enough for him, and she remembers saying that she needed another pair of hands for her thievery — what she really needed another pair of hands for, clearly, was getting Hyojong off. She can do it alone, easily, but she’d prefer not to, and each time they finish, Hyojong’s hands make a brief, stilted motion to reach out for someone who isn’t there.

It’s kind of embarrassing, them acting like he’s dead even though he honestly lives less than fifteen minutes away by metro, and he tells them that each time they see each other and they fling themselves onto his neck and bemoan his absence.

“But when are you coming back?” Hyuna says miserably, nuzzling into his shoulder as Hyojong, ever-bashful, presses kiss after kiss after kiss into Hui’s cheek.

“Jesus— calm down,” Hui laughs, tickled, and tries to push both of them away. “It’s been two weeks. It’ll probably only be another two weeks. You miss sleeping with me that bad?”

Hyuna knows that he means it in the sharing a bed sense, but that doesn’t stop her from pulling away to give him a sultry look through her eyelashes. “We both do,” she says.

Hui blushes, of course. “We could get a hotel room,” he offers, voice quiet.

Kind of pointless, considering they now have three apartments to choose from and they’ve spent the night together multiple times over the past two weeks, but it’s still a fun thought. Roleplaying as strangers having some sort of forbidden, dirty tryst on the spur of the moment. It makes Hyuna think about the circumstances that would bring them together if they really were strangers. They’re all so different from each other, and she really thinks that if things hadn’t happened exactly how they had, there would be no way for them to even meet, let alone be together. Like most of Hyuna’s fantasies, it’s a fifty-fifty blend of dirty and emotional, and she runs over it in her mind for a moment before shaking her head.

She’s tired of secrets. Tired of pretending. She likes Hui just the way he is, and she loves Hyojong just the way he is, and she hopes they both like her the way she is, too, because no way in hell is she changing for anyone. “Maybe next time,” she says, kissing him on the cheek again, then on the mouth, and he smiles against her lips, petting his hand down her hair.

“Um,” says a nervous voice behind them, “table for three? Right this way.”

“We should stop trying to go out into the world,” Hyojong comments under his breath as the waiter leads them to their booth.

Hyuna hides a grin, taking Hyojong by the hand and giving it a light squeeze. He has a point, honestly. They’re kind of a public menace, and not even in an endearing way.

The waiter seats them at a corner booth that’s tucked away from the rest of the restaurant, which is probably for the best. Hyuna chooses to sit in the middle, sitting down with a little huff of air and smiling fondly at the tealight candle in the center of the table.

“How’s work going?” Hyojong asks Hui with all the heavy-hearted sadness of someone who’s reuniting with a long-lost lover who’d gone out for cigarettes and never returned.

“Fine,” Hui shrugs, glancing over the menu. Hyuna settles a hand on his thigh under the table, but he’s so used to it at this point that he doesn’t even twitch. “They haven’t fired me yet, and they don’t have any new leads.”

“And how’s the new apartment,” Hyojong asks. He sounds like he’s ready to drop dead any second now, and he hasn’t bothered with opening the menu.

“Also fine, but it’s not really home,” Hui sighs.

Hyuna’s hand starts very slowly inching its way up Hui’s thigh. She really has missed sleeping with him, honestly. They’ve fucked a few times since Hui’s departure, but it’s different having to schedule it; she misses the spontaneity of cohabitation, of having constant access to him. Before, they could just fall into bed together, and she can’t even imagine how many times he and Hyojong messed around without her being there, but now they have to plan things out, who’s spending the night where and when. She even misses hearing about how his day went, which is how she knows she’s really in way over her head. Her hand goes higher.

“That neighbor still giving you trouble?” Hyojong mumbles.

Hui gently grasps Hyuna’s wrist under the table to keep her hand from reaching its destination. “Not really,” he shrugs. “Turns out the issue was with the building’s overall water pressure, not us showering at the same time. What are you trying to do?”

“Nothing,” Hyuna says innocently, digging her fingers into his thigh.

Hyojong leans over to try and see. “What is she doing?”

“Nothing!” Hyuna insists. She breaks Hui’s grip with ease and her hand slides higher and higher until she’s palming over his dick through the fabric of his pants, smiling at him with sparkling eyes, dimples popped, the whole nine yards. “Is something wrong?”

“We haven’t even ordered,” Hui says somewhat mournfully, squirming where he sits. Hyuna also wriggles slightly, sighing. “Hyuna—”

“Stop me if you don’t want this,” Hyuna says sweetly, her go-to line by now.

He doesn’t stop her, just squirms again and takes a breath. “So we got that squared away,” he continues, his voice a little higher than usual from stress as Hyuna rubs him slowly with her palm, teasing him until he starts stiffening under her touches, filling out in his jeans. “He turned out to be a pretty decent guy.”

Hyojong has, of course, figured out by now what’s going on, and he evidently thinks he’s safe, because he’s sitting comfortable, having a sip of the juice box he’d brought to the restaurant with him. “Well, that’s good,” he says. “I’m glad you’re getting settled and all. Have you decorated yet or—”

His sentence cuts off with an abrupt squeak because he wasn’t safe at all, of course, and now Hyuna’s got her hand on him, too, immensely pleased to find him half-hard already. It doesn’t take much with him, which is endearing as ever, and she strokes him with the pads of her fingers and hums, smiling her usual cat-that-got-the-cream smile.

“Have we decided what we want for dinner?” she asks, continuing to rub them both at varying speeds, adjusted to each one’s individual preference. “Personally, I like to go the route of ordering a bunch of appetizers, no main course. That way we can all share.”

Hui rests his elbow on the table and his chin in his palm so he can cover his mouth with his hand, a light dusting of pink spreading across his cheeks and the rest of his face. “Whatever you think is best,” he says, muffled.

“Dawn?” Hyuna asks, giving his dick a squeeze.

“Whatever Hui said,” Hyojong manages, similarly pink in the face and resentful.

Hyuna’s smile widens. “So I’m ordering for the table, then? How irresponsible of you both. And so presumptive, leaving me with all the hard work.”

“You took on all the hard work yourself,” Hyojong says, by now fully hard but still capable of making sullen little jokes, evidently.

“I guess I did,” Hyuna concedes, still smiling. The tablecloth covers everything quite nicely, so if the boys can play it cool, they’ll be able to pull this off with a pretty typical happy ending. She doesn’t need to move her hands very much, they’re both fairly sensitive, and maybe instead of letting them finish she’ll stop when they’re both close, leave them both aching and tense and annoyed until they get back to whoever’s apartment they’re going to, at which point they’ll both be so wound up and desperate that they’ll just really go at it with her, none of their usual shy-coy-tender shtick, just pure need and hot, messy fucking. She has a little surprise planned for them, anyway, so it’ll be even easier for them to cut to the chase.

While she was going off on that train of thought, she forgot to supervise them, and they end up making significant eye contact with each other over the table, having one of their freaky nonverbal conversations until Hui nods. “Hey,” he says, leaning into Hyuna slightly and reaching under the table to stop her hand. “Come with me.”

“Where?” Hyuna pouts. “I’m comfortable!”

“Shh,” Hui says, and Hyuna’s so shocked at being shushed that she actually does quiet down, letting Hui move her hand away from him so he can get out from behind the table and stand up. Sort of a mistake, considering he’s really hard in his jeans, but after wincing slightly in realization after Hyuna smirks at him, Hui just very casually drapes his hands in front of himself and gestures with his head for Hyuna and Hyojong both to follow.

Just what have they got cooked up? Hyuna, curious, slips out to follow him, and Hyojong goes after her with some difficulty, his face flushed and his posture adjusted so he’s not just flashing the whole restaurant. Luckily, they are pretty tucked away at the back — shoutout to the waiter for enabling this — and Hui’s destination is close, so they don’t have to go very far. Then they’re going into the restroom one by one with absolutely no regard for who sees, and Hyuna takes a wild leap of logic here and locks the door as a safeguard.

“You’re so unfair,” Hyojong complains as soon as they’re in. He can’t keep his hands off her, obviously, pulling her in against him and pressing in for pouty kisses. “We won’t even get to eat anything.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” Hyuna hums, pushing him away so she can pat her lower stomach, right above the edge of her panty line. “You brought me in here for a reason, yeah? Did you have something in mind?”

“I bet you only wanted to have dinner at a nice restaurant so you could jerk us off under the table,” Hui accuses, also coming in to crowd her up against the door. He brushes her hair off her shoulder and leans down to kiss her in his favorite spot to kiss, right in the elegant curve of her neck down to her collarbone.

“Maybe,” Hyuna admits easily. “Is that so wrong? What’s the point of having two boyfriends if I can’t even jerk them both off under the table at a nice restaurant?” To illustrate this, she runs her hand down his body and curls her fingers around the hard outline of him, smiling when he immediately shudders out a gasp and collapses against her.

She beckons Hyojong over, too, and she knows if he teases him any further he’ll get so hard it hurts. He’s still frowning at her, which is just the cutest thing in the world, how they both get grumpy at her when she turns them on. She can’t help herself, though, they make it way too easy.

“If you’re so mad about this, you could have stopped me,” she points out, closing her eyes and shivering at the sound and feeling of both of them breathing harsh and quiet so close to her, one against her shoulder, one almost right against her ear. “You don’t have to do everything I want you to, isn’t that right, Dawn?”

“I’m not mad,” Hyojong mumbles, his hand clumsily going to hold onto her hip.

“Clearly not, since you brought me in here,” Hyuna nods. She shifts where she stands, adjusting the balance of her weight, and gives them both an impatient squeeze. “Gonna do anything about it, or what?”

“Getting there,” Hui says, one of his hands moving to tug up Hyuna’s dress. “Oh, I love these panties on you.”

“You like them better off me,” Hyuna entices, wiggling enticingly.

“True,” Hui says. He runs his hand between her legs, smoothing over her thighs, running teasingly up and down over the curve of her pussy and then further back just to make her squeak in surprise.

She does a hell of a lot more than squeak, though, her whole body jolting like she’s just touched a live wire and a moan coming out of her in a staccato. Her face goes bright pink immediately and she closes her legs fast to get his hand out from between them, and he just looks concerned and confused as he pulls his hand back.

“Um, okay,” he says slowly. “What’s… going on there?”

“Nothing,” Hyuna says, getting pinker and pinker. Fuck, now she’s throbbing, God damn it. This was supposed to be a surprise, but of course he has to spoil her perfectly-laid plans.

Now Hyojong’s caught interest, and he’s less easily dissuaded than Hui is, cutting out the middleman and just putting his hand right on her ass. He squeezes, and she yelps so loudly that Hui, panicked, covers her mouth very briefly with his hand.

“Okay, what is going on,” Hyojong says. She gets the sense he’s figured it out already, but he doesn’t want to say it and she obviously doesn’t want to admit to anything, so they just stare at each other in a stand-off until she feels Hui’s fingers tugging at the sides of her panties.

“Let’s get these out of the way, maybe then we’ll find out,” Hui says, and together they tug Hyuna’s panties off, letting her brace her hands on their shoulders for balance so she can slip them down each leg. No point in hiding it further, right? They’d clearly find it eventually regardless of how well she’d planned things out.

Now that she’s free of her panties, Hui runs his hand between her legs again, first just trailing along her slit and then going further back. Hyojong holds her still so she doesn’t shiver away again, and finally Hui’s fingertips are pressing right up against the wide, cool base of the buttplug Hyuna’s had inside her for the past hour.

“Oh,” Hui says very weakly.

“It was fucking meant to be a surprise,” Hyuna snaps, by now flushed bright red. “I thought we could try something different, you know? But you had to ruin everything! As usual!”

Hyojong, impatient and not quite caught up on whatever’s going on under Hyuna’s dress, slips his hand in to see what the fuss is all about and gets similarly stunned speechless. Hui and Hyojong look at each other, tongue-tied but visibly into it, and Hyuna rolls her eyes.

“Whatever, spare me the dramatics,” she says. “Haven’t you ever even considered DP before? I have two boyfriends, that’s literally the first sex position that comes up when you Google male-male-female threesome. You can admit to it, it’s okay.”

Hyojong, pure-hearted as ever, seems daunted by the thought at first, but the very fact that Hui’s not meeting Hyuna’s eye is incriminating enough. Typical. She smiles at him, then at Hyojong, and then just sort of watches them reacting slowly to this prospect until she can’t take it anymore.

“Are you interested or not?” she demands, and reaches out to grab them both again, loving their near-identical surprised gasps at the sudden stimulation. “Did you just bring me into this bathroom for some gentle, chaste over-the-clothes petting, or do you want to fuck me?”

“You were going to edge us both for hours,” Hui points out, and Hyuna resents how well he can read her evil plans but he’s not wrong, so she doesn’t deny it. He’s approaching her again, his mind clearly made up. “I think that deserves at least some kind of response.”

“Yeah, I was, but then I was gonna let you both fuck me at the same time, so I think it cancels out,” Hyuna says with a smile, then moans into his mouth when he presses in for a kiss, pressing her back against the bathroom wall. His hand goes back between her legs and she’s so squirmy, not even wet yet but she’s been low-level aroused for so long that she may as well be.

She pulls Hyojong in by the belt loops and kisses him deep and messy, undoing Hui’s fly so she can stroke him off properly. But Hui doesn’t let that go on long, pulling back and tugging at Hyuna’s dress to get her attention. She’s a little distracted, though; Hyojong has his hand up her dress again, teasing at her clit, playing with it just the way she likes, and she has her arm wrapped around his shoulders, holding on for dear life. So Hui tries again, this time taking a leaf out of Hyuna’s book and fiddling around with her dress until he finds one of her nipples and pinches it.

“Fuck. What?” she laughs, breaking away from Hyojong and looking over at Hui as she lets Hyojong mouth down her jawline, his hand still playing around in her pussy.

“Who— where— you know,” Hui says vaguely.

Hyuna clicks her tongue disapprovingly and shakes her head. “Be more specific. What are you asking, sweetheart?”

Hui has some internal conflict for a moment, then bites the bullet and says, “Which one of us do you want to fuck you in the ass?”

Hyuna loves it when he talks dirty. Coming from him, so prim and proper and upstanding, it’s just so much hotter, so she moans, turning her head to let Hyojong tongue-kiss her messy and keeping her eyes open, watching Hui with a self-satisfied, teasing spark in her gaze. “Flip a coin,” she suggests with a shrug.

“If he’s not interested, I volunteer,” Hyojong murmurs, and that shocks Hyuna so much that she pushes him off of her to stare at him.

“You want to?” she clarifies, breathless, and he nods. That’s somehow barely believable, and she’d somehow thought that his love for her was too pure for him to be able to want such a thing; evidently not. She’s super into it. “Okay, give me a second.”

He steps away to give her room, and she gestures for them to entertain themselves while she hikes her dress up around her waist. But of course Hui can’t leave her alone even for a second, leaning in in Hyojong’s place and kissing her while his hands run low, brushing along the curve of her ass and making her shiver, tingling everywhere his hands make contact. “Hyojong,” he says, almost as an afterthought, as he presses in for a kiss, and then Hyuna’s gasping and grabbing at Hui’s face with both hands as Hyojong oh-so-gently spreads her open, takes the plug by its base, and slowly draws it out.

“Cute,” Hyojong says, checking out the white-iridescent Swarovski crystal decorating the base and totally ignoring Hyuna as she whines and complains about how they’re both so mean to her. She’d just gotten used to it, too, and now she feels so fucking empty, and it feels like they’re both going slow to spite her.

Almost as soon as she’s had that thought, though, Hyojong is turning her around and getting behind her, and she shivers reflexively when she hears the click and zip of his jeans. “Hui,” he says.

Hui takes Hyuna’s arms and wraps them around his shoulders, looking deep in her eyes. “Hold on tight,” he murmurs, then lifts her up just an inch or so off the ground. Hyojong does the rest, picking her up by the waist and spreading her legs, which she wraps around Hui for stability. Then Hyojong’s arms slide tight around her, holding her back against his chest, and Hui takes her by the thighs instead.

It’s all breathtakingly acrobatic and she feels trapped in the best kind of way, leaning her head back against Hyojong’s shoulder. “How do you two keep doing that?”

“Doing what?” Hui asks, leaning in to kiss her shoulder when her dress slips to reveal it. At the same time, he lets go of one of her thighs to reach into the pocket of her dress, still bunched up around her waist, to get out two condoms.

“Hey— how’d you know those would be in there?” Hyuna frowns, indignant, but then remembers her earlier question and clarifies, “This little telepathic circus act.”

“You’re pretty predictable,” Hui explains with a small grin, answering both questions in one fell swoop. “Do you want us to fuck you or not? Quit complaining.”

Hyuna nods, by now pretty invested in this idea, and through a series of equally acrobatic maneuvers, Hui gets a condom on Hyojong, and they exchange a few kisses over Hyuna’s shoulder. “I’ve got you,” Hyojong breathes into the nape of Hyuna’s neck, and when he starts to press inside, sliding in easy from how open she was already, no different than when he fucks her normal, just as slick and comfortable, she digs her fingers into Hui’s shoulders tightly enough that he hisses in pain.

It’s a sign of how much she trusts them both that she’s letting them fuck her like this. She’s totally suspended in the air, held up only by Hyojong’s strong arms and Hui’s hands braced on her thighs, and if she didn’t know that she’s actually the one in control here she might be inclined to think that she was entirely at their mercy, but that’s not the case at all, so once she’s adjusted to the new fullness, the hot tight pressure of him inside of her, she smacks the flat of her palm against Hui’s shoulder and says, “Your turn.”

Hui fingers her first, and the feeling of his lips on her neck giving her wet open-mouthed kisses as he stretches her open combines with the harsh bathroom lighting and suddenly she’s getting déjà vu real bad, remembering the spontaneous bathroom fling that started this whole mess, and she can’t help but laugh, breathless and hiccuping but still laughing. So much has changed since then, but on a basic level, everything is exactly the same.

“What?” Hui says, also starting to smile. “What is it?”

“Nothing, keep going, fuck me fuck me now or I’m gonna die,” Hyuna says.

“Jesus, okay,” Hui says, then gets back to work.

The sensation of him rubbing her clit and slowly dragging his fingers in and out of her is competing in a very strange way with Hyojong firm and full inside her already, but it’s good, it’s hot, making her feel hungry like she’ll never get enough. And when Hui finally rolls the other condom on and presses the head of his cock against her, she jolts and squirms and every part of her throbs so hard that she feels like she’s gonna come right away, but Hyojong just tightens his arms around her and holds her to keep her still while Hui rocks his hips up and eases his way in.

From there, it’s more than even she could ever dream up. They’re pressed tight on either side of her, there’s no escape, and she’s trying to stay quiet so she buries her face in Hui’s shoulder and hides her whimpers there as they fuck her. Hyojong is moaning soft into her hair and Hui’s fingers will leave bruises all up her thighs at this rate, and Hui’s going for intensity while Hyojong is staying slow, deep, just barely moving enough to give her stimulation and remind her that he’s there. Hyuna feels so full, so overwhelmed, and yeah, fine, she’s practiced this with toys in the comfort and safety of her own home but that was nothing like this, nothing like how Hui sucks a hickey into her neck and then lifts his head to kiss Hyojong over her shoulder, swallowing the needy sounds Hyojong is making, and how their hands switch places after a while, Hyojong grabbing the undersides of her thighs and Hui holding her by the waist instead.

“You planned this,” Hyojong pants into her shoulder.

Hyuna moans incoherently but in a questioning way, yanking at Hui’s hair when he thrusts up into her and she feels, once again, the pre-echo of orgasm, shuddering as her hips jerk in response.

“Not us doing this at home,” Hyojong goes on. “Us doing this here, now. This was your plan all along, for us to do this. Yeah?”

Fuck, he figured it out. “No comment,” Hyuna gasps.

“Why else would you have started messing with us as soon as we sat down? You were impatient,” Hui insists. “He’s right, admit it.”

Hyuna shakes her head as best she can, but she doesn’t have much room with how they’ve got her pinned, and unfortunately Hyojong is totally right. She had this planned from the minute they scheduled this dinner — so much for spontaneity. “Fine,” she says, then bites Hui’s lower lip to keep from moaning when he fucks deep into her. “Yeah. Wanted this. So what?”

“You sure are used to getting what you want,” Hui says, one of his hands releasing her waist in favor of slipping between her legs and rolling his clit between his thumb and forefinger.

“Fuck— fuck— so what?” Hyuna demands again. She grabs for Hui’s shoulders with one hand, reaches back to sink her fingers into Hyojong’s hair with the other, her body rolling in waves between them, first forward onto Hui’s dick, then backwards onto Hyojong’s.

Hui and Hyojong do their unspoken communication thing and Hyojong starts fucking her a little faster, more determined, and not only can she not speak after that, but she can’t even formulate thoughts, just letting him bounce her on his dick as Hui also drives in and out, in and out, his fingers rubbing and dragging and pulling over her. She’s so wet and they’re both ridiculously hard and they keep kissing over her shoulder, messy, their teeth bumping together when they change angles, Hyojong so worked up behind her that she can feel him trembling.

And then Hyuna’s dragging Hui closer between her legs, panting fast and high and desperate into his mouth as he rubs her and Hyojong’s pace doesn’t change even for a second, and she’s so tight and tense as it builds within her, starting at the base of her spine then rocketing up all through her body, making her nipples ache and her clit pulse and her hips jerk up and down as she comes hard and then again, involuntarily but just as intensely, sobbing high moans into Hui’s mouth and pulling at Hyojong’s hair.

She hangs there between them, drifting and dazed and shuddering each time an aftershock of pleasure ripples through her, and finally turns her head to try and catch Hyojong’s mouth in a kiss as he lets his guard down and lets himself come, too. Hui’s close, she can tell, and they do what is by now tradition: he pulls his head back enough to see them, and they both watch him, eyes heavy-lidded, cheeks flushed, lips glossy, until he’s shuddering and his thrusts are faltering and then they’re all just left standing there, out of breath, overheated, having the times of their lives.

Hyuna coughs faintly, her throat dry from all the moaning she’s been doing, and squeezes Hui’s shoulder. “Let me down,” she whispers.

Hyojong very, very carefully pulls out of her first, then Hui, and together they slowly close her legs and lower her down to the ground. Her knees immediately give out, but they’re both there to catch her, Hyojong a warm firm presence at her back, Hui’s waist the perfect size for looping her arms around, and she waits until she’s more or less caught her breath to try and stand up unassisted again.

“Do you think anyone heard?” she asks, finding her panties again and shimmying back into them as though nothing even happened, as though she won’t be able to sit down for a solid two days now.

“Probably,” Hui shrugs. He looks so fucking good post-coital, his hair all over the place and his eyes dark and warm, and Hyuna smiles at him, leaning into Hyojong’s chest.

“Oh, well. Should we just go home and order takeout?”

“Sure,” Hyojong says, immensely sleepy.

Hyuna coos lovingly at him, turning to give him a kiss on the cheek, and helps them both get clean and tidy so they can go back out into the world. They’re all three flushed and rumpled, of course, but once Hyuna covers the hickeys on her neck by tossing her hair over them, they look significantly less suspicious, and deem each other presentable.

“Me, then you, then you,” Hyuna says, pointing first to Hyojong, then to Hui. “Thirty seconds apart. Meet you outside love you bye!”

“Bye,” they chorus, loopy and smiling, and she blows them both kisses before turning to leave.

The waiters all either have the tact to ignore her or are genuinely just very snooty, but either way, nobody looks at her as she calmly strolls through the restaurant and out onto the street (ignoring the soreness already building in the entire lower half of her body). Hyojong joins her within a minute, and once Hui also comes out, they set off for Hyojong’s apartment, creatures of habit as usual. There, they kiss some more while Hyuna complains about how much pain she’s in, get Russian food delivered, and continue to kiss until they all fall asleep in a messy tangle of limbs in Hui’s old bed.

At this point Hyuna’s wondering why it feels like her life is dragging on and on. Everything is wonderful; she has everything she’s ever wanted, and it’s fantastic. So why does it feel like she’s still waiting for a happy end even though it’s ostensibly already come?

“We weren’t sure which apartment you were more likely to be at, so we’ve come to meet you at work instead,” the police officer says, smiling. “Please accompany us to the station.”

Hyuna blinks, adjusting her purse on her shoulder and trying not to just turn and run away. “I’m sorry, what?” she says. “Who are you? Why am I coming with you?”

“We’re with the OCBC,” says the officer. “You aren’t under arrest yet, but please accompany us to the station for further questioning.”

This wasn’t part of the plan. This was not part of the fucking plan. Hui said Hyuna was going to get brought in by the regular police, not by the fucking Central Office Against the Tracking of Cultural Property. Did Hui know about this and just not warn Hyuna? No way in hell. They’re way past that point. But if he didn’t know, then that means this is real, and this could be really fucking bad.

“Um,” Hyuna says, glancing around and trying to keep her cool. Some of her coworkers are nearby, walking past Hyuna and the two cops, on their way to clock in. She doesn’t want to make a scene. “Okay, I’ll— I’ll go with you. May I ask what this is regarding?”

“Oh, I think you know,” the officer says and gestures for her to walk ahead of them, out of the building, into the car waiting outside. “We’ll be there soon. Do you have an attorney you can call?”

“I can find one,” Hyuna says. Christ, her heart’s about to beat out of her chest. Does she get a phone call? Should she call Hui and have him tell her what she’s starting to figure out on her own, that these OCBC people clearly picked up Interpol’s sloppy seconds and saw the Venn diagram overlap between Carrousel employees under suspicion and Interpol’s favored suspects and that there’s nothing Hui can do to stop this because it’s out of his jurisdiction since the OCBC are way closer to regular cops than he is? Or should she tell Hyojong and warn him, tell him that they’ve got her and she’s taking all the heat and that he needs to grab Hui and get the fuck out of town?

“Don’t be nervous, we’re just going to have a chat,” the cop says. He smiles at her in the rearview mirror, and she tries to smile back, but it falls a little flat.

Her mind is blank. She’s out of backup plans. Hui was their only hope, and if he can’t stop this, then there’s nothing to be done. But she knows she’s getting ahead of herself — she doesn’t know what they have on her yet. Maybe they just want to know more about Julie Dupont, whom at this point she is very comfortable with throwing wholeheartedly under the bus. Or maybe they’re considering Chloé as a suspect, which would also be fantastic, if random. They might just want to know more about her security access to the Carrousel, maybe in a kind of consultant sort of fashion so they can piece together how the definitely-not-Hyuna culprits managed to get in.

There’s no need to be pessimistic about this, she tries to reassure herself. Out of all the possible options for what could be going on, only a few of them involve her serving several years in prison. Instead of forming expectations based on very little data, she should wait and see what happens — that way, she won’t be disappointed if what she expects doesn’t come true.

After a ten-minute drive spent in silence, they’re arriving at the precinct station. Hyuna’s momentary panic has faded and been replaced by a calm, collected confidence that she’ll ace this interview like she aced the last one and she’ll come home to Hui and Hyojong and tell them all about the adventure she had today. She’s not worried, not even a little, not anymore.

“This way,” the officer says, guiding her down the hall. “I will be back with you shortly, I just have to go check in. Your friend’s here already, they got a bit of a head start on us, actually.”

Hyuna’s blood runs cold. She can’t think. “My friend?”

“Yeah, right in there,” the officer says. He points.

Sitting in a waiting room with a policeman on either side of him is Hyojong. He’s pale and not speaking and he looks up as soon as Hyuna walks by, like he can feel her presence before she’s even there.

“Hyojong,” Hyuna says, her hands shaking. “Oh, my God, Hyojong.”

“Right in here, if you please,” says the police officer, and the last thing Hyuna sees before she goes into the interrogation room is Hyojong’s pale, scared face and his dark, scared eyes.
       
Of course, maybe that’s not how it happened at all. It was a long time ago, and just about everything that Hyuna took for granted in her life back then has been switched out for its opposite nowadays. When she thinks back on it, that’s how it seems to her, but memory is a strange thing, so fallible, especially when such strong emotions are involved.

That all seems just about right, though. Meeting Hui, falling for him, believing him, needing him, changing the world with him, and Hyojong by her side the whole time, constant and loving and devoted to her, ready to die for her. That’s about the order of events as it happened, Hyuna thinks.

And she thinks about it a lot. How could she do anything but? What else is she supposed to do these days?

With everything different around her, Hyuna sits, and thinks, and remembers.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Hyuna’s favorite park in Paris has always been the Bois de Vincennes. Located on the far eastern edge of the 12th arrondissement, beyond the Peripherique, occupying a whopping ten percent of the total area of Paris, it’s got it all; lakes, a botanical garden, a velodrome (whatever that is), something called the Temple of Love. When she’d first visited Paris with her family as a child, the first time she’d been back since her birth, all she cared about was going to the zoo in the Bois de Vincennes and running away from her nannies so she could get lost amongst some tall grass and make believe that she was on the hunt for fairies.

The Bois de Vincennes exemplifies a lot of what Hyuna loves about the City of Lights. It’s a little wild and unruly, sure, but it also features Paris-typical Haussmannian precision, what with how carefully planned its construction was. You can get lost in it, but you’ll never be in danger unless you go headfirst into one of the lakes. There’s people-watching and it gets crowded as fuck during the weekend, but if you know where to look, there’s plenty of solitude to be found. And it’s not even quite in Paris, either — too far out to be truly urban. In all respects, it’s got the best of both worlds.

One of Hyuna’s greatest regrets from the time when she was living in the heart of Paris was that she didn’t go to the Bois de Vincennes as often as she should have. Her choice of Montreuil-sous-Bois as a new home was largely influenced by its proximity to Bois de Vincennes; a brief bus ride, that’s all it takes, and she’s there.

Not that she goes as often as she’d like, though. She usually can’t make it more than twice a week, if she really forces things. Life keeps her pretty busy.

Montreuil is a small, sleepy commune compared to what Hyuna’s used to, and she often forgets that it’s actually pretty big, as far as Parisian suburbs go. Fuck, she still can’t believe she’s living in the fucking suburbs. She’ll never get used to it, probably, if the past three years of living here are anything to go by.

But it’s nice to be somewhat removed from the hustle and bustle of city life. No more getting awoken by yelling neighbors, bus horns, teenagers getting in arguments. Someone on the same block has a chicken, though, which was charming for about one week and then very rapidly got very annoying. Suburbia: gotta love it.

Hyuna’s work takes her into the city as much as it lets her stay at home, and she finds this commute far preferable to what she had to do when she worked at the Carrousel. It’s longer, sure, but sometimes she naps on the metro or reads a book, feeling altogether very dreamy. There’s not even countryside for her to pass through on her journey, but that’s secondary — it’s the mood that counts. Sometimes she even catches up on work while she’s commuting, which really takes her back to her school days. Much of her life is nostalgia by now, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Today she was called into the office to go over some design ideas for this month’s issue, specifically pertaining to her column. She’s finally getting her own page, not just squashed down underneath makeup lifehacks or outfit ideas like she has been, but that means the magazine’s editors have to move some other things around, and she had to finally decide on a formal logo.

Took them long enough, honestly. Ever since Hyuna first got a column to herself — it started out as film and art criticism, then became sort of lifestyle advice, and ended up as mostly just Hyuna’s thoughts on sex, love, art, life, everything in between (but mostly sex) — she’s been amassing a small but devoted following of readers who love her perspective and her unique voice. And she can’t blame them, really; she pretty much is the best.

For all her salt about how long it’s taken the editors to acknowledge her column’s success, though, she can’t deny that she owes them a lot for hiring her in the first place. Woefully underqualified to be a magazine columnist, she’d sort of just appeared in the interview with a few writing samples and a go-get-‘em attitude, and to her immense surprise had been called back for a second round of interviews. There, the glasses-wearing hipster five years her junior had said, “So, we ran a background check, and it looks like you have a criminal record, can you tell us a little bit about that?”

Hyuna had decided to take a fucking chance, figuring this was an edgy magazine probably willing to hire a near-felon, and had leaned forward over the table, her eyes sparkling conspiratorially. “Wanna know a secret about me, Matthieu?”

“Um,” Matthieu had said, blinking behind his stupid horn-rimmed glasses. “Sure?”

Hyuna remembers smiling at him slowly while she leaned closer still. “I was a prime suspect in the Louvre robbery last year,” she’d breathed, and literally two hours later, she was hired.

She’d started small, just brief movie reviews here and there, but worked her way up to the top, and now she’s back on the metro after spending the whole day sitting in boring-ass meetings and waiting her turn to decide on her general aesthetic. She had Hyojong design a few logo options for her, of course, and they’re all pretty good, but her personal favorite was the one that’s a little cartoon outline of her head, a plain H in the middle where her face should be, and that’s the one the magazine chose, so it all worked out well.

Nowadays she can’t help but think of Hyojong with some wistfulness. He’s fucking fine, of course he is, but when she thinks of what he had to go through for her — it still sends a chill down her spine, and that’s not something she can ever take back.

It’s not like it was even that long ago. She celebrated her thirtieth birthday this summer, the wounds are still fairly fresh. That one fucking day isn’t something she’ll be able to forget as long as she lives, probably, even though it all turned out well at the end. It still lives on in her mind, makes her wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, her heart pounding, and she has to cling on to whoever’s closest to her until she falls back into an uneasy sleep. Sometimes when she looks at Hyojong from certain angles she sees him exactly the way he was that day, pale and terrified, and remembers what a close call that was, how near they came to ending everything.

She remembers the bad parts more than the good, honestly. Those are the most vivid parts of the memory. It’s like she’s there, reliving it: after she gets led into the interrogation room, her hands shaking and her mouth still stuck around the shape of Hyojong’s name, she sits there alone for about ten minutes until the same police officer who’d brought her in returns with a file.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting,” he says, smiling at her like he’s not about to try to ruin her life. “Let’s begin by going over what you already spoke with the Prefecture about. Where were you the night of Saturday, the 14th of July?”

“I was at home,” Hyuna says after a brief pause, clearing her suddenly bone-dry throat. “Having dinner with my friends. My neighbor—”

“Yes, yes,” he says, flipping to a different page in the file. “Now, one of these friends is Hyojong Kim, yes? He’s here, too, we just finished speaking with him.”

“He didn’t do anything, he was with me,” Hyuna blurts, and the police officer just raises his eyebrows at her.

“What would he have done? We were questioning him about you, actually.” The papers he’s looking through appear to be interview notes and Hyuna squints very slightly to try and read them, but then he turns the page again and they’re gone.

Questioning Hyojong about Hyuna? So he’s not under suspicion himself? “Oh,” Hyuna says hesitantly.

“Although you both popped up in our system when we did an automatic search for inter-database suspects,” the cop adds. “He’ll be brought in for another interview once we’ve taken a lunch break.”

Great. Hyuna takes a deep breath, tries to center herself, and nods. “So what can I do for you today, officer?” she asks.

“Let’s discuss your background,” he says. “You come from a wealthy family, but you still turned to crime when left unsupervised in England. How much contact do you have with your family now?”

“A lot,” Hyuna says, lying easily. “We speak fairly regularly. My mother has always been overprotective of me, and after my childhood mistakes she became even more so, and—”

“If we were to check your phone records, would they support your statements?”

Now Hyuna’s getting pissed off. “Do you have a warrant?”

“Weren’t you going to call a lawyer?” he replies, just as snarky.

Hyuna closes her eyes briefly and prays for patience. “I will. I do maintain regular contact with my family. You can check the phone records if you like.”

The cop seems satisfied with this answer and nods, turning to another page in his file. “The warrant’s in the process of being filed,” he says, almost as an afterthought. “Now then: are you aware of how many people were involved in the robbery?”

Hyuna’s still petrified, frozen to her seat at the prospect of an actual warrant to search her apartment — she’ll have to burn the fucking paintings, how can she tell Hui fast enough, her phone is gonna have to get lost somewhere — and he has to repeat the question until she shakes her head and says, “No— no, I’m not.”

“Between three and five,” he says. “They took five paintings in a very short period of time, so it can’t have just been one person. And you listed two friends as your alibi, didn’t you? That’s three people.”

“Having two friends is hardly a crime,” she says, her hands curling into tight, nervous fists under the table.

“That’s true,” he concedes, “but it’s suspicious, don’t you think? The number fits, you have access to the building under normal circumstances… You could probably go to the main office if you needed to, couldn’t you? They gained access to the building with a stolen pass. Do you know anything about any passes going missing?”

“No,” Hyuna says, “I don’t.”

“Hmm,” he says. “At any rate, you have access, and one of the friends you said you were with is also under investigation for the same crime.”

“I thought you just questioned him about me, nothing else,” Hyuna says. She can feel herself going pale, too, her palms clammy, heart pounding.

The police officer raises his eyebrows. “That would be a waste of OCBC time and resources, wouldn’t it? Let’s get back to my questions. Can you account for your whereabouts on the nights of the 30th and 16th of June?”

“I want a lawyer,” Hyuna says before she can say anything else.

She hates the way he’s smiling at her, so smug and smarmy, like he knows he’s got her trapped. “Are you nervous, Miss Kim?”

She can’t even dignify that with a response. They just stare at each other for a moment, and then the door bursts open and another cop bursts in, out of breath and flustered. “Interpol’s here,” he says. “There was a clerical error, these two have been cleared.”

Hyuna stands up so quickly the chair scrapes backwards on the floor, and over the noise of the metal legs clattering back down she can hear Hui’s voice, passionate and serious as he berates some secretary for letting this slip through the cracks, and she can feel tears building up, a lump in her throat, her legs starting to shake.

“Oh. Have they?” the first cop says, frowning down at his files, then at Hyuna. “You’re sure?”

“There are a couple people out front if you’d like to talk to them, but yes, they should have been off the list,” the second one replies. “We have to let them go.”

Hyuna just stands there, shaking, feeling seconds away from passing out. The cop looks at her again, then sighs and closes his file. “You’re free to go,” he says.

And she’s off like a gunshot, going straight out of the room and heading straight for the waiting area and grabbing Hyojong by the wrist and yanking him up from between the two cops he’s sitting with. “We can go, we can go home, they made a mistake, we didn’t do anything,” she says.

“Is Hui here?” he says, and his hand is trembling in her grip and she needs to hold him so fucking bad but she needs to get them both out of there even more.

“Yes, he’s here, we’ll see him later,” she nods, pulling at him and leading him out. “Come on, come on, let’s get out of here.”

Hui’s in the entrance hall, talking loudly with two OCBC officers. “No harm, no foul, I just don’t understand how this was allowed to happen,” he’s saying. “This was my case, and I can personally vouch for their whereabouts on the night in question. Do I need to verify my credentials with you?”

He turns slightly and sees Hyuna and Hyojong, clinging to each other and both colorless and freaked the fuck out, and exhales, lifting a hand to indicate that he’ll return to that conversation in just a moment.

“On behalf of Interpol,” he says, taking a couple of steps closer to them, and now that they’re closer she can see that he looks terrible, wild-eyed and verging on frantic, and he must have been so fucking scared for them, too, “I’d just like to apologize for this mistake, and thank you for your patience.”

“No big deal,” Hyuna manages.

“We’ve called a car for you,” Hui says. “If you’d just wait outside, it’ll arrive in a few minutes.”

Hyuna can’t speak anymore, she’s on the brink of bursting into tears, so she just nods and hauls Hyojong to the elevator and out front, where they cling to each other and wait and wait and wait, just like they had at the fucking Orsay, until Hui comes downstairs and they all take a cab back home, crying together in the back seat as Hyuna pets Hyojong’s hair and Hui says “I was so scared, I was so so scared” over and over.

Kind of hard to forget something like that, honestly. Hui explained it later: what had happened was the OCBC took over the case from Interpol (since Hui and his team had done such a bad job of it) and inherited all their old files, which, of course, had Hyuna and Hyojong listed as suspects. From there, they compared it with local police files, saw the overlap, and brought them in. Simple as that. But Hyuna knows that that cop is still out there, and he was way more suspicious of her than anyone else has ever been, and so every once in a while when she feels a prickle on the back of her neck she can’t help but looking over her shoulder just in case he’s there, waiting to bring her in after all these years.

She shivers slightly as she thinks about it, then tries to cast the thought aside. Part of the reason she’d wanted to move to the suburbs in the first place was that she felt she needed to get away from all this, from any sort of temptation to get her hands dirty with any other sort of criminal enterprises, and it’s not like she has a total moratorium on talking about the past, but she certainly prefers to avoid talking about any heavy stuff.

She checks her watch. It’s almost six (she finally broke her pretentious military-time habit) and she knows the house will be bustling with noise and energy when she gets home, since Hyojong’s shift at The Conquest of Bread ends whenever he wants it to, which is usually around four, and Hui’s done with work at five — he’s finally living an authentic 9-to-5 life, no lies this time.

Because of course Hui is still with her. You didn’t think she’d ever be able to let either of them go, did you? While his master’s degree in creative writing was a fiction, it did turn out he had a knack for fiction itself, and after leaving Interpol he snagged a job at Ubisoft, whose headquarters are in Montreuil. He writes stupid action video game scripts and comes up with convoluted plotlines, many of which have to do with avoiding the law and falling in love in unexpected ways. Hyuna refuses to play any of his games on principle, but she does watch playthroughs on YouTube and almost tear up with pride every time.

Hyojong’s bakery job pays decently, considering it’s the only truly anarcho-communist bakery collective in the world, and he gets to bring home much of what they don’t sell each day, so Hyuna can always expect warm pastries when she gets home. She only had a small lunch at work and now she’s pretty hungry and really hoping that he got some good stuff for them all to share. Some days the commute home is easier than others; today she really just wants to be there already, be with them, have them take away her anxieties and worries.

They didn’t celebrate, but it was the five year anniversary of their Louvre heist last week. Maybe that’s why it’s been more on her mind lately, leaving her sleepless and stressed. She’ll get over it, though. She always does, now that she has them both forever by her side.

Once she’s arrived at the Mairie de Montreuil metro station, she switches to the local bus, which she takes for about fifteen minutes until she’s pulling up to the station nearest their home, a brief walk away. It’s warm out but cloudy, the kind of weather that always makes her sleepy, so she walks quick in order to get there faster, reunite with them sooner, maybe have an early night tonight so she can have an early morning tomorrow to watch the sun rise and walk Hyojong to work, since he opens the bakery at 7 every day and he likes some company when he goes.

Five sweaty minutes later, she’s walking up their driveway. They bought this house three years ago, but she still can’t help but smile when she sees it. It gets her every fucking time.

It’s just so huge and so beautiful. Three stories, five fucking bedrooms that they don’t need and barely use, a beautiful garden out front that’s only eclipsed in beauty by the garden out back. The master bedroom is on the highest floor, and they’ve repurposed all the other bedrooms to various other uses: there’s a home office for Hyuna, a very informal home tattoo studio for Hyojong, a library for all of them, a music room they never use. She loves the dramatic wood staircase, the occasional stained-glass detailing in random places, the vaulted ceilings in the rooms on the third floor, the tiny balconies on the windows facing the front of the house. It’s perfect. It’s the exact kind of suburbia Hyuna has always dreamed of — posh ridiculous suburbia.

She tests the doorknob and finds it unlocked, so she just goes right in, calling “I’m home!” as she takes off her shoes and sets them by the door. There’s faint music playing from the kitchen, and Hui sticks his head out from the second floor landing to see her, smiling so wide like he’s never seen her before. He looks great as ever, his hair back to its natural warm dark brown, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and showing off his one and only tattoo, which Hyojong had designed (with Hyuna’s input, natch) and done on him a year ago; it’s a peony with two daggers through it, right below the crook of his left elbow. Hui had cried almost the whole time, but Hyuna was there to hold his free hand and calm him down, and he was so happy with the end result that he wore a t-shirt to work for weeks on end, even when the weather started getting colder.

“You’re getting your own page? Confirmed?” he asks, and she smiles slightly, coming up the stairs to give him a small kiss.

“Confirmed,” she says, and he makes a triumphant noise and pulls her in by the waist to kiss her again, deeper this time. “Hey, paws off, I’m hungry. Is Dawn home?”

“Yes, he brought pies,” Hui says, releasing her so she can go investigate for herself. “And I tried your sangria and you were right, it turned out great.”

“Well, duh. I’m always right,” Hyuna says and smacks his ass as she walks by. “Haven’t you learned that by now?”

His laughter follows her back down the stairs and to the kitchen, where Hyojong is frowning at the microwave, attempting to fix the clock so it’ll display the same time as the oven. There are three glasses of Hyuna’s homemade sangria waiting on the kitchen island, and she takes one, smiling over at Hyojong. “What are you up to, Dawnie?”

“Not much,” he says. “You hungry? I brought pies.”

“Hui told me,” Hyuna nods. “I’ll go change, then we can all eat, okay?”

“Hang on,” Hyojong says, temporarily pausing his battle against the microwave to come over to her. He leans down to kiss her on the cheek — no hesitation anymore — and rest his hand on her side. “Work go okay? Did they like my logo?”

“They did, you should be getting a little check coming up soon for your efforts,” she hums, giving him another kiss.

“Dope, more money, that’s what I need,” he says, and she laughs, kissing him again before breaking away and taking a sip of her sangria.

For her thirtieth birthday, the boys surprised her with a trip to Spain, to Barcelona. They knew that she was feeling weird about hitting that milestone and they figured some sunshine and beaches and weird Gaudi architecture would make her feel better, and they were absolutely right. It tasted just like this, the wine and fruit and sandy kisses at midday while the city napped, and she closes her eyes for a moment and savors the memory, the comfort and security of having them both with her. They paid for the house with clean money and what they earned from their art heist jobs they spend on small things only; Hui’s teaching them how to be more careful. They’re not at risk anymore. They can just be.

Hyuna sets her glass down and continues through the house, going up and up to the third floor, where their bedroom is. She strips as she walks, figuring if she runs into Hui or Hyojong they won’t exactly mind seeing her naked, and when she’s upstairs, she changes into lounge pants and a loose t-shirt that was Hyojong’s at some point.

It’s been a while since they moved out here, but she still can’t get over just how every single thing in her life is different now than it used to be. She traded the crazy rush of downtown living for domestic comfort; a set work schedule for practically freelancing, working on her own terms; occasional solitude, fear, uncertainty for love and security and strength. They don’t even have the paintings anymore — all the ones from the Louvre job were “mysteriously” found in a mailbox somewhere in the 16th arrondissement, and the other few she still had were mailed back to their respective museums.

Well, most of them.

She pulls on some slippers and heads back down the stairs into the dining room, where Hyojong is setting up. The whole house is decorated fairly modestly, with the exception of the living room, which she walks through on her way to get to dinner.

The living room and its decoration is the reason they can’t really have people over much, but she doesn’t mind. Hui and Hyojong are all she needs, and if her options are “have some stranger over and redecorate your living room to make them more comfortable and also so they don’t call the police” and “hang out with your two soulmates forever,” her choice is pretty clear.

She always smiles at it as she walks past. It’ll never get old.

After all, it’s still as shocking from far away as it is up close. The pale skin, the white sheets, and in the middle of it all, the tangle of dark hair, just a hint of warm red pussy, the pink of her echoed by the nipple in the upper middle of the canvas. In the long history of this painting, there have been some critics that contended that this is a portrait of a corpse, not a living person, and even though Hyuna’s had it on her living room wall for five years now, it still never fails to surprise her how wrong that idea is, because it’s so alive, so breathing and soft and touchable.

She may have changed everything else in her life to get away from their past, but she doesn’t want to forget it completely. L’origine du monde reminds her every day.

Hui and Hyojong are waiting for her in the dining room. Maybe after dinner, she can make them go to the Bois de Vincennes with her, since she’s trying to go at least once a week now that they live so close. They can lie on the grass together and people-watch and pick flowers, corny shit like that, and then come home smelling like the fresh air and each other. She’s not a total homebody, boring though these park-going plans may seem, and she has this crazy idea that she’s going to surprise them with a trip this time around, maybe someplace cooler like the Netherlands or Switzerland. They have the cash to spare, after all.

While she tries not to remember the negatives too much, and while she’s not exactly old yet, she can’t help but recall what she’d said that one fateful night shortly before their Louvre job — that this thing they do can just be what they did when they were young, and they’ll always have it to remember. Maybe this is an anticlimactic end to her story, this bland suburban bliss with Hyojong and Hui, but someday she can tell her grandchildren about what it was like to have the whole world in the palms of her hands, along with some tools and knives kept in a fanny pack. She’s still young and still wild and still restless, but now she’s got something she wants to come home to. And no, it’s not just L’origine du monde, although she does smile at it extremely fondly again as she walks past (they had it up in the dining room at first, but ended up moving it to the living room because Hyuna would just smile adoringly at it and not eat any meals).

It’s Hyojong and Hui, just like this. Sunlit and warm as they sit close together around their too-large dinner table, bickering quietly about which part of the pie is best, the crust or the filling. She watches them from the doorway for a moment until they notice her and lift their heads, smiling, to wave her over.

It’s said that the world will end not with a bang but with a whimper. Hyuna couldn’t agree more, except instead of the world ending, it’s beginning anew, and instead of a whimper, it’s a smile, a comfortable sigh, coming home to dinner and affection after a long day at work. She could get used to this, and in fact, she already has.

With a comfortable sigh and a smile, the sun at her back and the future blinding her, she goes to them, and they live happily ever after.