Chapter 14

It was Saturday, I hadn't seen any of the guys since Monday, I had been avoiding Ranko and Tatsuro to the best of my ability. I probably won't see any of the guys till the next mission, we still had my gramp's third painting to find.

I was sat in my apartment relaxing on my bed, I just wanted to forget everything that was happening lately. All I needed to do was get my Gramp's stuff back and then I could go back to my life as normal.

My phone then started ringing.

"Hello?"

"Why haven't you come around lately?" Takuto asked.

"Oh hey Takuto."

"I haven't seen you all week. What's happened?"

I sat up "Nothing… it's just everything with Tatsuro I thought it best to keep a low profile."

"Hmm.. well, you should come over sometime. It's boring here without you. That's what Boss said, anyway." He said.

"Haha. Ok, I have been craving pork noodles." I said.

"Great."

"I'll see you later." I said and hung up.

I sighed and smiled, most of the time Takuto was such a jerk but sometimes he could be nice.

I decided to take a bath before changing into my pajamas and stretched out onto my bed.

DING DONG

"Huh?"

"Lala's Delivery Service!"

Lala?

"I've brought your order."

I opened the door and saw Takuto stood there.

"Here are your pork noodles." He said and held up a bag.

"Hey, come in." I said confused.

He set down two bowls of pork noodles on my desk.

"Why are you here?" I asked as I closed the door.

"You said you've been craving them, right? So I brought some for you." He said.

"Really? Thank you." I said and sat next to him.

Truth be told, I had been dying for some company.

As we ate the noodles, Takuto looked around my room.

"Looks like a poor person lives here."

"Well excuse me, I am poor!"

He then started coughing.

"That's what you get for being mean." I said.

He continued to choke so I hit him hard on the back.

"Better now?" I asked.

"Yeah… hitting me way too hard, as usual."

"I did it on purpose this time." I said with a cheeky smile.

He looked at me and matched my smile.

"You finally smiled."

He had a really kind smile, it was weird seeing him this way.

"You have a ton of art books, huh?" he said. "What's this one?"

"A book about Leone Battista Alberti's architecture."

"Alberit?"

I showed him all of the various buildings, paintings and sculptures and we talked about that for a while.

"You really do love art. Have you always?" he asked.

"Yeah I guess. I would spend hours in Gramp's work shop. He use to take me to museums all the time." I said. "I just love art so much, that's why I wanted to work in a museum."

"It's sounds nice to want to be with something just because you love it." He said.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

He was silent for a moment before he looked up at me.

"I was just thinking, maybe talking to girls isn't so bad." He said.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, I'm going home now. I just came to give you hat food, anyway." He said and stood up.

"Well thank you for the noodles. You really cheered me up, with everything that's happened I've been feeling kinda down."

"Feeling better now?" he asked and gently patted my head.

Oh great, now he was doing it. Why did everyone insist on patting my head? It made no sense.

"Yes, thank you. You're a good friend." I said.

Just as he was about to leave, his phone rang.

"Text from Rikki." He said.

Just then my phone rang as well.

"I got one too. It says, 'got some info on the 3rd painting. Meet a LRN.'"

We both exchanged glances. I quickly got changed and we went to the bar together.

"You two were together?" Riki asked.

"Yeah, I ate pork noodles at her house." Takuto said.

"He was just trying to cheer up. With the whole Tatsuro situation." I said.

Riki just nodded.

"Why'd you call us here so late, Riki?" Hiro asked.

"Sorry about that. I wanted to tell everyone ASAP." Riki said.

He then explained the information he'd received about the third painting.

"According to my information, the third painting will be sold in a black market auction tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? So soon?" Boss asked.

"The auction will be held at an expensive hotel in Hokkaido. Only people who have passed rigorous background checks will be allowed inside. There will be guards everywhere around and inside of the hotel. So here is the simulation I've devised to steal the painting."

He opened his laptop and showed us the blue prints of the hotel.

"I'll explain everything in detail."

"Hey, it's been forever since I saw you at Le Renard Noir." Kenshi said to me.

"Yeah well I've been busy at work and stuff…"

I had seen Kenshi every day at work and we would often drink together when I finished my shift before I would go home, but I would always decline to come to the bar with him.

"Does it have something to do with Tatsuro?" he asked.

I nodded "I just think it's best to keep a distance between me and here, incase he's following me or something. I don't want him to get more suspicious." I said.

"That's a good plan. Has he bothered you since?" Riki asked.

"No." I said.

"Good. We have an early day tomorrow, better get some rest." Riki said.

"Ok, good night." Kenshi said and left the room.

"You can sleep in my room." Riki said.

"Oh thanks Riki but… I'd rather go to my own apartment." I said.

I turned to walk away but he grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

"It's too late to go back to your apartment now. Just go to my room and get some sleep, you look like you haven't slept in days." He said.

He was worried about me, I bet all the guys were.

"I'll be fine once we get all of Gramp's work back and when I can stop lying to my friend." I said.

"Hm. Try and get some sleep." He said and left the room.

We had just flown in to Hokkaido.

"Whoa, look at all the snow. Hokkaido is freezing!" Kenshi said.

"Wow, we're staying in that cabin? What a nice place." Boss said.

"Faye, let's have a snowball fight." Hiro said. "TAKE THIS!"

"Huh? Ooh!"

I turned around to speak to him when a snowball hit me square on the face, knocking me backwards to the ground.

He burst out laughing.

"You think this is funny?!" I said as I wiped the snowball off my face.

I scooped up the snow and threw it at him, he ducked and it hit Takuto instead.

"Oops!" I said and tried not to laugh.

He glared at me before silently picking up a snowball and stuffed it down the back of my shirt.

"Ah! Stop it! It's so cold!"

"That's whatcha get for spacing out." He said.

I removed the snow from my shirt and picked up another snowball and threw it at him. This time because I was stood right next to him, I didn't miss.

"Hey!" he shouted but then Hiro then threw a snowball at him.

"Hey, I want to join in." Kenshi said and we all started throwing snowballs at Takuto.

"Hey! Enough! Stop it! Stop!" Takuto shouted.

He was curled up into a ball on the ground, covered in snow. I hadn't had this much fun in ages!

"We didn't come here to play, you guys." Riki said. "Let's go inside and prepare for the mission."

"You're not fun." Hiro said and sulked as he made his way to the cabin.

I followed behind Kenshi, Takuto walked behind me grumbling to himself. He was soaking wet.

"You ok?" I said.

"You, Hiro and Kenshi are so going to pay for this." Takuto.

We all burst out laugh and he started throwing more snowballs so we all ran inside the cabin to get shelter.

Once inside, Takuto had to get changed out of his wet clothes before Riki started the briefing.

"When we get to the hotel, Hiro's going to enter the conference room with a fake ID. Pretending to be a guest. When the painting is up for auction, Takuto's going to cut the light, during which time Kenshi will steal the painting. Boss and Hiro will distract the guards."

"Then I'll give the painting to Riki and Faye and you two will escape on the snowmobile parked by the exit." Kenshi said.

"That's right. The snow is so deep there that a regular car would get stuck. Now, let's make this mission a success." Riki said.

Staying in a lob cabin like this, made it feel kind of like a vacation. Even though it totally wasn't. I was sat outside, sitting under the porch and I was drawing the landscape. It was so beautiful.

"Hey, drawing again?" Kenshi asked.

He sat down next to me and handed me a beer.

"Thanks. Yeah, what do you think?" I asked and showed him my drawings.

"It's really good. Ever think of selling them?" he asked as he took a swig of his beer.

I just shrugged "Never crossed my mind. I don't draw for profit; I draw because it makes me happy." I said and opened my beer.

"Cheers, to a successful mission." He said and we clunked cans before we started drinking.

I just hoped the mission went ok and no more heights. I couldn't handle any more heights.

The next day, we were stood in the hotel where the auction was being held. Armed with his fake ID, Hiro had disguised himself as a woman to infiltrate the auction.

"See you guys later." He said.

"Ok, stick to the plan. Everyone get to your positions." Riki said.

"Roger." Kenshi said.

Everyone besides Riki and me, left the room.

I took several deep breathes to calm myself.

"Nervous?" he asked.

"A little. But I should be fine, as long as there are no more heights." I said.

He chuckled "I can't believe you got so scared from just jumping from 6 floors."

I poked my tongue at him "Whatever."

"You'll be fine, I'm here and I won't let anything happen to you." He said and placed his hand on my shoulder before he ruffled my hair.

"Thanks." I said and smiled back at him.

"Ok, they should be ready by now. Let's get to our post." He said.

"Ok."

"Oh that's right. Do you know what flowering dogwood means in the language of the flowers?"

"No." I said.

"It means, 'Please accept my feelings'."

"Oh, cool." I said.

We hid ourselves next to the hotel exit, and watched the monitor.

"This is a painting by the Genius artist Stone. A rare painting called 'Flower Dogwood'. And now we'll start the bidding." The host said.

"$300, 000."

"We have a bid for $300, 000."

"$320, 000!"

"$330,000."

I shook my head in disbelief "Bastards, bidding over Gramp's work like that."

"Don't worry. I promise we'll get your gramp's painting back." Riki said.

The bids just kept getting higher and higher till,

"$500, 000." Hiro said jumping out of his seat.

A buzz filled the room and everyone looked at Hiro when suddenly, the lights all went out the room plunged into darkness.

"What's going on?" a guess cried out.

Kenshi got closer to the stage, spraying a fire extinguisher everywhere. Within minutes, Kenshi came out of the exit holding the painting.

"I got it!" he said. "Now take it and hurry to our hideout."

"Roger." Riki said.

He put the painting inside a case.

"Kenshi, make sure you get away safely."

"Leave it to me." Kenshi said.

I jumped onto the snowmobile behind Riki and wrapped my arms around his waist.

"Hang on tight!"

The snowmobile raced through the snow at an incredible speed. But after a few minutes I heard two loud gunshots.

"Riki, behind us!" I shouted.

Guards were chasing after us on snowmobilies!

"Damn! I guess they couldn't hold 'em off. Listen to me, don't you dare let go of me."

I tightened my grip around him as the snowmobile started to zigzag in order to avoid the bullets.

"We're jumping across that." He shouted.

I looked over his shoulder "That? You mean that cliff?!"

The snowmobile suddenly accelerated.

"Oh my god. Riki, don't! Don't! Ahhhhhhh!"

We jumped across the cliff with a roar, I buried my face into his back and closed my eyes.

"Good, we lost 'em." He said as he started to slow down.

My heart my pounding and my whole body was shaking. There was no way that this was healthy, my body couldn't stand this much adrenaline.

"Hey, you ok?" he asked.

I was in too much shock speak.

"You're not ok, are you?" he said and we came to a stop.

He then turned around and hugged me softly.

"I'm sorry I scared you but it's all over now. It's not scary anymore." He said and patted me on the back.

I exhaled sharply and took another deep breath.

"Seriously. What is it and you guys and jumping off things? Seriously?!" I demanded and held my arms up in air and looked up as if expecting an answer.

"Hm. You seem fine now, good girl." He said.

He then pulled out a pair of binoculars and peered through them.

"We're pretty far from the log house. But unfortunately the snow and the wind has gotten pretty strong. We need to find a place to rest." He said.

He started the snowmobile and we drove through the storm till he found an old abandoned hut in the mountain.

"There's a fireplace, blankets and towels. We got really lucky." He said.

I walked into the cabin and held my phone up in the air. "No phone signal. Great." I said.

"Really? I'm sure everyone's worried about us." He said.

He then gathered up some firewood and skillfully light the fireplace.

"Oh, that's nice." I said and crouched down in front of the fire and held up my hands too warm myself up.

"Come here." He said and he started rubbing my wet hair with a towel.

"Go away." I said and tried to bat his hand away.

"If you have wet hair, you'll catch a cold." He said.

"Oh sorry mother." I said and he continued till my hair was dry.

He then wrapped a blanket around me.

"Wrap this around you, so you don't get sick." He said.

"Thanks. You're really nice. Kind of like an older brother." I said.

"I am an older brother. I have a younger sister." He said.

"Oh really? What's her name?" I asked.

He suddenly looked away, this was probably a sore subject. I should probably change it.

"Umm… it was pretty amazing what you did with snowmobile." I said.

"Really? I thought it scared you."

"I did! I am never doing that again. How do you guys do such dangerous stuff, and not get so scared?" I asked.

He shrugged "Just use to it I guess. You're one of us, you'll get used to it too."

"I don't think I can ever get used to it." I said and shook my head.

He chuckled again and smiled at me. He was such a nice a guy, when I first met him I thought he was jerk. He would always yell and tell me what to do but, he was actually really nice. They all were. It was just such a shame they were criminals.