The painting is larger than life at 300 x 396 centimetres. There is something gripping, and rather alarming, walking into a room to see this beast of a thing hanging at the end of it. The eyes can't make sense of what it's seeing: one's mind doesn't recognize it as a painting so much as a window to another world, another time, another space. There is an instinctive inhale of surprise—the kind of breath that is pulled out of you without your consent—a gasp for air in the face of vista, of its magnanimity.
His steps echo on the marble floors, the sound dampened by the insulated walls. Yatora slips his hands into the pockets of his trousers as he leans back, peering at the magnificent thing. What should he look at first, on the vast canvas? The snarling visage of the tigers with their haunting, apoplectic eyes? Or the desperate figures of the bulls poised to flee for the cerulean, artic blue below?
The cool colors of the sea are a small relief from the garish strokes of fire and smoke, orange and deep brown ravaging the diminishing plane of the cliff whereupon the animals grapple for their lives. It's a picture of urgency, or perhaps, a picture of tragedy … if tragedy could ever hold so much anger, its limbs tightly coiled and tautly wound, and pin it into place. Violence, he thinks, is the better word. The right word.
"Majestic, isn't it?"
Yatora turns, a brow arched in surprise, at the person smiling pleasantly at him. The gallery is empty on a Friday morning, and as engrossed as he was, he barely realized that he wasn't alone. And certainly he didn't expect to be spoken to, let alone in Japanese—with a tilt of Kansai dialect, at that.
He looks back to the painting. Majestic? Maybe so. Personally, perturbing would fit the bill better. Nevertheless. "Yes," he replies, with that slight wariness one would hold against a stranger approaching you in public unwarranted. "I suppose."
"Ah, am I bothering you?" the person laughs, not quite sheepishly. "I apologize. I just had to approach a fellow Japanese, you see."
A poor excuse, Yatora would think. He hardly looks different from any other person in Singapore, where many East Asian diaspora reside. But he lets it go. "It's fine."
The person is tall, taller than Yatora, smiling an amiable—if somewhat impish—smile. Well-dressed with a sleek turtleneck in fine cashmere and trousers, unlike Yatora's own rather casual button-up and jeans. But the hair, now, the hair is a telltale sign. It screams artist, or— "Are you a curator?"
The smile widens a fraction. "At times," the person concedes. "Off the clock, at the moment, but if you'd like..."
The end of the sentence hangs in the air, curling like smoke. They tilt their head, and the smile is definitely impish now, as if there is some sort of inside joke between the two of them.
A beat of consideration, and Yatora decides to indulge. He doesn't quite say please or anything at all, not when a slight nod does a good enough job.
The person—off-the-clock curator—takes an easy step forward, their oxfords as polished as the marble underneath. "Raden Saleh, 1849. Titled Boschbrand— Forest Fire. Painted as a gift to his patron, King Williams III of the Netherlands."
The curator talks with a smooth, innate confidence—the kind of voice that might as well have been taken right out of a documentary. "Raden Saleh is notorious for his romantic landscape paintings, mostly of his homeland Indonesia—which, at the time, was under the Dutch colonial empire."
Yatora never knows what to say in highbrow conversations such as this one, other than hemming and hawing and the like. It has been years since he got out of art school, but the inherent insecurity he holds towards discussions of art never quite leaves. Ironic, considering his current profession.
"He painted for … the colonizer of his land?"
"Oh, yes. He was appointed as the Dutch King's painter, in fact," the curator says. "Raden Saleh's nationalism has been a matter of debate in Indonesian art history for a long time. Which I am not at liberty to speak about, of course."
A peculiar thing happens when context is added—or more precisely, revealed—to a piece of art. It's still the same painting, and yet it's not. Something changes, not in the shades of color, not in the dried chips of paint, but in what it evokes. An uncomfortable realization that, despite being strictly visual objects, paintings are often more than what meets the eye.
"And these..." Yatora follows the curator's gesturing arm to the paintings next to it. "Juan Luna's Espanã y Filipinas, 1884..."
Espanã y Filipinas— Spain and the Philippines. The size is not as grand as the Raden Saleh's painting, but the work is dominant in the room nonetheless: the two versions of them, each hanging vertically at 229.5 x 79.5 centimetres side by side. Yatora takes a careful step to the side, tilting his head for a better look.
Both of them are beautifully colored paintings depicting two women from the back; the figure on the left guiding the figure on the right as they climb up the stairs towards a heavenly splash of light. One version is more vibrant than the other, painted at a different time, but with identical composition: the same bucolic, companionable gesture, the same flower-scattered golden stairs. The details on their dresses are ornate, intricately painted; it casts a beatific, resplendent quality to both figures.
"This was painted when the Philippines was under Spain's colonial rule. The two figures depicted on equal footing allegorized the artist's reformist aspirations for a more equitable relationship between the two countries."
Yatora looks at the painting again, the slim expanse of it—the golden hue, the stark red and blue shades of the women's dresses, the contrast of their skin. Context, see? It's an entirely different painting now. Beauty can evoke so much awe—so much that at times, it conceals.
"Southeast Asian art is rich with history and beauty. One could spend days on end examining each and every interpretation," the curator says behind him. Their demeanor stays relaxed, but something changes in the way they speak when they talk about the art. Yatora isn't quite sure what. Something like reverence, like veneration, slipping into their voice. "Pity that it doesn't receive the same attention as Western art."
"Is this what you specialize in?" Yatora glances at them. "Southeast Asian art?"
"Oh, no. I don't work here, I'm afraid," they laugh again, a bell-chime sound. "I'm in Singapore for pleasure, mostly."
"Oh," Yatora says. He glances at the guard standing by the corner of the room, who hasn't berated them for conversing in the gallery throughout their conversation. As if answering Yatora's unspoken question, the non-local curator produces a card somewhere from the folds of their slacks. "I'm a guest here, you see. It has its perks."
Yatora receives it politely. It's in English, the design whimsically quaint. Haruka Hashida, it says, and..
"Specializing in Contemporary Art," Yatora reads aloud.
"The love of my life," Hashida Haruka says, complete with a hand over their heart. Somehow it does not sound as if they are joking. "But I dabble mostly in auctions, these days."
Again, that air of an elusive inside joke. "Is that so?" Yatora says, slow. "There is an auction coming up soon, isn't there..."
"The Old Master Paintings auction, yes," Hashida Haruka's eyes narrow into crescent slits when they smile. "Held by the end of the week. I was called as an appraisal stand-in. It was a bit of a last minute thing."
"I thought you were only here for pleasure?"
"Mostly pleasure."
Yatora makes a non-committal sound. "What a coincidence. I'm here for business, mostly."
"Pity," they say.
Yatora lets the implication slide like varnish over canvas. "It's hosted by a well-known auction house," he says instead, ignoring a slight blush rising over his cheeks. "I heard there will be a, uh… what's-his-name. Ravens."
"Rubens?" They suggest politely.
Yatora snaps his fingers. "Right, him."
"Indeed," it's in good will that the curator—Hashida—isn't laughing at Yatora's butchering of the renowned artist's name. "A recently discovered version of his Medusa. Quite a coveted item, despite the, ah, wayward rumors."
"Wayward rumors?"
Hashida shrugs, an easy roll of their broad shoulders. "It comes with the territory. A freshly found painting of a prominent Master painter, on sale for a steep price? There would be concerns, naturally."
"They think it's a fake," Yatora says, and for the first time, Hashida's impish smile includes a row of pearly white teeth.
"Ah.." they say, low and shark-like. "It could be. Anything could be a fake. But the paint, the canvas—it's all real, yes?" They grin. "I, for one, think inauthenticity is severely underrated."
Unsure if he really heard what he just heard, Yatora stares at them. There is a pause before Yatora replies. "That's a controversial stance for an art curator," he says, not bothering to hide his bewilderment at such an absurd sentence.
Hashida laughs. "Oh, I love an original work, of course," they say. "But there is value in imitations, I believe. I can respect a good reproduction of a Master. Good craftsmanship is good craftsmanship, don't you agree?"
Yatora huffs, baffled. "So you think a painting's value depends entirely on its craftsmanship regardless of its originality?"
"I think a painting's value cannot possibly be owed only to a single aspect of it," Hashida says, gently. Not condescendingly—gently. "The Mona Lisa has been stolen twice. The one we have in the Louvre could very well be a fake, but millions of people visit Paris every year to see it, no?"
"Are you saying it doesn't matter if a painting is a fake?" Yatora shakes his head, laughing. "Are you saying forgery is okay?"
"I'm saying that for some paintings, the painting itself doesn't matter—what matters is the idea of it," Hashida says, cheerily, as if they aren't practically shitting on the entire art scene at the moment. "The Medusa could be a fake, but as long as there is no concrete evidence proving so, it will be a magnificent painting. And if there is evidence that it is a fake, it will still be a magnificent painting nevertheless."
"Huh," Yatora says. Not really at loss for words, but what else can one say to such a bold, sacrilegious statement?
Hashida seems to be unbothered by Yatora's lack of agreement anyway, moving on without so much a blink. "Will you be at the auction as well, ah..?"
There is another beat before Yatora fills in the blank, giving them a name. They repeat the name thoughtfully. "I see. Are you in Singapore to exhibit your works, perhaps?"
That stops him short. Yatora blinks, actually at a loss this time—and on some degree, extremely uncomfortable. "Oh … uh, no, I'm not—"
"Oh. Are you not an artist?" Hashida has never stopped smiling in this entire conversation, Yatora notices. As if the curve of their mouth is wired on that pale face. "Apologies. Could have fooled me."
Yatore regains his composure, smoothing out his discomfort. "Some people say that," he says mildly, affecting carelessness. It's not a lie; some people do say that—he just has artist vibes, whatever that's supposed to mean. "It's the earrings, isn't it?" or the bleached hair, or the sleeve tattoo.
"Mm, not quite," Hashida says. "It's the way you looked at the Raden Saleh, back there."
The remark is so out of the blue that Yatora can't help but huff a quizzical laugh. "And how did I look at it, exactly?"
"You looked like you wanted to burn it," Hashida says. "You looked like you were jealous."
Yatora stares.
Hashida's smile persists in spite of the ensuing silence. "Well then, I must get going, I'm afraid. It's a pleasure to have met you."
Not waiting for a reply, Hashida's oxfords echo against marble once more as they walk out of the room, leaving Yatora standing in front of the Juan Lunas. Yatora leaves soon after. He can't help but notice that he never casted another look on Raden Saleh's Forest Fire.
Singapore is hot, and its weather fickle—Yatora has been advised by Kuwana to bring an umbrella with him at all times, and he's glad he obeyed. Singapore is brimming with tourists as well, but even then, it's already a nation that contains a multitude of cultures and nationalities. He has never heard so many languages spoken in the same place in his life.
From an outsider perspective, the Singapore art scene is rich, with locals partaking in all kinds of genres. Ever since he got here, he's been visiting all the museums available to the public—the art galleries, mostly, but he visited the National Museum just the day before on a whim.
He learned that Japan had occupied Singapore—along with many other Southeast Asian countries—for several years in World War II. He vaguely remembers learning this in school, but not in such detail. And there are, Yatora finds, a lot of details. Most of them left out and untouched.
Yatora thanks the shopkeeper in English, kaya toast and roti prata held in one plastic bag, and a styrofoam box of curry rice in the other. When he gets back to the apartment, the living room's lights are still off.
"I'm home," he says, out of reflex, which makes him a little embarrassed. No reply. Not that he expects one. "Bought you food. Have you eaten?" No answer still.
The apartment belongs to Kuwana's family. It's a condo, really. Not a high-rise condo, but luxurious nevertheless with its Rococo furniture, crystal chandeliers, high ceilings and one or two Rodin sculptures that Yatora suspects are real. There are also shelves filled with books. Yatora has skimmed through some; he picked a John Berger's copy of Ways of Seeing just the night before—a rather worn out copy, its pages filled with annotations written by an unfamiliar hand. Yatora suspects they belong to Kuwana's older sister.
Yatora sighs, putting down the food on the coffee table. He walks further down the hall, knocks on the second door to the left. When he doesn't hear an answer, he opens the door.
And staring at him are the three pairs of Rubens' Medusa's eyes.
The Medusas are sitting pretty in their respective easels, each 69 x 118 centimetres in dimension, scattered around the room. It's a spacious room, enough to be turned into a makeshift studio. Yatora's eyes move to the small figure in the middle of it, working on the fourth canvas.
Yotasuke works fast. His workspace is sparse, clean, cleaner than it ought to be. The window is half-opened, letting an easy breeze in, but it doesn't quite air out the distinct scent of linseed oil and turpentine. "What," Yotasuke says, not bothering to avert his eyes from his work.
Some things that common people wouldn't guess as essentials, in art forgery, are the canvasses and the frames. You can't paint a Rubens or a Rembrandt in a sleek, Winsor & Newton canvas, and you certainly can't fit them into a polished, gold-gilded frame. It can't look new. It can't look varnished. If a Da Vinci isn't falling apart, it isn't authentic.
These paintings have to be put in front of a blasting fan to get the paints to crack. They have to be varnished with a certain kind of glue, the canvasses reheated and then re-varnished again. They will be dusted down, shredded by the edges—and several other elaborate steps to simulate consistent aging. At its peak, it will pass x-ray examination, UV light, and microscopy. But the real secret of art forgery, in Yatora's humble opinion, is remarkable craftsmanship.
And Yotasuke has that. Oh, he has that in spades.
"Have you eaten?"
Yotasuke doesn't answer, which Yatora knows means no. "I bought you kaya toast and prata."
Beat. And then, "Thank you."
It shouldn't make him smile as big as it does, but Yatora has already half-given up on his Yotasuke-adjacent reflexes. "No problem," Yatora says, as Yotasuke abruptly stands up and passes him, presumably to devour his brunch.
Alone in the room, Yatora walks towards the easel, and the paint-splattered desk next to it. Beside the bottles of linseed oil and turpentine, there are walnut oil, pine resin, egg whites and yolks. On Yotasuke's discarded palette is a variant of lead white, vermillion, verdigris, lead-tin yellow, yellow ochre, hematite ... the limited colors that Rubens used. Use the wrong shade of green, and your fake will be clocked faster than the paint dries.
Rubens, like all painters, had a specific way of painting. A series of steps, of habits, specific little quirks and ticks. Da Vinci experimented with oils and tempera paints, Van Gogh had a penchant for applying paints straight on to the canvas. Now, Rubens, he liked to build up his layers. He liked to glaze over his dark grounds, highlighting the skin in a particular shade of white. He would paint rapidly in thin layers, resulting in the occasional little drips, splashes. The viscosity of his paint is important..
All these minute details, in the most accomplished of forgeries, must be emulated with loyal dedication. So loyal and dedicated as to fool even Rubens himself.
Yatora could picture Yotasuke sitting on the stool, his posture straight, gaze pointed upwards; his hand gripping the brush in that particular way that he does, clenched in a fist. The image is as clear as day, from memory, from the reenactment of a memory. He could picture Yotasuke's brush, his strokes assured, confident, precise, as he reconstructs one Medusa after another.
Yatora sits where Yotasuke does in his mind. He leans back, peering at Yotasuke's work in progress of Rubens' Medusa. He has finished the underpaintings. The dark values are established, all dramatic shadows glazed, the sketch outlined. The picture has taken shape.
What should he look at first, on the vast canvas?
The rich, pomegranate red just beyond the severed head? The snarl smearing the woman's features, twisted, anguished, furious, helpless? The slick scales of the slithering snakes, twisting in ringlets, in curls—as if they could, if they try hard enough, escape from their host's death?
Yatora has seen the other finished copies. He has seen Yotasuke's sketches, studies of the same work. And yet, when he looks at this—this unfinished Medusa, this forgery of a masterpiece, this masterpiece despite its forgery—his breath catches still. Without his consent, it's pulled out of him: a gasp for air in the face of vista, of its magnanimity.
Beauty inspires awe. So much that it conceals things. Things like counterfeit. Or fraud. Or truth.
You look like you wanted to burn it, a smooth, reverent voice says.
You look like you were—
Yatora tears his eyes away.
When he returns to the living room, Yotasuke is sitting at the kitchen counter.
He doesn't seem to notice when Yatora enters the room—or if he does, he doesn't care enough to show it. He's eating the kaya toasts and pratas bare handed, the styrofoam cup of milk tea right next to the crumbs. Unlike Yatora, Yotasuke has taken a liking to local delicacies.
Yatora takes his own food—the curry—off the table, and then freezes in place.
There is another seat on the kitchen counter. He could go there and sit next to Yotasuke, or he could eat it on the table. No, he should just eat on the table. Wouldn't it be weird if he just comes up at him and—
"Are you gonna eat," Yotasuke says, "or are you just gonna stand there the whole day?"
Yatora, who is in the middle of standing by the door like an idiot, blinks at him. "Um—"
Yotasuke glances at him, his gaze as flat as his voice. "Yaguchi. Just sit down."
Yatora blinks again. "Okay," he says. And then he sits down on the counter. Yotasuke is right next to him. Yatora tries to act like a normal and functioning person. "Thanks," Yatora says.
Yotasuke looks at him weirdly. "What for?"
Yatora opens his mouth only to close it again once he realizes "Thanks for letting me sit next to you" isn't a very normal and functioning thing to say. Yatora is about to jump out the nearest window when the doorbell rings. "I'll get it," Yatora murmurs, glad for any excuse to exit the conversation. He feels Yotasuke's gaze on his back as he retreats to the front door.
"Halo," says Yuka the moment Yatora opens the door. "Why is your face so red?"
Yatora bristles. "It's not—"
"Zǎoshang hǎo!" Ignoring whatever stuttering reply Yatora is coming up with, she barges into the room. "That means good morning. Though it's not morning, it's lunchtime," she sits momentarily on a nearby sofa, shopping bags scattered as she frees her feet from her four inch heels. "And speaking of lunch—"
Yatora watches in dismay as she trots to the kitchen to take the styrofoam box of curry away for herself.
"That's mine," Yatora starts, knowing very well that it will fall on deaf ears.
"Mm," Yuka nods in approval, a tiny blob of curry staining a corner of her lip gloss. "Hey, pretty good."
Somewhat exasperatedly, Yatora takes the spoon from her hand. It is pretty good. "Get your own lunch."
"You would let such a pretty girl starve?" Yuka says. "My. You have no heart. Yotasuke, does he not have a heart?" When Yotasuka doesn't answer, Yuka grins and says, "Right, he doesn't, because you took it from—"
"Shut up," Yatora hands her the spoon and curry back. Yuka receives them with a wink.
The outfit he is wearing is picked out by Yuka at her insistence. He fiddles with his tie until Yuka clicks her tongue at it and then her heels as she struts forward to take care of it herself.
"This is a $140 silk tie," she chides, manicured fingers undoing Yatora's sad attempt at a windsor knot. He can smell her perfume—something soft and earthy, like fresh-cut flowers. "Be a bit more gentle with it, why don't you."
"Sorry I'm a plebeian," he snarks, but stays still until she finishes doing her thing. He obediently lets her drag him in front of the mirror, patting and smoothing his suit down. She has always been the taller one, but with the added five centimetres of her heels, she positively towers above him. Yatora has accepted that, at some point in his life.
"I knew this vest would bring out your eyes," she mutters, half to herself. She frowns when her gaze falls to his feet. "Change your shoes. Pick the Berluti instead."
"Didn't bring that one."
"I told you to bring that one."
"No you didn't."
Another tongue click. She reaches forward to fix his collar. "Did you bring the Louboutin at least?"
Another fifteen minutes of her fussing over this and that and then they are off in a taxi. Yotasuke didn't bother seeing them off, locking himself in his studio once again to continue his work. He would begin putting the highlights now, Yatora thinks. He would start on the details, the scales, the glimmer of blood..
Yatora leans against the window, watching sunset fall over the city, washing the sky in pinks and oranges. Yuka is reapplying her lipstick—burgundy to match the periwinkle shimmer on her lids—next to him as she says, "Kuwana can't make it, she has to meet our fence in Kiev. They had a last minute exchange."
"Ooba told me," Yatora says. Kuwana is their insider at the art auction. Coming from a renowned family of artists, she plays a lot of hand in art dealing, what with her connections in the industry. Now that she can't make it, they called another replacement last minute.
Yatora doesn't like that so much. He likes to plan things out, likes to have a strategy, likes to have something to fall on to. But he's always been good at improvising.
"Did you go to the gallery again today?"
At Yatora's vague hum of affirmation, she caps her lipstick, checking her reflection in the compact mirror. "Met anyone interesting?"
"Don't start."
"Start what?" Yuka bats her lashes at him. As if that move would work on Yatora. He sniffs. Yatora doesn't reply, opting to give her a withering look instead.
"Why, Yatora," she sighs, placing her hand over the neckline of her dress, "I'm simply showing concern to my dear friend, who is in severe need of company—"
Yatora groans. She ignores this. "Singapore is a beautiful country," she continues. "You could use this chance to, you know, go out a little more—"
"I go out an adequate amount, thank you very much—"
"Really?" Yuka tilts her head, strands of vanilla blond falling over her royal purple dress. "'Cuz the way I see it, all you do since we got here is watch Yotasuke-kun with hearts in your eyes—"
"There aren't hearts in my eyes," Yatora seethes, vowing to ignore the heat in his cheeks.
"But you do watch him everyday?"
"I don't watch him everyday —"
"So you agree that you do watch him, then—"
"I don't—" Yatora cuts himself off and attempts, rather poorly, to act more mature about this. "I'm not. I don't. Stop, okay."
"Don't you?" Yuka makes a cooing sound. "My bad, I must be going blind.."
"Fuck you."
"Now, now, that's no way to talk to a lady, hm?" Yuka snaps her compact shut and offers him a brilliant, infuriatingly perfect smile. She swipes her hair to her back, straightening the spaghetti straps of her dress. "How do I look?"
Yatora glances at her sullenly. How does she look? As if she doesn't already know. Yuka looks like she is going to take hearts, break them, put them back together, and break them again. Yatora rolls his eyes. "Like a model," he says, wishing he's being sarcastic. Unfortunately, sarcasm requires one's statement to be untrue. "Like a magazine cover. Happy?"
She grins at him. This one smile is not perfect. It's lopsided, toothier, realer. "Vogue or Harper's Bazaar?"
When they get to the meeting location, night has fallen. As they ride the elevator to the top floor, Yatora glances at his watch. The mark should be here soon.
"Thank you, dear," Yuka smiles when the waitress offers to take her coat. The waitress stumbles backwards with a furious blush, which goes unnoticed. If she did notice, she is too well used to it to give it another note.
Another waiter pulls her chair out for her and Yuka sits down at the table with a low whistle, tracing the edge of the lacquered oak with a finger. "Isn't this fancy. Did you pick this place?"
"Nah, the mark did."
It is fancy, even for their usual standards. The bar is located on the top floor, high-rise—they can see the entire city through the floor to ceiling windows circling the lounge. At day, it probably would give him slight vertigo. Now that the sun has set, the darkness gives way for the city lights to glimmer like neon over diamonds.
The tables around them are fully booked. Yatora is glad that he let Yuka fuss over his clothes—the other guests are just as dressed up, if not more and beyond. This spot would take months to book if you don't have the right connections.
It's not Yatora's cup of tea, this. Excess—especially the glamorous, glitzy kind—often makes him uncomfortable. Another irony considering his current line of work. Life really does get you fast.
Yatora's tastes aside, he knows Ooba would never greenlight this kind of place as a meeting point. It's too conspicuous, and needlessly harsh on their budget.
"Oh, look—free sparkling water," Yuka says, pouring some into her glass. "I hate this shit."
"Tell me about it," Yatora says, staring at her glass with disgust. "How the fuck did they manage to gentrify water?"
Yuka, who is in the middle of sipping the water carefully so as not to smear her lipstick, throws her head back and laughs. And then, in one languid, undulating moment, Yatora realizes that it fits her, this: sitting in beautiful clothes, surrounded by beautiful people and beautiful things. Beauty fits her beautifully.
"Ah," Yuka says, putting her glass down. "That him?"
Yatora takes his eyes away from her, watching the oncoming man from the corner of his eyes. Their mark. "Yep."
Yuka sighs dolefully. "Can't we get a hotter guy to scam next time?"
"Rich guys aren't hot," Yatora says, standing up. "If they were hot they wouldn't need all those ugly ass watches. Hello, Yanai-san! As I've mentioned over the phone, this is—"
"You must be Nitori Ichika," Michael Yanai says, practically shoving Yatora aside to greet her. Yatora sits back down, fighting the painful urge to roll his eyes to the next goddamn planet.
"That's me," Yuka chirps, radiant as a summer day, or whatever it is the poets say. "I've heard a lot about you, Yanai-san."
"And I you," Michael says, which is a blatant lie, because the wiki page for 'Nitori Ichika'—allegedly the granddaughter of the Ichika tycoon and an aspiring fashion designer—was made less than a week ago. But men always have this regrettable tendency to flatter the nearest attractive person.
Yuka laughs, in this specific saccharine way that Yatora knows means she wants him to think her dumb. "I don't know much about business, I'm afraid," Yuka says, the addendum as much as I know about designer bags and shoes and other rich girl things, wink wink unspoken and understood. "But I've been told that, your oil company aside—" that belongs to your father and your father's father's father, another unspoken addendum "—you have been dabbling in Tokyo's contemporary art scene for quite some time.."
"Oh, yes, art is a side hobby of mine," Michael says, in this specific ostentatious way that Yatora knows means he wants her to think him intelligent. "We simply must put value in Japan's artist youth, you see.." it's a money-laundering mine,addendum. "I think it's such an untapped market.." and highly unethically profitable, addendum.
"I see," Yuka says obligingly, suggesting that she in fact does not see. "Is that why you sponsored all those, um, the kids of those ... what's-its-name university.."
"Musahino Art University," Yatora reminds her dutifully.
"Ah, Musahino Art University, that's one of my projects in the past year," Michael nods sagely. "The international art scene is thirsty for fresh faces, y'see, for new, exciting works, and Musahino graduates are a myriad of overlooked talents.."
"Oh, really?" Yuka says indulgently, before flagging a nearby waiter. "Could I get a long island, please? What would you like, Yanai-san?"
It takes three cocktails for his words to start to slur, which means that he's going to talk about real shit real soon. Always pick the young ones, Yatora thinks. The young, daddy's boy types. They are the ones most eager to impress, easiest to flatter.
"It's easy money, y'know. Easy money. Fresh grads, easy pickings. These kids, they have little to no prospects— we are their only chance, see? So you pay 'em dirt, get 'em to sign a long-term contract on the licenses—"
"Licenses?" Yuka echoes, blinking up wide eyes below thick lashes in another attempt to look dumb.
Michael, belatedly realizing that the term 'license' might be too advanced for her, waves his hands somewhat impatiently. "Yes, yes, we get them to sign an agreement, stating all their future works belong to us onwards, y'see, set a term on their shares of their own artworks—"
"Oh," says Yuka coldly, and for a fraction of a second, she lets her mask slip—something furious and hateful flashing across her face like murder. Michael does not seem to notice, too engrossed in explaining his exploitment scheme in minute detail.
"—keep sponsoring them, build up their reps … and then, then, sell their pieces for an even higher price—but their shares stay to the original contract. Build-a-golden-goose, basically! Your own personal moneymaker, all paid for dirt. Easy money, eh?"
The mask slips back on her face effortlessly after years and years of practice. Yuka nods with an ooh, sipping her long island, pretending that she is pretending to understand. "Wow," she says sweetly. "You are so smart, Yanai-san ... umm, may I call you Michael instead? Or Mikkun?"
That's pushing it, Yatora thinks, but Mikkun seems to think otherwise. "Oh, please!"
"Well then, Mikkun," Yuka tilts her head. "It just seems to me that you know so much about all this … you know, this art thingy."
"Well, I wouldn't say I'm an outsider.."
"Mmhmm. See, the thing is … and I wouldn't tell this to just anyone, m'kay," Yuka says, voice affecting concern. "You know how they say the art market is rife with scams and con men.."
Michael bristles, his fourth cocktail nearly splashing out of his glass at the movement. "My connections pride themselves in their integrity, Nitori-san—"
"Oh, I know, I know," Yuka coos placatingly. She pats Michael's arm briefly, and Yatora nearly pities the man. Michael Yanai never stood a chance. Her voice is arsenic sweet as she spouts lie after lie after lie. "Which is why I decided to meet you, Mikkun! My family, you see, we have this one painting handed down from generation to generation … I've been told that it's a, umm, what's-his-name.. Revoir."
"Renoir," Yatora reminds her dutifully.
This time, the cocktail does spill. "Renoir?" Michael repeats incredulously.
Despite being active in the East and Southeast Asian contemporary art market, Yanai has yet to make a name for himself internationally. China is the hotspot of the art market in the continent, but it only holds eighteen per-cent of sales in the global market. To play big, you have to enter the US market. He has to make a splash, which he could do, if he could get his hands on a genuine Master painting.
In other words, one can already see the calculator in his brain counting out how much money he could possibly squeeze from this. Yatora sips his drink, watching the man attempt not to let his greed show too much. It is a rather poor attempt, if you ask him.
Ah, Yatora thinks. Easy pickings.
Yuka snaps her fingers. "Yes, a Renoir. Ugh, I simply can't memorize all these, like, American names. So, about this Ren-oir … we've been wanting to sell it, you see, but we just can't seem to find a dealer we can trust … and I've been wondering, you know, since you are so knowledgeable—"
It's over, Yatora knows. The mark's eyes practically sparkle as Yuka plays him like a fiddle and Yatora thinks to himself: easy money.
"Ugh, my head."
Yatora passes her his cigarette. "I told you to rein it in."
Yuka takes it from him, the ember burning as she inhales it like air. "Yatora, Yatora," she wags a finger at him, speaking with the smoke between her teeth. Her nails glint under the daylight, like glitter. "You should never refuse a free drink."
Yatora takes the cig off her mouth. She scowls at him before exhaling a cloud of smoke in his face. "Real mature," he says.
She grins at that, her lips a pale pink. She isn't wearing lipstick. She isn't wearing any makeup at all, in fact. Her hair is tucked underneath a navy blue cap, matching with her nondescript button-up shirt and jeans.
Yatora, however, is in full suit and tie getup. He is sweating slightly underneath it, with the sun out in full force. He glances at his phone. He's got to get inside in a few—the auction is starting soon. "Where the hell is he?" The he in question isn't late, but he's close. Yatora pulls at his tie indignantly, trying to get a bit of air in. "I swear, if he doesn't get here in—"
Yuka stands up, crushing the cigarette under her sneakers. She nods at the incoming van swerving to enter the parking lot. "There is your guy."
Yatora makes a face. "He isn't my guy."
Yuka hums, in this specific way to let Yatora know she isn't listening. "He's cute, you know. Like, seriously. Like, cute cute."
"Yuka, I swear to god—"
"I would even consider him a ten, and I'm a twelve.."
"Don't start."
"Start what?"
The blue van stops in front of them, and then the window rolls down to show a row of grinning teeth.
"Hey, sweethearts," Murai Yakumo winks at them with a thousand watt grin. "Need a ride?"
"Why, I would never refuse a free ride," Yuka says, staring Yatora in the eye as she says this. "From such a cute guy no less. Don't you agree, Yatora? Isn't he cute?"
"Stop it," Yatora tells her. To Murai, Yatora accuses, "You're almost late."
"Aw," Murai says. Like Yuka, he is also wearing the same cap, the same attire. Emblazoned on them—just like on the van—is the name of a garbage collection service company that doesn't exist. Murai opens the glove box to hand him a document. "Did you miss me that much?"
Yatora receives the folder map, making a face. "Maybe when you get a better pick up line."
He takes the invitation letter—one addressed to a name that isn't his—and slips it inside his vest. He proceeds to flip through the document; guest details, floor map—he already memorized them all the week before. And finally—
Yatora stares at the final page. A picture and a name. He stays silent for a few more beats before saying, slowly, "This is our insider?"
"Yep," Yuka says. She's inside the van now, sitting shotgun. "They're Yotasuke's connection, apparently."
Yatora already knows that. What he didn't know is—
"All right," he hands the folder back to Murai. What the fuck ever. "Stay sharp. We'll rendezvous in a half."
Murai tilts his head at him, an arm lazily splayed on the driver's wheel. "And maybe at seven tonight, my treat?"
Yatora has already turned on his heels, walking briskly to the auction house. He pretends not to hear him. Or Yuka's laughter.
The auction is held at Gillman Barracks, a cluster in the southwest area of Singapore that hosts international galleries of art. He has to take a five minute walk from the parking lot to reach the three-story building—brutalist, bare, sleek—and get his invite authenticated. And then he's in.
There is some kind of energy in auction houses. An ornate sort of thrill, gilded with glitz and chintz. Waiters are waltzing around with champagne, light cocktails, golden plates of hors d'oeuvres. The ceiling is high, windows as tall as they come, sunlight entering the space battling with the dozen units of air conditioners. People in beautiful clothes with beautiful food in a beautiful place, huddling together to buy beautiful things. Excess, excess.
Yuka would do this role well. Playing the elite, the connoisseur, someone who was brought up in this minimalist, excessive world—she would excel at it; she looks it. But they need someone who is a little inconspicuous. A little careful, a little too perfectionist. They need someone who is a stickler. Yuka would shine, but Yatora would blend.
Yatora watches the attendees poised with phones and tablets on hand, getting ready to contact the bidders they represent at any moment's notice. Yatora knows some of the bidders aren't genuine—fake bidders are planted here and there to drive up values. You wouldn't think a blank canvas is worth $15 million until someone offers to buy it for as much.
Things like art, wine, convertibles—they aren't concrete, tangible assets. The numerical value of a piece of art is entirely speculative. The art market is all about playing the greater fool: who would want to buy this piece of art at a higher price than I bought it from?
It's all a game of appearances, a game of legitimacy. Prestige. Ego. And most essential of all: a game of accountancy.
Auction is starting in five, and excitement is riding high. The room feels crowded, even with its generous space. Christine's, one of the big three international auction houses, sold a Rubens for £44.8 million in 2016. Despite the wayward rumors, the bidding for this Rubens is going to be fierce.
You'd think the attendees would be artists. You'd think people who want to buy art would be people who enjoy it, admire it, love it. But these people are lawyers, accountants, businessmen. And the ones at the end of the phone are investors who couldn't give less of a shit about how Rubens' Medusa even looks.
It doesn't matter if a painting is beautiful. It doesn't matter, even, if a painting is authentic on legal paper. It only matters if a painting is ungodly expensive in numbers and easy to store in some offshore storage where you can utilize it to evade your tax, launder your money, and insure your properties at your convenience.
The art market is rife with scams and con men, they say. Why wouldn't it, when the art market itself is a fraud in the first place? The entire industry is a con man's backyard, and right now, they are at their own private yard sale.
"Fancy to meet you here, Yaguchi-san."
"That's not the name I gave you," Yatora says mildly.
"Apologies. Am I bothering you?" Hashida Haruka laughs, not quite sheepishly. "I simply had to approach a fellow Japanese, you see."
Hell, is there really a need to rub it in? Yatora keeps his eyes on the auction stage. They are showing the first painting—an abstract expressionist piece, garish reds and solid blacks. Starting price: $1,500. "So this is the business end to your 'mostly pleasure'."
"Not quite." Hashida takes two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter. "This is the pleasure."
A glass is offered amicably under Yatora's nose, as if Hashida Haruka hadn't made a fool out of him just for the hell of it. "A toast to celebrate our blooming partnership?"
For the first time, Yatora turns to look at them. To look at the crescent moon eyes and the wired smile, fixed like a painting in a frame. They are unsettling, Yatora decides. Not to mention irritating.
But Yatora is a professional. He takes the offered glass politely. "Maybe after it's over." He doesn't bother to keep the coldness out of his voice, however.
They are wearing another turtleneck, this one a shade of pearly white. "I apologize, once again. I couldn't help myself," Hashida says, like it's a confession, and not one they are especially sorry about.
It's difficult not to feel antagonized. "Mona Lisa was stolen twice, huh?"
The abstract expressionist art is sold at $6,300. Another piece is auctioned: this one a sculpture, ambiguously anthropomorphic. Pure silver. "Quite an interesting story, that," Hashida says. "Did you know it was missing for as long as two years, the first time it was taken?"
"Was it really?"
"Oh, yes. It was stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, a former employee of the Louvre. He kept it safe in his apartment for two years—right under Parisian noses. The greatest art theft in the 20th century."
There are six cameras in the room. They cover nearly every point of space, leaving very little blind spots. But that's fine; the records are gonna get burnt anyway. "$7,000, $7,100, $7,400, and sold, ladies and gentlemen—"
"How did he get caught?" Yatora says, and then to a passing waiter, "Excuse me, could you show me where the bathroom is?"
"He tried to sell it. They caught him when he was taking a nap. Strange, no?" Hashida says, following Yatora as he walks briskly to the bathroom. "The greatest art thief in the world, caught napping in a hotel room."
"Very much so." No one pays them any attention as they walk by—all eyes are now on the next piece of showcased art. Starting price: $8,000.
The bathroom is sterile white, almost to an uncomfortable degree. Yatora eyes the abstract, phallic sculptures decorating the walls as he puts on his gloves. Do they really think these are tasteful? There is something to be said about the wealthy and their interest in quirky genitalia art pieces.
Yatora rips the suits—not one of Yuka's chosen fits for him, clearly—and it tears easily at the seams. Yatora discards them in the trash can, and then runs his hand to toss his previously slicked-back hair. That leaves him with a white button up, a tied apron around his waist and of course, a name card pinned neatly on his pocket. Now he looks just like one of the waiters.
Hashida is on the tail end of a conversation when Yatora returns outside, talking to several guests at once, laughing. They stop doing so when Yatora bumps them into spilling champagne all over their turtleneck.
"Oh, I'm so sorry sir," Yatora lies in English, pulling Hashida away. "I'm so sorry, I could give you a change of clothes, if you would just come with me for a moment—"
Yatora lets Hashida's arm go once they are out of earshot. Out of sight, to be accurate. They enter an elevator by the end of the hallway, one that Hashida needs to authenticate with a swipe of their member card. They sigh at the stain on their shirt. "This is designer, you know.."
Yatora is unsympathetic. "Get Ooba to reimburse it."
"So, Yaguchi-san—"
"Not the name I gave you."
"Yotasuke told me a lot about you."
That stops Yatora short. He keeps his face as straight as possible before he says, "Is that so."
"Both of you are close."
"Not really," Yatora says, a beat too quickly.
"You work together," Hashida points out glibly. "You went to the same school."
That's not quite right. "We dropped out of the same school."
The elevator dings open. There is a beat of silence, and then Hashida says, "Please," as if he is a curator showing a guest inside a gallery.
Yatora walks out of the elevator and into the room, looking Medusa right in the eye.
69 x 118 centimetres in dimension. Dramatic shadows, sparse highlights in that specific shade of white. Precise and proportionate values. The rich pomegranate red just beyond the severed head, the anguished, helpless snarl. The slick scales of the slithering snakes. And a breath pulled out of you, without your consent.
"Majestic, isn't it?"
Majestic? Maybe so. Personally—
"You don't like it," Hashida says, almost curiously.
"Do you always assume so much about people you just met?"
Hashida smiles, endlessly genial despite Yatora's tone. "I'm a curator, Yaguchi-san," they say calmly, in a pleasant reminder. "I can tell if someone likes a painting, or dislikes it, or—"
"Or wants to burn it down?"
Hashida returns Yatora's gaze steadily. His eyes are opal, blots of ink. "Or wants to burn it down. And you don't want to burn this down."
Yatora doesn't know what to say to that, to the accusation that he would burn things out of admiration. To the notion that he loves like arson. He thinks of the snarling visage of the doomed tigers, and then of the whitening knuckles of Yotasuke's fist when he holds his brush. And then a memory, half-forgotten, of the brush held in his own fist. Yatora looks back into Medusa's eyes.
There is a part of him that still looks at art with greed, but not the right kind of greed. He doesn't look at art and see numbers, or mansions, or designer watches. He looks at art and he sees—himself. On the stool, over the easel, paint-splattered, sun-drenched. The wrong kind of greed. A desire of ownership with none of the monetary connotation. He looks at art with love; the fucked up kind, like a forest fire.
But he isn't an artist. He is a thief.
Yatora averts his eyes. "It's not as good as I imagined," Yatora says finally.
No, that's not quite right. It's not as good as he remembered.
The colors are muted with time, the paints cracked with age. In Yatora's memory, it's more … alive. Angrier. Perturbing. But this painting in front of him—time has mellowed it down. Dulled the fury of Medusa into fatigue, yellowed her blood into molding brown. It's a beautiful painting, and it must've been a very, very beautiful painting once—and that would be enough, if Yatora hadn't seen better.
It's not as good, Yatora thinks, as the forgeries sitting in Yotasuke's studio.
But that doesn't matter, does it? Not really. He wonders how much this would sell for, this derelict, four centuries old painting. Sixty, seventy million? Eighty?
Some tycoon is going to purchase this, spend several thousand dollars to preserve it, and milk as much money out of it before it eventually crumbles apart with age. And in all of it, this greying masterpiece will perhaps be hung on some yacht, or some summer house in Greece, forgotten to the world. Never to see the light again.
And right now, it's Yatora's job not to let that happen. At least not yet.
Yatora produces a silk roll of fabric and another of plastic under his apron. There is another exit from the building, the chute they use for garbage disposal. In another five minutes, Murai and Yuka will be there, waiting for a certain trash bag to transport. In another ten minutes, the auctioneers are going to come up and find their pièce de résistance gone mysteriously. "Isn't there another story to that Mona Lisa theft?"
"There is. Though the legitimacy to the details is arguable," Hashida says, helping Yatora take the painting from the easel. "Some say that Peruggia was just a pawn. The real mastermind was out there, rich off selling six copies of Mona Lisa to the wealthy around the world."
"They took advantage of her disappearance." Twisting the crime into proof of authentication.
"That's the thing about Mona Lisa," Hashida says. "If you never let her out of her cage..."
"People will have nothing to compare her to," Yatora says. He rips his apron apart. Inside the stitches of the fabric is a trash bag, one and a half metre wide. "They have no way to tell if the other Monas is a fake."
But people doesn't really care if she's real. Not really. After all, it isn't so much the authenticity of it as much as it is the idea of it.
"Personally, I would hate to see her caged," Hashida says. That smooth, elegant quality persists in his voice—a curator's voice—as they help Yatora steal a painting. "She deserves to be seen. All art does."
"Even the fake ones?"
"Oh, yes," Hashida takes a pair of gloves outside their pockets, wearing them down over their slender fingers. "All art is made by people, for people. That applies especially to forgeries, don't you think?"
And Yatora wants to ask them, in one sudden, impulsive moment. He wants to ask why Hashida is doing this. Yatora has let that love go—he would like to think he has, at least. But that thing he hears in Hashida's voice—and he hears it even now, in the tale of the caged Mona Lisa—that reverence, that veneration, that love … all of it sounds real. Real enough that it doesn't matter if it's faked.
But maybe that's the answer, right there. If Yatora's love for art is fucked up, maybe Hashida's love is a different kind of fucked up. Why else would their love land them here, of all places?
In any case, Yatora is a professional. And their partnership will come to an end as soon as they step out of the door with the stolen masterpiece in hand.
"Well," Hashida says, nodding to the Medusa laid on the floor, wrapped in silk and plastic in all of her decaying glory. Crescent moon eyes, wired smile. "Let's take her out of her cage, shall we?"