fic for mikunicchi!

[nino_mod]

For: mikunicchi!
From:

Title: The Deep End Job
Pairing/Focus: Arashi friendship
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Word count: 23,000+
Summary: One night, Jun shows up with an offer for Nino to join the team.
Notes: For mikunicchi, I truly hope you enjoy this Nino!Grifter story in Arashi Leverage AU. Most of the con plots are basically rip-offs from the series but I had so much fun writing this. :) Many thanks to A for the amazing beta and to Nino mod for everything.


Here We Go!
Nino twitches slightly the exact moment he feels an additional presence entering the pub—two, three persons, possibly four, are focusing on him with intensity; what do they want?

Strumming his old Gretsch with more feeling, crooning his last notes higher, basking in the soft spotlight of the stage, he ends his performance. Looking up to the thin crowd, he only catches the sight of some salary men on the side row—kind of the regulars in this pub, aiming for the cheap happy hour beer as always—and a table of enthusiastic young women clapping for him, probably just first-timers who fall into his charms.

Nothing else, except the front door swishing closed. Nino sends a final wink to the young women’s table, receiving loud giggles in unison in return, and walks off stage.

The manager of the night welcomes him at the backstage, clapping unenthusiastically before waving a thin white envelope at him. Nino gives him the widest fake smile, snatching the envelope, and marches toward the locker room. He stuffs his white low V-neck shirt, ripped vintage jeans, and brown tortoiseshell glasses into a small rucksack in his locker. Now more comfortable in his loose jeans and fresh shirt, Nino shrugs into his old khaki coat, picks up his guitar case, and is ready to go.

Under three minutes, he heads out through the pub’s back entrance. And snorts loudly in laughter as he finds a group of people—the presence from before—standing and leaning at the side of a sleek black car at the end of the alley. “Having a rowdy night out with friends in the neighborhood, Jun-kun?” he says, not hiding amusement in his voice.

“It’s been a long while, Nino.”

“Don’t tell me you just happened to be lost?” Nino turns slightly to greet the man standing next to Jun and smiling a genuine smile this time. “Not when you’re with Aiba-kun who knows his way around here.”

Aiba only rolls his eyes as he stays close to Jun, arms crossed over his chest, making a face at Nino.

Nino ignores the other two men behind the car even as they are sending him amused looks. He returns his attention back to Jun, and smiles. “So?”

Jun is giving him an intense stare—one that most people often mistook as the look of annoyance, but Nino knows better. Nino knows Jun needs him, especially if Jun’s gone all the way to track him.

And Jun says just that—honest, blunt, and to the point as always. “I know you’ve been picky with jobs lately, but we need you.”

“For a price.”

Jun is not the one who is big on small talk. “Seven figures plus hefty bonus upon success.”

“You know me best, Jun-kun.” Nino shifts his guitar straps, already suspecting that this job will probably cost him the guitar. He must remember to charge Jun for it later. “Are we leaving immediately?”

“You assume correctly,” Jun says with a hint of a satisfied smile. He turns on his heels and heads back to the car. “Shall we, then?”

Aiba goes to the driver seat and the two men quickly climb in the back, leaving Nino with no choice to settle on the side seat. He grumbles a bit about not having the chance to set his guitar in the trunk, but he holds his complaint.

After arranging his guitar case between his legs as best as he can, Nino gives his attention back to the front seat. Aiba is definitely breaking the speed limit and Jun is busy punching on his smartphone. “None of you told me what this is all about yet.”

“A job in Kofu,” Jun only says. “Tomorrow.”

“Huh? Wait. If the job’s tomorrow, why did you get down all the way to pick me up at midnight?”

“Mostly for theatrics and we’re driving down there right now,” Jun says. “And that you have a morning flight to Kobe tomorrow.”

“Just how?” Nino shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “How did you know that?”

Jun lets out a chuckle. “Sho-kun did a thorough background check.”

“Sho did what? Wait. Sho? As in Sakurai Sho?” Nino throws an annoyed glance at Sho who’s waving his iPad again.

Sho’s smile is wide and friendly. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, and if you hack into my email again ever, I’m going to hack yours right back and delete all your cloud porn collection.”

Sho looks a bit miffed. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Ha! So, you do have cloud porn collection.”

“Who doesn’t?” Sho mumbles grumpily, already rapidly tapping on his iPad, most probably transferring his collection to a safer place. “But just to be safe.”

“This cute guy next to me just groped my ass twice, by the way.”

“Satoshi-kun!” Sho chides, elbowing the man on the center of the back seat even if his eyes are still fixed on his iPad. “That’s rude.”

The man Sho just called Satoshi only grins wider, waving Nino’s wallet the next minute with an innocently creepy smile. “Hello. I was trying to pick your wallet but you have none.”

Nino does the first thing that comes to him. He smacks the man on the head. “You’re a thief.”

“Nino doesn’t carry a wallet, Ohno-san,” Jun says helpfully.

“Bummer.” Ohno grins wider, all teeth now. “Nice to meet you all the same.”

“Cute. But still rude.” Nino shifts his attention to the front.

Jun turns to smile at him. “You are just cranky because Aiba-kun is here and still refuses to talk to you.”

Nino can hear Aiba click his tongue as the man swerves smoothly to the fast lane. He will have to deal with Aiba later, but for now he doesn’t have much choice. “Well.”

“I can talk to you,” Ohno says.

Nino tries his best glare, but Ohno only passively stares back at him. “This is not a good start, Jun-kun.”

Jun only laughs. “Now that we’re all nicely acquainted, I suggest you take a nap. We’ll be there in two hours.”

“One hour ten minutes,” Aiba corrects Jun before remembering that he’s not on speaking term with Nino around. He mumbles, “Well. There’s no traffic.”

“That’s even better,” Jun says with a smile. “Buckle up, guys.”

*

Aiba pulls up on the lobby of the largest hotel in Kofu. Jun nods his thank you before he gets out of the car. Sho goes around the car and stands next to Jun with his phone in his hand. “Our reservation is in order. Shall we?”

Jun nods, turning to Nino. “You need help with that?”

Nino shakes his head in refusal. He better keeps the guitar case himself—after all he’s not going to let Ohno, no matter how cute the man is, dealing with his stuff. And Aiba is out of the question for now. “I got it.”

“Aiba-kun is going to get the rest of our stuff from the car,” Jun says. “Let’s get us settled.”

Nino walks slowly, observing as he goes with Ohno who appears sleepy but remains alert and close. Jun and Sho go to the front desk, charming the graveyard shift receptionist, and less than two minutes they are heading to the bank of elevators with the room key. The elevator opens to reveal Aiba with two large suitcases.

“Good timing,” Nino says as he follows Jun and Sho into the elevator.

Ohno enters last, and asks. “What floor?”

“Tenth,” Jun says. “Sho-kun got us a joint suite.”

“Show-off,” Nino says with an eye roll, and receives a big grin from Sho.

After a quick look of the room, everyone picks their own seat in the large living room. Jun takes his seat last, and gestures Sho to begin. “I think everyone has settled now.”

“The job was, or as of now since we’re back at square one, is—” Sho says as he switches tabs on his iPad as several pictures and graphics swerve into the hotel TV set. “—Hamada Corporation. One of the top three largest companies in Japan, or top ten in Asia. Their core business is cash crop and being the key player in global commodity markets they—“

“Bottom line is that we failed as they double crossed us on our last job,” Jun says and only rolls his eyes when Sho stares at him in annoyance. “What? Better to go straight to the point here.”

Aiba snickers while Ohno just yawns, straightening his legs on the large bed.

“So, here we are,” Jun says. “Tarnished reputation since word has been around that we failed our game, and no payment. Hamada Hideo, that’s the CEO, contacted me two months ago to run a job against his rivals.”

Sho taps his iPad and a new schematic appears. He says, “To bottom line the bottom line, we were screwed and all our original covers have been blown. There’s no way for us to get into the high security area or where mainframe control room is since it now has upgraded security.”

Aiba says with a sad smile. “Sho-chan couldn’t crack the new added face recognition program.”

“I could have cracked it if only you guys got me access to the mainframe.” Sho huffs in annoyance. “But it might be too late for that.”

Jun only sighs tiredly. “Now that they’ve pinned down Aiba-kun and Ohno-san’s identities and blocked Sho-kun’s hacking software, they connected them to me and we reached a sort of dead end.”

Nino asks, “What were you guys trying to steal in the first place?”

“The top secret new design of revolutionary freight airplane from Hamada Corp. rival,” Jun gestures to the on screen schematic. “It’s supposed to revolutionize short distance freight business with much more economical airplanes. The development has been rumored to be completed since last year, but I have only known that Hamada wanted the design stolen before the job briefing.”

“So you want to steal it back?” Nino smiles as he nods in understanding.

“Something like that,” Jun says, his eyes fiery now. “And revenge.”

“And punching them in the face,” Aiba says.

“And money,” Ohno adds.

“And lots of lots of money,” Sho says heatedly. He shrugs when everyone’s attention rivets to him. “That guy needs to pay for messing with us. He messed with my software. He tried to bomb Aiba-kun’s car and hack into Matsujun’s account. And he hasn’t paid Satoshi-kun his fee. Insulting us to no end! I’ll make sure he pays accordingly.”

Nino smiles at the display of conviction. “Is there a solid plan, considering you all dragged me here in the middle of the night?”

Sho taps his iPad again, several photos appear alongside the schematics. “One problem is that Hamada has caught wind of our being reunited after the failed job so he moved his plan for internal auction and press conference into this week instead of next month.”

Jun continues with the explanation. “The initial meeting for the internal auction is tomorrow morning and you’ll be one of the buyers.”

“I’ve worked on your possible alias,” Sho says, now with phone in hand and rapidly tapping his notes. “I wish we had more time to perfect it. It’s not completely airtight, but that’s the best that I could’ve come up with.”

“I’ll work my best,” Nino declares to the room, trying to look into the others’ eyes, giving encouragement he thinks everyone needs now that he knows how dire the situation is. “If I do this right, they would question nothing and do all the work for us.”

“That settles it then,” Jun says in a decisive tone. “We wouldn’t be able to be with you in the auction since none of us will be able to make it into the high level of security, but Aiba-kun and Ohno-san will be on standby for the clearance you manage to get after you’re inside. Sho-kun and I will process all the incoming data.”

Jun pauses as he searches for objection or question across the room. When he finds none, he continues. “Now before morning comes, we should rest while we can.”

Aiba gets up from his seat without further prompting, announcing that he would take the master bed. Ohno trails right behind him, also wanting to rest in the big fluffy bed albeit sharing it with Aiba. Sho sets for the work files to be available on the TV screen for Jun and Nino before joining the other two to catch some sleep.

Jun slides his feet further into the coffee table. “Now you know how much of a mess we’re in.”

“This isn’t like you,” Nino says, sipping the tea he prepared before briefing, wincing at the lukewarm bitter taste. “A very short notice job with almost everything is on the fly. You don’t usually go for a short con, Jun-kun. Something happened?”

“That’s a long story for another day,” Jun softly mutters.

“Fine.” Nino sighs. “Just one last question for tonight.”

Jun turns to face Nino, and Nino is suddenly hit with nostalgia. The way Jun is always worried before the job, the way he plan everything to the dot, and the way Jun has this job planned and the revenge he has to do to get even. “What is it?”

“Do you trust these guys?”

Jun grins, and Nino gets his answer already but he waits all the same. “Sho-kun is a good man. And I owe Ohno-san my life. They are okay.”

“A compliment coming from you.”

“And you know I trust Aiba-kun with my life. You do, too.”

“Yeah.”

“Would it be hard for you to work with him this time around?”

“He brought it upon himself, that hardheaded man,” Nino says grumpily. “It won’t affect my performance.”

“Good,” Jun says. “I still expect you two to make up sometime soon.”

“I said what I had to say. He wouldn’t listen.”

“That will be another thing for another day then,” Jun says. “Now, let’s janken to decide who gets the second bed and who ends up at this couch.”

Nino laughs and pulling out scissor fingers the next second.

*

In the morning after they are all ready with their own getups, Sho opens a soft box and hands each of them a small earbud. “I have these for all of us. The most sophisticated ones on the market, with GPS, noise reduction, you name it, this model got it.”

Jun unceremoniously takes one, putting his on his ear. Ohno takes one before passing it to Nino.

“Wait, I haven’t told you guys about the specific features—“

“I’m sure you’ll find a way later, Sho-chan. I’ll ready the car,” Aiba says, taking the last of the earbuds before heading to the door. “I’ll meet you guys in the lobby in 15.”

Jun nods at him, and says to the other. “You heard him, let’s move.”

After dropping everyone else at the back of the building, Jun pulls a suit and drives Nino to the front lobby. Nino goes through security check-up, producing his invitation, and is escorted to the main hall by one of the assistants.

“I'm in.”

Jun's voice is clear on his right ear. Good. Now let's get as much information as you can about the auction and how it's going to be done. Sho has the feed of security for us but he cannot go further without tripping an alarm.

I didn't say I can’t go further. I said it would take some time to do so.

Time we don't have.

“It's time to mingle then.”

Nino works his way into the crowd, making conversation with the people on his list as they all wait for the auction to begin. Sho's alias works perfectly as he introduces himself as a Todai wiz with a promising new engineering company who's considering expansion in airplane production. And after a fruitful ten minutes of information of the attending buyers and hearing Jun and Sho starting to work on it, he hears Ohno. Nino-chan, any high level clearance card I can use?

Nino scans the people around him, zooms in on a pair of men in suit currently standing in guard at one corner of the room. “I can get one.”

Nice.

Nino goes to the corner, working with his most boyish smile he knows will fool anyone and asks the pair of guards where the bathroom is. A tap on to shoulder. A bump onto the man. Nino thanks them and heads to the main bathroom just outside the main hall. “Got you two.”

Ohno sounds very impressed. Very nice.

Inside the bathroom stall, Nino frowns at the ventilation window and asks one last time. “Are you sure all I need to do is to slide these in here?”

You put them in the plastic I gave you, right?

Nino hums. “Yeah.”

I’ll get them.

Shaking his head, because he truly doesn’t want to know how Ohno will retrieve those cards, Nino slides the plastic into the ventilation shafts and leaves the bathroom.

Sho is telling him that the auction will likely begin soon as Nino reenters the main hall and meets a smiling assistant trying to escort the guests to their seats.

Hamada Hideo appears from the grand entrance, bowing respectfully to the guests who welcome him with applause. He takes his walk to the stage, waving slightly and takes his place in the podium.

Addressing the room with confidence, Hamada starts his short speech and formally welcomes the guests—what a slimy double-crossing weasel, Nino can only think. He has just started to mention about the design and his plan of selling it to the highest bidder when there’s a hand raised into the air.

“We’ve seen nothing so far,” a man with whom Nino conversed earlier fires off a question. “How do we know you are truly offering the Airfreight JP design?”

Another man with whom Nino also conversed earlier shouts another question. “They didn’t even make any statement about the design yet. Or about the loss of it.”

Hamada is appears to be slightly flustered by the unexpected questions. Apparently that’s all it takes to trigger stream of doubt of the potential buyers. Nino can barely hold his smirk as other guests direct more questions to Hamada, demanding explanation or given proof of the stolen design before they continue with the auction.

That was slick.

Nino smiles as he hears Sho’s praise, knowing that it’s just a matter of time before Hamada’s men will lead Ohno and Aiba to the whereabouts of the design. “I told you they would do all the work for us.”

Jun says, There’s movement of the locked elevator. Aiba-kun, you got this?

Yes. A pause after some rustling before Nino can hear Ohno. I got the card. We'll signal when we’re done.

The commotion inside the hall has subsided as Hamada managed to take back the control of the auction proceeding. Yet, the intended damage is done; potential buyers are now seeing Hamada with a slightly different viewpoint—still excited but no longer entirely charmed. Perfect, Nino thinks. Now all he needs to do is to mingle some more and continue with the second part of the plan.

*

“So now we wait?” Nino asks as he slides to the empty space next to Jun’s with his cold tea in hand.

It has been two days since the auction proceeding. Hamada has wrapped the auction proceeding smoothly, promising the interested parties to be in contact within the week. Nino managed to slide into the inner circle—with Sho prompting details of his identities and research directly, and his charm— and befriended a CEO of Hokkaido independent airfreight company.

Aiba had gotten into the mainframe room without a hitch and plugged Sho’s spy device, which has been giving them solid data about both Hamada Corp and its movement. Meanwhile Ohno broke into the company safe and took the schematics they were originally required to steal.

“Yes,” Jun says, his attention on the documents Sho has again put up on the TV screen. “Especially now that we have the schematics, both original and copy, Hamada will be even more pressed to proceed with the auction immediately. He wouldn’t want the bidders to know that he has lost the schematics.”

Their room door opens and Aiba comes in with a few boxes in hands. “I got what you asked, Matsujun.”

Jun turns and goes to help Aiba. “Oh, great. Let’s put them in the kitchen for now.”

Nino slides into the space Jun’s just left and plastered his side to Sho’s. “And what are you doing, Sho-chan?”

“I’m arranging fund siphoning schemes from within the company accounts.”

“Ouch, nasty business.”

“We’re going to bury this Hamada. It’s only fair.” Sho sets a few programs running before he leans back against the back of the couch. Closing his eyes, he lets out a tired sigh. “Okay, three quarter ground work done. I need to sleep soon.”

“Are they that bad?”

Nino almost shrieks—but he’s thankfully better than that—when Ohno suddenly appears from behind the sofa with a stack of documents in hand. The man grins sleepily as he nudges the docs to Nino. “Yes, they are.”

“It’s all in there,” Sho says without opening his eyes. “A quick read should clue you in about them already.”

Nino snatches the docs from Ohno and rolls his eyes when instead of disappearing Ohno climbs the sofa to settle next to Nino. “Do you want to read this together or something?”

“No. All the difficult kanjis are making my head hurt.”

Nino gives Ohno a good elbow jab just to get back at him for his earlier surprises but the man only grunts and continues to settle comfortably against Nino’s side.

As Nino flips through the document, he begins to see the bigger, and more complicated, picture of the job. “Am I reading this right?”

“You got to that part already?” Sho finally opens his eyes, turning to look over to the document on Nino’s hand. “And yes, the so called new and revolutionary airfreight design was trouble.”

“This is not only trouble. This is a faulty design.”

“The exact reason why this is not supposed to be out of development stage and circulating in the market,” Jun says, as he returns and takes the seat across the couch. “It’s hard to pin this on the rival company and so far Sho-kun hasn’t found any evidence of their intention of letting this design in the market. But Hamada apparently didn’t give much thought about it being faulty. All he cares is to reap as much as benefit he possibly can with this design.”

“By selling the faulty design for prospective buyers? I would be extremely pissed if I found out that I bought a faulty design,” Nino says.

Jun nods as he raises his coffee cup in a salute. “But, they wouldn’t be able to do anything at the end. One of the biggest problems is for this to be sold in a private auction. There’s no official record whatsoever. They only have Hamada’s word that he has the design and none of them know at this point that Hamada is planning to sell them a faulty design.”

“This guy is nasty.”

Aiba takes a seat next to Jun’s. He keeps silent but in the split second Nino meets his eyes, Nino can tell that Aiba is agreeing with him.

“That’s why we need to serve him a nastier revenge,” Jun says seriously.

Nino smiles. “I think you mean cold, Jun-kun, but nasty could work too.”

When Sho chuckles next to him, Nino catches Aiba trying to hide his smile too. Jun was about to say something else when Nino’s phone begins to beep.

Ohno startles awake from his doze. “Is that for us?”

“Let’s see who’s calling first,” Nino says, picking up the phone to read the caller ID. He looks up to meet everyone’s questioning stare with a sly smile. “It’s Hamada’s office.”

*

The CEO of Hokkaido independent airfreight company, Yoshimura, goes straight to greet Nino with a wide smile the moment he steps into the meeting room. “I had a feeling you’d be here too.”

“Nice to meet you again.” Nino offers his hand in a handshake, before settling back into his seat.

“I had to cancel my flight back,” Yoshimura says in a low voice, not wanting to have their conversation caught by the other persons in the room. “I thought I wouldn’t be invited for further action and I had bought a ticket for Hokkaido this afternoon. Luckily they still accept refund requests at last minute cancellations.”

Nino smiles at the cheerful story, while wondering what would an honest man such as Yoshimura be doing here and what a deal Hamada Corp would bring to this man’s company.

Are you all there yet? Jun asks.

Nino nods to Yoshimura, excusing himself to go to the corner of the room before pretending to have a phone call. “I think we’re only waiting for no more than two more companies. But, Jun-kun?”

Yes?

“I think this company is really going forward with the plan to actually sell the design. They only invited the small-scale companies this time.”

Sho begins to recite the companies’ name while Nino’s giving short confirmations for each of the names. Nino can hear Sho sigh on the end of the line. This certainly confirm our suspicion that Hamada doesn’t want anyone with large resource in research once he gives them the schematics or at least, a company that could be quick enough to realize that the design is faulty.

Aiba’s voice cuts Sho’s explanation. We’ve arrived at the Federal Office, Matsujun. Proceed as planned?

A pause, and Hamada’s assistant enters the room, announcing that the meeting is going to commence soon. Nino pockets his phone and goes back to his seat.

Yoshimura welcomes him with another smile before leaning closer to Nino for a whisper. “I'm very excited for this. My company will be able to make good investments and we're going to be able to serve more people.”

Nino tries to smile as he nods assuringly. As Yoshimura’s attention returns to the assistant speaking, he can hear Jun’s voice in his ear. As planned, Aiba-kun. And Nino, it’s going to be an hour till Aiba-kun’s coming with the federal tax service. In the mean time, make Hamada regret his life choices. Starting with crushing him with his own devious plan.

“Permission to make this evil man cry and shrivel in shame?” Nino murmurs with glee.

More than granted. Go for it. Nino can hear Sho chuckle on the line before Jun says, We’re wrapping today. Let’s do this.

Nino nods before he realizes no one can see him doing so. Yoshimura notices and throws him a questioning look, but Nino dismisses him a head shake.

Hamada, who appears to be a little nervous this time, enters the room, addresses the bidders with a wavering smile. Nino hears Aiba giving minutely updates through his earbud; it’s time for him to finish the work, he tells himself, straightening his posture to focus.

Hamada stutters on his speech and Nino sees the opening he needs. He raises his hand, interrupting Hamada in the middle of his sentence and catching everyone’s attention at once.

“Hamada-san, why don’t we just cut to the chase? None of us have the time to listen to your empty long speech, so why don’t you explain how you are going to sell us a design you don’t even have?”

Gasps of surprises and disbelief in the room.

It is always satisfying see the confident expression of crooked people falling apart as what they believe as a perfect plan crashing down in seconds. Hamada can only blink. “W-what?”

Nino puts one hand in his trouser pocket, leaning his head to the side a little bit and begins his act. “I just got off the phone with the National Aviation Agency and they have questions for you and your design.”

“What? The design is not even— How do you—?”

“I have my sources. You think your company is big enough so you are untouchable? Think again. We might be just small time businessmen but we all work earnestly. And people who work hard with honesty do not deserve to be scammed like this.”

The rest of the room turns their heads in unison from Nino to Hamada, waiting for retaliation, explanation, or at this point, anything.

When Nino clears his throat, the room’s attention reverts back to him, in unison. “I’ve been told that the design you’re trying to sell us is not only obtained illegally but also faulty in reality.”

“How—?” Hamada is in near tears. He catches the questions glares of the room and shakes in his feet as he tries to come up with acceptable explanation, and failing.

“Again, I have my sources,” Nino says, emphasizing each word now, eyes locked at Hamada making sure that he delivers his message thoroughly. “Great sources, one you clearly didn’t appreciate; great team that has done its work briliantly.”

Nino’s grin widens when he sees realization dawn on Hamada’s face. The man is slowly, but surely, catching up and connecting the dots now, soon enough he realizes that Jun and his team were behind all this.

“I don’t know about you,” Nino adresses the room. He meets the eyes of earnest young businessmen fiercely, those who are eager to work and passionate in their field. “But I certainly would not want to be in the building when the federal office arrives here—which should be in a few minutes—and begins investigation.”

No person in the room is moving with everyone wearing shocked expressoin. Nino gives Yoshimura a smile and a nod, before he gives a mocking salute to Hamada and begins to walk out of the room. “This company is downright dirty. I suggest you all take your precious and limited budget to find another one who will take your passion seriously.”

Hamada apparently recovers enough to block Nino’s way. “How dare you— Who the fuck are you? Security! I need security!”

A few men in suits come through the door but instead of going to detain Nino, they go straight to Hamada. “Sir, we have federal agents at the lobby. They demand to be taken straight to the executive office to begin their search.”

“What search? This is ridiculous,” Hamada says, out of breath and out of it. “But you know, the design has been conviniently stolen, they won’t find anything. Let them in. I’ll deal with them.”

Nino tilts his head and smiles. “Are you sure about that? Better check your safe. It could conviniently reappers.”

Hamada can only gape in shock as Nino gives the man one last pat on the shoulder before he exits the room, heading straight to the elevator bank, leaving the commencing commotion in the meeting room behind.

Elevator 3. Sho says in his ear, just in time for said elevator door to slide open. Nino hits for the lobby button and the moment the door slides shut, from the above overhead, Ohno in black tight suit slides in.

After Ohno deftly folds out all his rope harness, Nino pulls out a suit jacket from his briefcase. “All clear?”

“Yeah,” Ohno says, accepting the suit jacket and giving Nino the harness to store at the briefaces. “I put the design right back where I found it few days ago.”

Go straight out of the building while the security is still handling the federal agents. Aiba will meet you with the car in the lobby, Jun says over their earbuds.

“Got it.”

Sho-kun and I are going to stay in town for a few hours tie up some loose end. Head home first, and I’ll contact you as soon as everything’s clear.

Nino doesn’t bother with the answer since the elevator arrives at the first floor. In the lobby several people are in panic, but Nino just goes straight to the door, knowing Ohno is just a step behind him. Aiba makes a turn and stops at the lobby just in time as Nino steps out of the building.

Ohno walks ahead of him and takes the front seat, while Nino opens the back seat, and goes in.

“Drive us home, Aiba-chan,” Nino says, out of habit and distracted.

When Aiba doesn’t reply but only grunts and starts to speed up Nino only sighs tiredly. Ohno turns a bit to Aiba and rubs his hand in comfort. There’s no need for an unnecessary fight now, they all know it, but so they all settled.

Ohno keeps his hand on Aiba’s arm, and with that they drive back to Tokyo.

*

Nino makes an immediate right turn at the station exit and pulls out his phone before heading straight into the first alley. A block later, he finds that his destination turns out to be a nondescript small building with sliding doors and a paper signboard lantern that says meshi.

Frowning, Nino takes a good look at his surroundings. The neighborhood doesn’t look like the right place for his meet-up but his GPS says so.

He braces himself for surprises, slides the door open, and is greeted by two smiling faces.

“Nino!” Ohno waves to him from his seat at the corner.

Sho, sitting next to Ohno, looks up from his phone and grins. “Glad you finally decided to join us rather than just standing dumbly in front of the shop.”

Nino rolls his eyes. “A little help would be nice.”

“What’s the fun in that?” Sho says with a laugh. He pats the space next to him. “Here. Aiba-kun and Matsujun are on their way. They should be here in a few minutes.”

Nino shrugs out of his jacket and slides into the seat. “What is this?”

“This used to be a midnight restaurant but it went out of business. I offered to help by buying the entire building but the owner at the end just wanted to retire,” Sho says, setting away his iPad. “The fridge is well-stocked though. Do you want anything?”

“Coffee?”

It’s Ohno who nods and gets up from his chair to go around the counter. “I can get you coffee. I just made a batch.”

“Thanks.”

Jun and Aiba enter the store, precisely, a few minutes later. Ohno who is still behind the counter serves more coffee. After they are all settled, Jun takes his first sips of coffee, nods his approval, and says. “So here we are.”

Aiba sits next to Jun on the other side of the counter, which is also at the opposite of Nino. Still refusing to meet his eyes, Nino notices. He has to make certain that he settles things with Aiba soon then.

“So,” Jun only says. He then gestures to Sho to continue.

Sho clears his throat for dramatic effect before reaching into his bag and producing five envelopes. “So, Hamada Corp’s stock price fell more than 20 percent and Jun and I managed to get ahead of the market and got us a little bonus.”

Sho hands one envelope to each of them, and in one synchronized moment, they all slide out the transfer receipts from the envelope.

Ohno lets out a long whoop. Aiba is so startled that he almost falls down from his chair. And Nino can only blink and resort on a breathless “Whoa!”

“Are you kidding me?” Aiba finally manages to look up from the transfer receipt, looking at Jun, then at Sho, then back at Jun.

“It turned out we knocked down Hamada Corp completely, resulting in their stock plummeting in the market,” Jun says with a smile. His envelope stays untouched in front of him but Nino assumes that Jun has already seen the number. “And Sho-kun did his best for all of us.”

Nino sends a salute to Sho before turning to Jun. “This is way more than just the usual 7 zeroes.”

“And it’s all yours,” Jun says. “It was a job well done.”

“I cannot agree more.”

Jun laughs at that. “You like the payment.”

Nino takes another sip of his coffee and tries to feign a shrug. “Yes. But you are exceptionally good, and you run a good team, Jun-kun.”

Jun has to look away to hide his flush before he says, “You guys are the exceptional ones.”

Nino only nods, allowing Jun a moment to accept the compliment. The others are not saying anything either but Nino knows they share the same sentiment.

Ohno is smiling. “It was definitely the smoothest job I’ve ever done,”

“Well, one of the top three for me but all the same,” Aiba says.

“And it feels really good. Many people don’t have to be subjected to the catastrophe that definitely would happen if those schematics were to be released to the public.” Sho almost bounces on his seat, brimming with pride.

“So?” Aiba turns with his genuine smile to Jun.

Ohno is now leaning over the counter to get more involved in the conversation. “Yeah, so?”

“So,” Jun says, deadpan.

Sho rolls his eyes. “Oh, come on. Let’s do this again. One more.”

Jun is the one who’s rather skeptical. “Really?”

“Well, I don’t have to be anywhere for a few months. Perhaps a few more.” Sho answers with a grin.

“I no longer have my Kobe cover so I might as well lay low for a while, and perhaps team up with you guys.” Nino says.

Aiba tries to appear grumpy but he’s not fooling anyone. For a short second, he is almost smiling again before he seems to realize that he’s talking to Nino. “I can maybe still hold myself not to elbow that guy in the face.”

“Very violent, Aiba-kun, but I’ll stay out of your way if you want,” Nino says before turning back to Jun. “So?”

The answer comes with only a subtle nod from Jun, one that easily missed if the others haven’t been staring at Jun with anticipation. But it is enough to set the unison cheers.

“We should’ve done a toast or something,” Aiba says.

Sho stands up and goes to walk around the counter. “Well, I did say the fridge is well-stocked, right. I’m sure we can find something that fits the occasion.”

This wasn’t what he was expecting when he came over, Nino thinks, but seeing Sho and Aiba working to rummage the fridge because Sho was sure that there’s special craft beer from Nagano and also a vintage wine, and Ohno smiling dreamily at the two, probably still rejoicing about the insane amount of money Jun has just given him and the future jobs of the team, are satisfying.

Nino turns to meet Jun’s eyes, finding out that the man is also staring at him. He shifts in his seat to get closer to Jun and gives the man an arm bump. “I’d probably regret this in a few days.”

“I’m already regretting this,” Jun says as he laughs. In a softer voice, he looks straight into Nino’s eyes “Are you sure?”

Nino reaches out to give assuring pats to Jun’s arm before smiling. “I am. And from the look of it, everyone is too. We’ll just regret this together.”




One
The contents of his konbini plastic bag jumble wildly in his hold as Nino quickens his pace, makes a sharp turn to an alley, and waits. Leaning against the wall, Nino counts to exactly thirty seconds before he shouts, “Boo!” at the pair turning to enter the alley in a half run.

“Ahh!” Sho jumps and drops his phone while Ohno stops in his track and grins.

Nino scowls. “You’d be dead if I were Aiba-chan.”

“Told you, Nino would be able to make us, Sho-chan,” Ohno says. “Hi, Nino. It’s been a while.”

“You two should really work on your stealth skills. I can see you from two blocks away.”

“We were not trying to be stealthy.” Sho frowns on his cracked phone before looking up at Nino. “Okay, perhaps just a little bit. Just for fun.”

“What do you guys want?” Nino keeps his hand folded on his chest, feigning impatience. Not that he needs to be somewhere soon enough. He just needs to get home so he can heat the bento he just bought and get on with leveling up.

“Sho-chan said he’ll pay lunch if we can get you.”

“Yeah, my treat,” Sho says. “You won’t reject free lunch, right?”

“Of course I won’t,” Nino answers. “But what’s the occasion? This is suspicious.”

“We just want to ask you to have lunch together.” Sho taps on his phone, already going into his restaurant navi app. “There’s a recommended Chinese place around here. Should we then?”

No one just asks to someone to have lunch together without wanting something in return Nino wants to say but the offer is too good to pass on.

They walk another two blocks to get to the shop, finding that it’s after lunch hour so while they don’t get the lunch discount—it’s Sho’s problem after all—the place is less crowded.

Seated in the corner table, they get comfortable and make their order; something simple for Nino and two full courses for Sho just because he can’t decide what to order. Despite the comfortable warmth Ohno gave away just by sitting next to him, Nino protests after Sho puts down his phone.

“Why can you just sit over there next to Sho-chan instead of crowding me?” Nino says to Ohno, and then turns to Sho to pose the more important questions. “And why are we here? Did Jun-kun tell you to do this or something?”

Ohno’s answer is him scooting closer to Nino with a grin.

Sho smiles at the gesture before smiling. “We’re here to have lunch. Matsujun is currently busy. It’s not like you have a job or something. We don’t have any pressing schedule ourselves. I have a day off and we thought we could have a trip to the old town and visit you or something.”

“Visit me?”

“Or something.”

Nino knows better and presses on. “Or something?”

“Fine,” Sho says, pouting and throwing his arm to the air. “I was bored and you two are the ones who have nothing to do at the moment. I don’t even know why I bother to check up on you, the ones with the most boring GPS movements I’ve ever encountered. Satoshi-kun,” he points at Ohno, you kept giving me scares, all the false alerts because you apparently more often hang out in Tokyo Bay than here on land.”

Ohno grins and simply says, “It’s a perfect weather to go fishing.”

Sho turns and points to Nino, “And you, you just stay immobile at your home the whole day, almost the whole week! What can possibly keep you indoors all those hours? And the trips you’ve been making were only to go to the around the corner konbini.”

Nino gives Sho a menacing look as he responds. “Well, it’s better than hanging out in Tokyo Station for a good amount of the afternoon, before traveling to Minakami, most possibly with Jouetsu-Shinkansen. You even stayed overnight before returning to Tokyo. What can possibly be happening?”

Sho lets out a high-pitched growl, his jaw drops open as his eyes blinks in disbelief, trying to spurt retorts but only failing.

Nino leans back against his seat, smirking with open satisfaction. “It’s very cute that you still haven’t considered the cloud porn threat seriously, Sho-chan.”

“But—but I just installed a fucking new scrambler on my phone and then with the recent attack from that fucker Hamada I just finished perfecting— Fuck. I can’t believe you’ve cracked that one fucking thing I haven’t got the chance to— “ Sho narrows his eyes at Nino. “You. What the fuck! Nino, now I have to rewrite the whole fucking thing and— And moving all the porn will take a considerable amount of time— Oh shit.”

“Sho-kun goes into intense swearing whenever he’s upset. It’s always like this whenever he meets someone who can keep up with his geek technology hobby,” Ohno says helpfully. He’s about to say something else but then distracted by the waiter coming their way with the orders. He exclaims happily. “Ah, here comes our lunch. I’m starving.”

Sho is still seething, but he manages to wait till the waiter delivers all their order and keep his voice in a low hiss. “It is not a fucking hobby. It’s what I do best.”

“At least now you won’t be bored anymore.” Nino claps his palms, and looks down at the curry rice, before saying, “Let’s eat.”

Sho still tries to stare Nino down but hunger apparently wins. With a huff, he picks up his spoon and begins to partake in his curry rice in big and messy scoops.

At the sight of Sho slowly losing himself in his food, Ohno smiles and then elbows Nino softly. “That was not very nice.”

“Well, he started it.” Nino says with a shrug before he concedes. He was pushing on too strong—even if they are not their friends but Nino kind of likes them. “If Jun-kun hadn’t vouched for all of you, I would have not held back.”

Sho only looks up from his plate to send a smudged with curry roux pout at Nino, before sliding his first dish to attack his second.

“I did spend half of that whole week at home trying to bypass his intricate tech guard system, by the way.”

“That’s three days? Full?”

“More or less 60 hours. I refused to lose more sleep than I had to.”

“Okay, that makes me considerably better.” Sho sighs before he turns his focus back to the remainder of his curry, partakes another big spoonful, taking his sweet time to chew and swallow before starting to mutter at his plate. “But still— This also means that— Huh, guess I’m going to need Nino’s help somewhere along the way then. Which sucks but maybe it’s for the best.”

“Cute,” Nino says, shaking his head at Sho’s antics. He turns to his side finding that Ohno has been watching the entire exchange with a smile. Nino points at Sho and says, “He is kind of cute.”

“He is.”

“You haven’t told me why you came all the way to ‘visit’ me.”

“We did want lunch,” Ohno says before falling into a long silence. Nino has thought that it is all Ohno has wanted to say when Ohno then adds, “And we want to ask about you and Aiba-chan.”

Nino stares darkly at Ohno, turning to find Sho pretend to be busy scraping his plate, and back to Ohno. “Why ask me? Ask him.”

“We did. He got mad and then didn’t come to the restaurant for two weeks. We thought he was going to start throwing punches when he just slammed the door and left. I suppose asking you wouldn’t risk us getting punched,” Ohno says with a shrug. “Or did he punch you or something?”

“What? No!” Nino rolls his eyes. “Aiba-chan punches bad guys. He doesn’t punch his friends.”

Ohno nods softly, seemingly satisfied by the heat in Nino’s answer and the reassurance. Meanwhile Nino cannot help but do another eye roll as he realizes the indirect meaning of his quick answer.

“If he’s not telling, I won’t,” Nino says with finality before proceeding to adopt Sho’s strategy by feigning focus to his unfinished meal.

Both Sho and Ohno don’t press further and Nino is slightly grateful. They get on with their meals in silence until Sho then breaks it by ordering all of them coffee.

At the end of the meal, they part ways in front of the restaurant. Sho is still a bit cross with the GPS thing so he only stands moodily waiting for Ohno who smiles and tries to hug Nino, promising to call him later to set up another lunch meet.

Nino grumpily agrees and turns to head back his home. It is not until a block from the café that he realizes that this is the first time in a very long time that he’s met with people who are not possible clients or marks in a con job.

*

His phone buzzes insistently but Nino simply slides it over under the coffee table with his toes.

He just needs to get through this level, just one more, before he can save his game and then get on with the parallel realm—one that he’s been saving up to work with now that he has a day off. Nino absently reaches for his teacup, taking a gulp rather absently, and his left hand not stopping as his eyes continue to stare fixedly onto the large screen.

The new 40-inch television set is a gracious addition to his small living room but Nino doesn’t even regret the purchase. He now has magnificent view of his new game.

His phone buzzes again, and this time it doesn’t stop—giving it five seconds pause before it starts buzzing again.

Nino lets his fingers guide him, executing complicated flips so his character on screen is doing complicated cartwheels while emitting fire canon balls—he only needs three more strikes to kill the big boss here.

His phone buzzes again and Nino would have stomped on his phone if he had extra attention to spare for unnecessary tasks like that. Two more strikes before killing the big boss—just a bit more.

His phone keeps on buzzing.

And it’s all it takes for Nino to slightly loose his tempo, split second of concentration shattering. His fingers falter on their rhythm and the big boss manages to sneak in a punch—causing him to lose the last thread of life he has for the session.

“Fuck.”

His phone is still buzzing.

Throwing his controller petulantly, he groans in frustration and throws himself to lie down on the bunch of pillows he had arranged around himself on the carpet.

His phone keeps on buzzing and buzzing and buzzi—

Grumpily he digs through the carpet and finds his phone.

“What?!”

“Nice of you to finally decided to answer your phone.”

Nino wants to throw his phone to join his controller on the far side of the carpet. “Did someone die? Is this your last phone call ever since you’re captured by the Interpol or something? What good is Sho-chan if he couldn’t tell you that I am currently busy and wished to be undisturbed?”

“You’re at home, probably on the final stage of the of your newest game, trying out your new TV set.”

“Damn it! I’m going to set all Sho’s electronics on fire next chance I get.”

“Nino. It’s Aiba-kun.”

Nino gets silenced immediately, sobering instantly at Jun’s serious tone. This is an emergency after all. “What happened?”

“We’re heading to Taipei now. He sent an SOS and since then there hasn’t been any other contact,” Jun says. “Now, Sho-kun has forwarded the next flight ticket to your email.”

“When?”

“He got you a night flight, 7PM,” Jun sounds rushed and the connection is terrible. “I’m still on transit.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

Jun is quiet for a while before he says. “Thank you. And I’m sorry about your game.”

“It’s okay.” Nino wants to huff, still wants to throw his phone to the carpet, but this is important, and he knows his priority. “See you soon.”

*

“It’s disgustingly humid.”

“We’re near the beach after all,” Ohno says as he holds a portable fan to share with Nino in one hand and a large umbrella in the other.

“Of all places, why did Aiba-kun have to travel all the way here?”

“Maybe he wants us to go to the beach?”

Perhaps it’s the heat but Nino is impatient to get moving. Anywhere that’s not the beach entrance and preferably somewhere indoors will be nicer. “I’m so gonna—“

“You’re not going to do anything.” Jun appears from their left side, as stealthily as he can manage. “Let’s head to the beach entrance. We’re moving in a minute.”

Make it a few minutes.

“Sho-chan, what are you doing?”

Busting a car with decent AC.

Ohno smiles as he presses in his earbud. “You need help?”

I think I got it. Just a few more minutes, Matsujun. I’ll meet you guys soon enough.

Jun only rolls his eyes. “Try to not get caught. Sho-kun. We’ve less crew than usual.”

A few minutes later Sho finally comes to get them with a sleek BMW. Sho moves to settle at the back seat to get started. Ohno heaves two of their large job suitcase to the back of the car while Jun gets straight to the driver seat.

No one seems to be in the mood for some music, so Nino refrains from turning on the radio as he is seated in the passenger seat. “Now, can anyone tell me what actually happened?”

“We don’t know yet but it seems that Aiba-kun got tangled with the mob,” Jun says, his eyes focus on the road since they are driving away from midtown.

Nino frowns. “Mob? I thought SOS means that international police or something caught him.”

“Oh, if only everything were that simple.” They enter the highway and once they went through the gate, Jun hits the max speed. “Sho-kun has the prelim data.”

“Just something I gather from Aiba-chan’s browsing history,” Sho begins. “Apparently he’s been looking into Qing Ryosuke, a forth generation of the infamous Qing family. He’s running the show now since Qing the Third retired five years ago.”

“I actually like The Third. He has style. I haven’t heard anything about the Fourth though.”

Sho continues, “The Third is clean, well, as clean as a mob boss can be, but two year into his reign The Fourth had been under investigation for possible involvement in a trafficking scheme. Yet, both the national and international police never had hard proof so he’s never been implicated. People talk though.”

“If Aiba-chan believes he can take down a mob boss alone, I am going to kick him in the ass real hard,” Nino says darkly.

“You might want to hold on to that,” Sho says. “The Interpol has a thick dossier on Qing the Fourth and it says here that the trafficking mostly involves little children.”

That fact brings dead silence into the car.

They pass a giant exit advance sign and Jun swiftly changes lanes to the right. Nino can only stare at his hand on his lap as he mutters, “And that’s why that idiot decided to do this.”

“Nino,” Jun says. “I’ve seen the dossier, and to be honest I couldn’t really blame Aiba-kun.”

“I’m so going to kick him in the ass real hard when I find him,” Nino mutters. Suddenly he feels so tired, and now that he understands the situation Aiba is in, he cannot help to feel panic rising within him. Sighing, Nino closes his eyes and tries to stay calm. “So this will be a basic retrieval job, right?”

“In theory that’d work. In reality, we have to deal with that first before anything.”

He looks up, noticing that Jun has stopped driving. They are now parked on top of a cliff overlooking a large estate surrounded by yards and yards of forests.

Nino can hear Sho rapidly typing something into his iPad before he speaks. “The Qing fortress is secured by a complicated military grade system.”

“Almost impregnable.”

Both Nino and Sho startle to hear the sudden information coming from Ohno. Jun lets out a chuckle as he checks at the rear view mirror and finds Ohno is no longer napping.

“Ohno-san, you slept the whole ride here and the first word you said is impregnable?”

“The first word I said was almost,” Ohno says softly. “The system works perfectly against outside intruders, but they didn’t consider the possibility of an inside job.

“And you know this because?” Nino turns to find Ohno is only giving him a sleepy shrug as reply.

Sho is still at his iPad. “Anyway, what I don’t get is why Aiba-chan is even thinking of trying to pull this one off alone.”

“He doesn’t think. That’s why,” Nino says sulkily, going back to fold his arms and restrain himself from growling in frustration. “I’m so going to kick him—“

“—in the ass real hard when you find him,” Jun says with a smile. “I’ll hold your coat myself, Nino, but now we need to move. As soon as Sho-kun gets initial reading of the security system, we’re going in.”

“That’s the problem. Just as Satoshi-kun has said, I can’t get my way in the system because it completely disables any remote access. I need to be onsite to even try to hack it. Or at worst case, plant some transmitter that can help me connect into the system long enough to interfere.”

“We need to get inside then,” Jun says to Sho. He then turns to Nino, his face breaking into a boyish smile. “I’m thinking of the Plan we once tried in Yokohama.”

Nino snorts. “Jun-kun it’s blistering hot summer. No one wants to get married in this weather or will fall for a wedding organizer scam.”

“We don’t have to do a splashy wedding. Perhaps a pool party,” Jun says, considering their limited options. “Sho-kun, they do have a pool right?”

Sho double taps his iPad. “Even better, they have a Mediterranean style in-ground massive pools with two roofed open gazebos and dining areas on the pool-side.”

“Excellent. That’d be enough to get us in.”

*

Nino reaches out to ring the doorbell.

Unexpectedly they go through the gate security without a hitch once Nino hammers the poor guard with heavy stream of complaints in Japanese and a convincing threat to report him immediately to the big boss.

Nino reaches out to ring the doorbell once again when there’s still no answer.

There they are standing in the door of a dangerous mob boss’ heavily secured estate, wearing what can only parallel to what Jun refers proudly as Harajuku funky style. For Nino both of them look like a pair of young idols with bad costumes and determined eyes. But for the mark, they will pass muster for a Japanese event organizer with his eccentric assistant who specializes in luxurious and memorable home party. Requests and reservations have been made since two months ago, and they have just flown down from Japan for the final preparation, and the actual party madness.

“Yes?” A woman answers the door with a smile that gradually disappears as she takes the sight she found at the doorstep. “Can I help you?”

Nino smiles and sends her a flirty wink, before he practically drawls. “Good afternoon to you. As requested we’re here for the party.”

“P-party?”

The head security is even harder to impress and Nino suspects the house manager is not convinced at all, but Nino manages to bullshit their way in and is currently waiting for a meeting with Qing the Fourth.

The security has insisted on conducting full body search, checking for all potential weapons and such, to which he and Jun obliged. The front of credentials and passports, no matter how hasty Sho was, will hold, Nino knows, but he can’t stop the unsettling nervousness cruising all over him.

He hears Jun in his ear even if the man appears to be fixated on the painting across the room. Stop being nervous. Breathe. I need you to be on top of your game here, Nino.

Nino only blinks before closing his eyes and beginning to regulate his breathing. “I just have a bad feeling about this.”

Something seems off, I know. But this is the only way. Jun keeps his position his back maintains perfect composure as he mutters. Sho-kun, tell me you are already getting something useful.

The transmitter you set on their living room gave a boost. It’s slow progress but I’ll be able to get into the system in a minute.

“Is that a literal one minute or a figure of speech, Sho-chan?” Nino huffs and in the corner of his eyes, he can see Jun holding back his amused snort.

Ohno-san, I suspect they will not give us much time. Speed things up, will you.

There’s a moment of silence before Ohno whispers, I have to cover the whole backyard without being seen. As if that’s not hard enough now you want me to speed things up?

Yes.

Ohno only replies with a surly grunt. Timing hasn’t been good but they have no option but to push through.

Soon, the door of the room opens and Qing the Fourth enters the room, appearing to be as menacing as his ID photo. Nino can feel the man’s piercing suspicion upon their sudden appearance, but he keeps his face impassive and prepares to carry on as planned.

He makes quick introduction, sensing that they cannot afford to tip Qing too much and raise unnecessary suspicion. “I did not fly down upon a last minute request,” Nino says with emphasis.

“We’re not interested, and you’re wasting my time.”

“Since Qing-sama who made the initial reservation no longer wishes to continue using our service, we have no choice but to sever the contract. We have received down payment and severance insurance.”

Nino snaps his finger, and Jun goes to his side. “Contract,” he only says before seconds later Jun puts a bind document in his hand.

Nino levels his stare at the Qing even if the man appears to develop irritation already. “And upon cancellation, I kindly request—“

Qing apparently no longer has the patience to listen to their explanation. He exits the room leaving Nino and Jun with the head of security and his men. The con is ending and there’s nothing more Nino can do with the mark.

They kicked us out. We’re leaving in one minute.

Ohno sounds like he’s been running a mile. One minute? What?

Nino mutters to his sleeves as the security team begins escorting them to the front door. “I can try to stall more but it would not be worth our lives.”

Ohno-san!

I need a minute extra. Just a minute.

Nino sighs with irritation before he schools his face and does the one trick he hates the most. He counts his steps, subtly hooking on foot behind his calf, and falls down to the floor with a loud cry.

You got one minute. Be there. Jun whispers as he rushes to help Nino back to his feet.

The security guards are now watching them with more suspicion, but Jun swiftly circles his arm around Nino and promptly helps Nino continue their walk to the front door.

“I’m sorry. I apologize for the trouble,” Jun says in a timid voice. “My boss is such a clumsy person.”

For the sake of appearance, Nino stops his whine and gives Jun a hard smack in the head. “Who you’re calling clumsy, huh? I’m going to fire your ass the moment my plane lands in Tokyo!”

Their squabble only slows their walk to the front door no longer than a minute but it was all they needed. Jun wrestles to get Nino to the back seat of the car under the security team watch.

Once he’s in the car, Nino sees Ohno curled down hiding on the backseat floor and finds his breath again. All they need is to make it out of this estate. Jun ends the dramatics by bowing his apology to the security team before going into the driver seat and drives away.

“That was not cool, Matsujun. You said 10 minutes, I only had like 5,” Ohno says in a grunt.

“Stay down, Oh-chan. We’re not out of the gate yet,” Nino says. “Jun-kun, don’t speed. Let’s get out of here without altercation.”

“I know,” Jun snaps, fear still in his voice. He repeats in a softer tone. “I know.”

They all brace for the unexpected as they approach the gate. Jun slows down, greeting the security personnel. Nino finds himself holding his breath as one of the security personnel opens the gate for their car.

Shit, even that was fucking intense. Sho also sounds like he’s been running a mile while Nino knows that he’s only been sitting in their hotel room the whole time.

Jun keeps at low speed until they reach the highway. Nino helps Ohno to take off his gear and finally for him to sit next to Nino in the back seat.

“Sho-kun?” Jun says.

After the comment right after they passed the gate, Sho has been silent. Yes?

“Tell me we’ve got that remote access and everything else you need?”

Between the transmitters you managed to plant inside the house and the ones Satoshi-kun put on the house server base, we’ve got remote control and everything and more.

Nino lets out a relief sigh. “Good.”

*

He slides into the chair next to Sho. They all have put together two desks and a few chairs as space for all Sho’s consoles and laptops at their hotel room. Jun and Ohno went out to find them dinner and Nino is getting antsy without any distraction to make him forget his worry about Aiba.

“Give me half of your list codes.”

“Huh?” Sho’s eyes are bleary and his fingers are still typing even if he turns and stares almost blankly to Nino.

“You’re working on the possibilities, right? I can do data mining. You have a screen and console I can use?”

“Huh?”

“Sho-chan, you are tired, and we need those names soon enough. We haven’t even found any solid lead of where Aiba-chan is now. I’m not that useless.”

“So your hacking threats weren’t a treat after all?”

“Now, it wouldn’t be interesting if I answer that, would it?”

“You’re just messing with me.”

“I sure am. But the sooner you set things up for me, the sooner we can get some leads on Aiba-chan’s whereabouts.”

Sho stares at him for a full ten seconds, before nodding in agreement. “I can use some help. Now, I’m not going to allow you to work on Fukuzawa-san. I’ll set my spare up for you. You should be able to work with Noguchi-san.”

Nino blinks in confusion before it dawns on him.

A few minutes later, he’s chuckling as he receives a spare laptop from Sho. “You name your laptop with banknotes people? And you all said I love money.”

“Who doesn’t love money?” Sho just shrugs at the jab. “I can show you how I’m doing this, or can you manage your way in already?”

Nino smiles. “I think I can find my way.”

It’s tedious and laborious work but with Nino’s help they are progressing much faster. Sho now allows Nino to cross connect and together they are tackling codes after codes. Jun and Ohno return with noodles takeout, bickering lightly about their inability to speak Chinese to even get passed the reading the menu.

Jun is about to call it a dinner break when his phone rings. They all freeze and turn to see Jun frowns at his phone.

“It’s a local number,” Jun says. He nods at Sho, signaling Sho to start running his wiretapping and location tracking software.

At Sho’s nod, Jun answers the call. “Hello.”

Matsujun?

Jun abruptly stands up. “Aiba-kun!”

Nino finds the closest thing he can hold to suppress his excitement and clutches hard to Ohno’s shoulder. Sho is already rapidly tracking the call.

I’m in trouble. I’m in Taipei right now, so—

“We know. We’re already here.”

You are? All of you?

Nino mouths to Jun, one hand gesturing wildly while the other keeps a hard clutch at Ohno, “He’s safe? He’s okay?”

“Just hold on a second,” Jun says to Aiba. He turns to Sho, “Is this line secure, Sho-kun?”

“It is now.”

Jun nods his thanks and asks Aiba again. “Where are you, Aiba-kun?”

“I’m in hiding just outside of the city. I can really use Sho-chan’s or Nino’s skills to get into Qing’s mainframe. If only I can get the digital data, we can— Matsujun, this man is really bad. I have stolen all the paper documents, but it’s not enough.“

“You what?”

It wasn’t easy but I managed. Little did I know that it’s worth nothing without the digital data.

“Okay.” Jun starts walking in circles, his thinking mode. “We need a change of plan. We’re not safe here.”

Nino knows what those words mean. They would need to make a move soon.

What do you want me to do, Matsujun?

“Let me think,” Jun mutters to himself, to Aiba on the line, and to the others in the room. “Let me think first.”

Nino always finds it fascinating to see how Jun works—all the mutterings, the hand gestures, the mental notes, and the beautiful moment when everything lines up and clicks. Jun finally stops moving, exhaling loudly, and turns back to the room with a plan in mind.

“How much time do you need to complete the data mining, Sho-kun?”

It takes a few seconds for Sho to answer. “Two more hours if I have to do it myself. Less than half of it if I have Nino with me.”

“Okay. Okay, Nino you’re with Sho. You have one hour and that’d be your priority,” Jun says to Nino. He turns to Sho again, “Next. When’s the fastest we can get out of here?”

“Plan C?” Sho asks as he gets his phone and begins tapping.

“Yes.”

“Let me check.”

“Aiba-kun,” Jun says to the phone. “Set me up a safe pick up location near you. I’ll come pick you up in—“

“Matsujun, they have a flight out, boarding is in two hours.” Sho says, looking up from his phone. “We’re taking this one?”

“Yes. Get us those tickets.” Jun nods, and now he turns to Ohno. “Ohno-san, we need an unmarked car. We’re picking up Aiba-kun and heading straight to the airport.”

“Got it. I’ll have my earbud on.” Ohno says. He quickly goes to the corner of the room, collecting his gear before heading out of the room.

“Aiba-kun, you heard all that?”

I did. A pause. Sho-chan is tracking this call, right?

“Yes.” Jun turns to Sho only to have him pointing at Nino. As Sho is working with his phone, Nino has slid into Sho’s screen and is currently manning the computer. “Give me the map and time estimation for the trip from here, picking up Aiba, and then the airport.”

Nino swiftly clicks the command, bringing up the map onto the large screen. He plugs in the coordinates and brings up the notated map to the screen. “It’s 30 minutes from here. And another 30 minutes from there to get to the airport.”

You best pick me up here. It’s the safest option I can offer.

“Very well. You stay put. We’re on our way,” Jun says before hanging up the phone and begins to shrug into his jacket. “I need portable scanners, Sho-kun. We need to scan everything and burn the original documents later. Let’s leave no trails.”

Sho rushes to his large suitcase to retrieve them, packing it up into the smaller bag for Jun. He checks his watch as he hands Jun the bag. “All tickets are ready. You need anything else?”

“I got it. Thank you.” Jun then turns to Nino with a smile. “We found him, Nino, and he’s safe. Now you can kick him in the ass real hard later.”

It must be the way Jun said the words, gentle and soft, or the way Sho turns away with a small smile, or how Nino’s heart is racing inside his chest and for once it’s not from rush of adrenaline, it’s out of relief and happiness that Aiba is safe. Nino closes his eyes, feeling a single tear running down his cheek, and nods his silent thanks.

*

Nino is finally able to sleep on the return flight, not even realizing that they are not flying back to Tokyo until they land and the gate is certainly not a Haneda gate like he thought it would be.

“Wait. Why are we here in—“

“I’ll explain later,” Jun says quietly, subtly nudging Nino to quicken his pace. “Now we need to get out of the secured environment with surveillance cameras as soon as possible.”

Not wanting to attract more attention that they probably already have, with Jun choosing his sparkly daily clothes today out of all days, Nino follows Jun toward the exit gate without any further protest. At the taxi terminal, they quickly get in separate taxis. Nino is silent even if he’s fully alert during the drive—one he shares with Jun because the other three had already gone ahead of them, yet he knows it would be unwise to start a conversation.

When Jun finishes paying and thanking their taxi, with them standing in the east entry of a large secluded resort, Nino finally asks the question. “Are all precautions necessary? And can you explain why we are in Okinawa instead of heading home?”

Nino only sighs when Jun silently signals Nino to follow him. Falling into a slow stride they walk, contrary to Nino’s assumption, the opposite way of the large resort.

“They are all expecting us in Tokyo,” Jun says after a full minute of silence. “They know our faces. I’ve been told that the restaurant is no longer a safe cover. It’d be better to lie low for a while.”

“How long is ‘a while’?”

Jun gives a shrug. “I suppose until the Interpol wrap their prelim investigation in Taipei. Just to be safe, I’ll say we should give it a few weeks. And in the mean time, we all can get a vacation after all that scare.”

“Under all this sun?” As understanding dawns, Nino finds that he doesn’t like the option. “This is all Aiba’s fault.”

“It’s no one’s fault per see. It’s just a part of the job, just to be safe. We can all consider this time as a paid vacation. All expenses will be covered.”

“I’m not going to rent a banana boat, or order expensive room service in an island resort. Even so, don’t you think this is a bit too even for us?” Nino continues. “Or since you said you’ll cover all expenses, would you be willing to pay for complete set of PS4? Or a new release game software, the one that required you to queue for three hours in their Akihabara center just to get a copy?”

Jun laughs at that. “I was going to say anything can be done in this era of online shopping but your request might trouble Sho-kun.”

“Well, you did say that this is a paid vacation,” Nino mutters as he considers the option. Having free lodging and entertainment while still being paid because he is still in the job doesn’t seem so bad right now.

“I’m glad that cheered you up a bit,” Jun says as he makes a turn to a large parking lot. “By the way, we’re not going to a fancy island resort,”

Nino was about to ask a question when he turns and sees the other three leaning into a sleek SUV parked on the corner of the lot and waiting for them.

Jun turns to Nino, grinning. “We’re going to stay over at Ohno-san’s beach house for a while.”

Nino will blame his sluggishness and lack of quick wit on his tiredness and the lack of sleep for agreeing with this ridiculous option later. But now he finds it hard to complain as he gets window seat for the ride and the chance to make a mental list of other demand he’s going to give Sho as part of his paid vacation.

“It’s that one,” Ohno says, pointing to the far right end of the street. “The driveway is just after the—“

“I see it, Oh-chan,” Aiba says with a nod, slowing down the car. “Oh, it looks neat.”

They quietly follow Ohno into the house. Except for Sho, they bring nothing more than a backpack since they burned all electronics and everything else that can be traced back to them when they left Taipei.

After the AC is on and the living room is lit, they all gather inside. “Welcome,” Ohno says sheepishly, shifting on his feet as he awkwardly gestures to the room. “It’s not much—“

“This is more than enough, Ohno-san,” Jun says. “I cannot thank you enough for offering your private home for everyone.”

Ohno nods and turns to Sho and Nino. “The Wi-Fi might not be your usual, Nino. And Sho-kun, I don't even remember if I paid last month’s bill.”

Nino only kicks Ohno lightly on the shin while Sho smiles as he lifts his computer hard case. “No worries. I practically carry a satellite right here.”

“And, Aiba-chan—“

“Oh-chan, lend me your surf board and I’m good for the week.”

Ohno finally lets out a relieved chuckle. “I just don’t know what to do. I never had guests, and now you are all here.”

“Let us help then,” Jun says. “If you don’t mind showing me around town, Ohno-san, I can get us enough groceries and everything else we need. Sho-kun you need to set up, right?”

Sho nods. “It’ll take less than an hour, but then we’ll be set for any updates from Tokyo and secure a steady connection for a while.”

“And Nino,” Jun continues. “Help Aiba-kun with setting up the rooms after he’s done a security check on the perimeter, will you.”

When Nino only shrugs in reluctant agreement, Jun gives him a nod. He turns to address everyone again. “I apologize it has to end up like this, but we’ll definitely be safer here. I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Understood, Matsujun,” Aiba says, glancing at Nino before reverting his gaze. “I’ll start now and make sure we’re good for our stay.”

“Our vacation,” Jun corrects Aiba. “Even if it’s a bit forced and under dire circumstances this is our vacation.”

*

Nino very much wants to just lock himself in the room of his choice—now that he knows that the Wi-Fi is up and running since Sho’s ‘Yes yes yes!” can be heard from the living room. He had found Ohno’s bedding storage on first try so the rest of setting up was easy.

Heading down to the kitchen, he remembers that there’s no food yet, not until Jun returns with grocery. Sho has opened all the back doors and Nino can feel the breeze and smell the ocean from the patio.

The day has turned cooler with the sun almost setting. At the small hill beyond the house, he sees a large umbrella stands on a pair of beach chair with Aiba sitting down on one of it. Nino walks over, trying not to make any sound, but apparently Aiba notices. When the man only takes one look before looking away, Nino continues to walk over and boldly take a seat in the other chair.

“You didn’t return fast enough. I finished setting all the rooms,” Nino says.

Aiba only hums in response, his eyes still fixed to a point far in the horizon. "I’ve secured the perimeter.”

They sit in silence for a while longer.

Since now they’re in between jobs it might be the best time to settle this once and for all. Nino likes the team. He’s been getting the enjoyment of the con job that has been missing in the last years. Jun runs a good team and at least they all believe it is for the right reason. Sho and Ohno are excellent partners in crime; it’d be sad to lose solid partner but Nino will make do. Perhaps he’s going to carry on with his plan—after all he almost made up his mind in retiring when Jun came to Shimokitazawa that fateful night.

Nino weighs his options, partially knowing he won’t have any other chance—and he’s getting tired of how things are between him and Aiba. The man should have said he objected from the beginning if he didn’t want Nino to be in the team.

Aiba lets out a sigh before he says, “I told Matsujun I personally objected to you joining the team. I said we don’t need a traitor, no matter how good he is in a con. He said you’d be a great addition to the team, the balance we need. Matsujun’s right. The team needs a grifter and no one is better than you. But you left me in Nagasaki. I haven’t forgiven you for that.”

Nino only straightens his legs on the chair, eyes closed now as the sea breeze continues to lull them. “I’ll never apologize for that.”

“I know. And I wonder why.”

The sound of the waves breaking at the nearby beach accentuates their silence. Nino had promised himself that he’d keep this secret close but perhaps it it’s not entirely his secret to keep. “I will never apologize for saving your life.”

Silence again.

“I suspected that already.” Aiba’s tone is soft when he finds his voice again. “You never corrected me even once and it got me thinking. I replayed that Nagasaki job in my head so many times to see what the hell went wrong.”

His rising panic at the end of the Nagasaki job and his fear for Aiba who was still detained by the Yakuza while Nino was getting away with their stolen money flashes in his mind. It was one of the worst jobs he has ever done, maintaining composure in his role only to guarantee his way out of the commotion even at the cost of leaving Aiba behind.

“Everything that happened pointed the blame on you, from our original plan until my narrow escape.” Aiba shifts in his chair and continues. “But what’s really been bothering me is the getaway car. There was never a getaway car in the original plan. And I couldn’t have made it if it wasn’t for the car.”

Nino looks away, knowing that if Aiba sees his expression right now with his true feelings so close to the surface, he would be able to read Nino. But then again, Aiba has always been able to read him, even without looking into his face.

“Well, fuck me.”

Nino snorts a bitter laugh, wanting to tell Aiba that his choice was reduced to either leaving Aiba and helping him escaped indirectly or blowing both their cover and ended up captured by the federal police. He wants to say that as much as he wants Aiba to be out of jail, he more than appreciates his own freedom.

He ends up not saying anything; he knows Aiba knows what he wants to say.

“It’d be much more satisfying if I had the chance to give them a good kick in the ass before escaping together.”

“That’d be a very messy and fail-prone plan,” Nino says. “I had a better plan, and I executed it perfectly.”

“It was a good plan, I have to admit.” Aiba sighs. “Dammit, I hate it when you got a point.”

“That’s why I deceive people with my good looks and you punch bad people.”

“I still haven’t forgiven you though.”

“That’s okay. I also will never apologize,” Nino says. He sees a chance and kicks Aiba’s chair hard enough to give it a shake.

Aiba only hisses with annoyance, face crunched, before his face breaks into a genuine smile at Nino. He kicks Nino chair very hard in retaliation, sending it sliding away in the sand. “Thank you for Taipei.”

“I do hate you for stranding us here for a while but you’re welcome.” Nino stares at Aiba with narrow eyes, holding their gaze, and at that moment they both acknowledge that everything between them is okay. They both won’t say anything else about this, and get on with their lives.

Back into the silence, the sun gradually sets into the horizon and turning the sky slightly darker by the second. They probably should get back to the house but there’s one thing that Nino needs to say. “I’m worried about Jun-kun.”

Aiba sighs. “I know you picked up on that. I’ve been trying to talk to him to no avail myself. There’s something troubling him.”

“I figure that much. I just haven’t known what yet.”

“Nino, I meant it when I said you brought the balance the team needed,” Aiba says in serious tone. ”Before we found you, he was not as confident as he is now. He needed our help.”

Nino smiles as he says, “He’s getting it, whether he likes it or not.”

After the sun set, they walk back to the house together only to find the table is set up in the patio and a grill that’s already burning just a few feet away. Jun and Ohno are watching them with proud smile, clapping their hands.

Sho is holding his phone camera toward them, capturing the moment with enthusiasm. “Aww. You guys finally made up! And with such a beautiful backdrop of Okinawan sunset. Beautiful.”

“Yes, we did.” Aiba smiles at the camera, waving peace signs before turning straight to the grill. “Are we grilling something for dinner, Sho-chan?”

Sho sends one last smug smile to Nino before setting aside his camera and heads to the grill with rapid explanation of their dinner plan.

“Now we can start dinner. I’m starving,” Jun says as Nino takes the empty seat next to him. “I’m glad it worked out well, Nino.”

Staring holes at Jun’s back as the man heads to the grill to join Aiba and Sho, Nino is trying very hard not to smile. “Yeah.”

Ohno moves to Jun’s empty seat and passes Nino a bottle of cold beer. “I’m happy for you and Aiba.”

“Shut up. You all acted like he just proposed or something.”

“What? He didn’t?” Ohno says, clutching the front of his t-shirt, feigning shock while making a cute surprised face. “How dare he!”

Sending an elbow jab to Ohno’s belly, Nino doesn’t hold back his laughter this time. “Shut up.”




Time
“I’m home. Lights, full,” Jun says as he crosses the entryway of his apartment and enters the already-lit living room. Following behind him, Ohno and Nino with their backpacks heading straight to the end of the couch and crashing together, and Aiba with two suitcases going straight to Jun’s utility room at the bag.

Sho is hanging up his phone with a soft “Thank you. I’ll be waiting.” He then announces to the room. “Food will be here in 40 minutes.”

“Great.” Jun looks around the room and says to Aiba when he returns. “You all know where everything is. I’m going to take a quick shower before the food gets here.”

“Got it.” Aiba gives a thumb up. “And permission to raid your booze cabinet?”

Jun lets out a laugh. “Granted. I think I still have some cheese, bars of dark chocolate, and other things in the fridge. Have at it.”

“Dark chocolate he said,” Ohno half whispers excitedly.

Jun stops midway and turns one last time, staring straight at Nino. “And we’re going to use the dining table this time. I still haven’t recovered from the exorbitant bill of dry cleaning my couch and the carpet.”

Aiba and Ohno laugh as they head to the kitchen. Sho lets out a chuckle at his seat when Nino pulls a sulky face.

“It was just one time, Jun-kun. I never thought you’d be so overdramatic about it.”

“You’re indefinitely banned from consuming alcohol in this house, Nino,” Jun says from the top of the stairs. “Unless you’re willing to pay any dry-cleaning bill yourself.”

Delivery arrives just in time as they finished arranging the table. Last arrangement is done in swift movements, with Sho waiting in front of his empty plate with his iPad and the others walking back and forth to set more dishes on the table.

Jun settles first as Aiba and Nino take their seats with the last dishes from the kitchen. When Ohno joins with a glass of cold beer, Jun proposes a toast. Everyone raises their glasses, nods their salute, and then begins partaking.

Sho has just had his first large spoonful when his iPad beeps. It’s very unusual for Sho to have his electronics during meals as he usually wants utmost focus in partaking. But before Nino can comment, Sho taps his arms and slides his iPad toward Nino.

Confused by Sho’s serious expression albeit his cheeks bulging with food, Nino looks down to see the readout. He looks up when he realizes what he’s reading, and frowns at Sho.

Sho begins gesturing madly, his hands flailing to signal instructions for Nino and Nino, picking up immediately what Sho’s trying to tell him, replies with more complicated hand gestures combined with head tilts.

“Guys?”

Nino turns to see Aiba frowning with questioning looks at both of them. Ohno and Jun also have stopped partaking.

“I don’t feel so good,” Nino says, already rising from his chair slowly holding his stomach with exaggerated pinched expression.

Sho quickly follows Nino’s lead while signaling the others to do the same. “Maybe you need to go to the bathroom now before Matsujun makes you pay for the whole cleaning bill of this apartment.”

Jun is startled, genuinely surprised. “What? You are not going to barf in my dining room, Ninomiya. Bathroom now! Quick.”

Aiba and Ohno follow wordlessly at Sho’s signal. They shuffle into the bathroom where Nino is already turning on the shower. Sho closes the door behind them and nods his approval.

“What is this?” Jun finally realizes that Nino is nowhere near ill.

Sho shows his iPad readout to everyone; not that anyone besides Nino understands its meaning. “We have bugs.”

“What? Here?”

“Yes,” Sho says, pointing at his readout. “There’s one at the dining room lighting fixture. I’m already running a remote overall sweep, and on the way here, I detected another one, probably in the entryway.”

“Nice move with the shower, Nino,” Ohno says, giving Nino a shoulder bump. “I bet there’s more.”

Jun is obviously annoyed. “At my home? Seriously?”

“From my initial reading, it’s a top grade bug, possibly military—which is why we are all here squeezed in the bathroom. This is serious, Matsujun.”

“Of course it’s serious,” Jun snaps. “They’re bugging my apartment. My home. Our office. This is fucking serious.”

Sho nods in understanding. “The next question is: what do you want to do? Nino took the right precaution already. If you didn’t want them to know that we know they bugged us, they would not know.”

They fall silent for a moment as Jun fights his anger and makes his decision. “Let’s surprise them later.”

“Okay.” Sho is tapping his iPad again. “Give me two minutes to set up some counter-signals so it’d be easier to jam them later.”

Nino turns to Jun, running his hand soothingly along Jun’s arm. “I’ll help Sho-chan with a full and thorough sweep. We’ll know at the end of the night.”

“Send me the model identification, I can help with some research,” Aiba says.

“And I can check the ventilation shafts,” Ohno adds.

Nino turns to Ohno, kicking him lightly. “You just want to play around with your gear.”

“You need to be thorough.” Ohno is pouting but Nino knows his tone is serious. “Someone is on to Matsujun!”

“Someone is on to us,” Jun corrects Ohno. The display of support from everyone has him calmed down a little bit.

“Done,” Sho announces. “We better go back because all of us in the bathroom for more than two minutes should be pretty telling already.”

“Can we still have dinner?” Ohno asks with a grimace. “I’m still hungry.”

Jun sighs before nodding. “We can. And we will. Nino just has to pretend to be sick for the next hour.”

Nino snorts laughter. “I’ll put it on my invoice.”

“And we can give them full talk and bad jokes about Nino being weak in the stomach,” Aiba says with a grin.

“I’ll definitely put this on my invoice.” Nino knows it’s going to be another long night. “Shall we, then?”

*

Nino turns just in time for the elevator to reopen again, and it doesn’t surprise him to see Ohno is pressing the hold button for him.

“Thank you, Oh-chan.”

Ohno smiles at him, adjusting his large equipment backpack on his shoulder.

“Why are you carrying that— Wait. No one told me we’re leaving for a job.”

“Aiba-chan called me to come with full gear, right after Sho-chan’s hung up,” Ohno says. “And here you are with nothing again. Don’t you ever carry a wallet?”

Nino only laughs. “I have my phone with me. I can get anything else I need later.”

Inside Jun’s apartment, Sho is pacing around the living room to pack his gadgets and equipment. Jun welcomes them with a wave of hand, already in his neat business suit and looking sleek and striking.

“Are we going somewhere?”

“Aiba is already on his way to Tokyo Station. We’re boarding the 10.24 Shinkansen to Kanazawa,” Jun says, handing Nino and Ohno envelopes. “Earbud on. We’d be in different cars; you’re with Ohno-san. Full briefing later en route.”

Nino takes Ohno’s hand in his hold, already pulling him to the door. “Let’s get going then. Dibs on window seat!”

Ohno groans in disappointment but he shuffles his way along with Nino.

Not more than a half hour later, Nino activates his earbud the moment the train departs with he’s settling nicely in his window seat. Ohno does the same with an impressive pout because he just lost their silly race of who’s getting to the window seat first.

“Reporting for duty from his window seat,” Nino says with a chuckle.

Ohno also taps his earbud. “Reporting for duty too, next to his stolen window seat.”

“Why don’t you move to the next row or something? There are a lot of windows.”

“Then I’m going to be seated far from you.” Ohno only narrows his eyes at Nino as if that answers everything.

“Suit yourself,” Nino says. “Wait, who’s eating lunch noisily? Sho-chan?”

I’m doing our setup here. I missed breakfast because of all the rush. Do not talk to me about lunch.

Nino hears Jun chuckle and that only leads to one culprit.

“Aiba-chan, how did you find time to buy a fricking lunch bento?”

Sho sounds utterly unhappy even through their earbud connection. Lunch bento?

I was thinking of buying one for everyone but then I remembered we’re in different seats. So—

Nino chuckles when he hears Sho whine over the earbud, right before Jun clears his throat in warning.

Briefing before lunch please.

I will make a stop by my beloved tonkatsu place in Katamachi when we get there. No one can stop me! There’s a series of multiple taps before Sho speaks again. So. A client we once helped told me that a friend of his relatives was a victim of a scam. The scheme sounds familiar so I’ve searched further. It turns out that more than 30 people around Kanazawa city have been losing their money in the past month. A short pause. Aiba-chan, can you even listen with all the food in your mouth?

I’m listening. I might have been taking notes, but now you’ll never know. Aiba sounds offended.

“Yeah, taking notes with your chopsticks you mean,” Nino says.

Ohno giggles next to him before he says, “Familiar scam?”

Jun answers. Ten months ago we sent Kuro Sasaki to prison for consumer fraud with a similar scheme. His company survives the fall just because he was smart enough to erase the transfer trails.

Ah, the ore ore scam guy? Aiba says. I remember him having a weak left jab.

“Said the guy who’s taking notes with his chopsticks.”

They all can hear Aiba’s grunting, but Jun is faster. Anyway, we wouldn’t be rushing if not for what was in the news this morning.

The victims in Kanazawa have filed a report to the police. Arrest had been made yesterday of Kato Marie, the head of the scam, and her two assistants. But the municipal attorney office released Kato this morning, along with a public apology from the Municipal Attorney for a false arrest.

“Is she not in this?”

Oh, she’s all over and above all this. The Municipal Attorney has been receiving a steady revenue from Kato’s group.

“I see,” Nino only says. Ohno next to him mutters with disgust, “Icky.”

“Icky? Really?”

Sho only continues. I suspect it’s bigger than just that. I found out that Kuro Sasaki had apparently been released early from prison last month, and has been relocated in Kanazawa since.

Sho-kun had found link to connect Kato’s group to Kuro Sasaki’s company but so far it’s not tangible enough for solid proof.

Nino says, “But now that they operate in several perfectures, this comes under federal police jurisdiction, right?”

That’s right, Jun says. But that’s not our objective here. With the release of Kato and the stale investigation, the victims have lost their hope to recover their funds. Their main concern is to be able to get their money back. We’re going to steal it back for them.

“Plan?”

We need to steal a taxi, a regular one. You and Ohno-san, Nino.

“Okay,” Nino elbow bumps Ohno who is dozing. He pulls out his phone from his pocket, quickly browsing for general info. “Any color preference?”

Go crazy.

“Got it.”

Meanwhile, Aiba-kun, go straight to Kuro Sasaki’s shell company in Kanazawa, the Evtn Ltd. No direct contact, just a quick perimeter check. We also need time estimation of in and out from above and below. Just in case an escape route is needed when we make a visit tomorrow. Nino can pick you up when you’re done. And Sho-kun will send you GPS address of our base here. Go there when you’re done.

Aiba mutters a soft Got it. on the other side of the line.

I’ll meet you all later. I have a 1.15 appointment at the City Hall. We’ll see if we can get more info from a Municipal Attorney insider.

Ohno says with a surprised tone. “You’re meeting the Municipal Attorney?”

No, I’m meeting the Assistant of the Municipal Attorney.

Another lawyer? A clean one? Aiba asks.

I have it in good authority that she’s a dedicated and passionate lawyer and has a solid sense of justice.

“Who vouched for her?” Nino has to ask.

Sho-kun. Jun pauses a while. I’m meeting Sho-kun’s mother.

No one says anything for nearly a full minute in the comm, until Nino recovers first. “Sho-chan?”

What? I finished all building our front, set up appointments, and working on our earbud and everything else. All in one morning. Now, I am going to have lunch and tea time at my beloved tonkatsu place in Katamachi.

*

A lesser thief would steal the first taxi he sees but Nino knows better. As soon as he and Ohno part way with Aiba at the grand entrance of the station they head straight to the connecting bus terminal a block away. In the south entrance area, taxis are lined up, both the operating and off-duty ones. He lets Ohno smoothly slide into one of the white taxis at the end of the line before taking the front seat and fiddling with the electronic meter and key system.

Under two minutes, Nino is already on the road with his taxi with Ohno in the back seat. But before he can head uptown to pick Aiba up they need to make one more stop.

Nino does a quick clone of the security pad with his phone when he reaches the taxi headquarters underground garage as Ohno jogs to the maintenance corner to steal extra license plates.

“Tell me which one, Oh-chan.”

There’s no answer for a full minute before he can hear Ohno whisper in the earbud. Third row north end. Wait. It says 7CF on the pillar.

“Got it,” Nino says as he strides to the north part of the garage. “How many extras did you get?”

I got five. Do you think we need more?

“That’s enough.” Nino quickens his pace when he sees Ohno standing next to a new white taxi. “I see you. Take photos of those licenses and send them to Sho-kun. He’ll wipe out the APBs for awhile.”

Ohno nods and goes to the open trunk to do so. Nino slides into the driver seat and works on the electronic lock and deactivates the company GPS tracker.

“We’re done?” Ohno says as he slides into the back seat.

“In a minute. I just need to—“ Nino says as the engine comes to life. He turns to Ohno with a smile. “Scratch that. We’re done.”

They drive out of the garage without a hitch since Nino has already disabled the taxi ID chip reader. Just in time for Kanazawa rush hour, they meet a little bit of traffic, making slow progress as they drive across town.

“Aiba-chan, we’re in a bit of traffic. It’ll take—“ Nino pauses to check his phone that is now perched as a navigation screen on the dashboard. “5 minutes for us to get there.”

I’m done in three. Where should I go?

Nino swipes his map to decide a possible route. “Across the East lobby. This map says there’s a bus stop?”

Meet you there.

“And Sho-chan, whenever you’re finished with your beloved lunch, send us that address.”

Sho has the gall to sound offended. Of course I finished lunch. Sending those GPS— Sent.

They stop at a red light and Nino plugs in the address from Sho, which turns out to be only another 5 minutes from where they are going to pick up Aiba. ”It’s nearby.”

Aiba is laughing at the other line. We’re picking up Sho-chan, too?

“He has our lunch after all.”

How do you— Oh, whatever. Just let me know when you’re on your way.

“See you soon,” Nino says with a smile. He makes the U-turn, and heads to the bus stop across East lobby. “Aiba-chan, we’re almost there. White taxi.”

I see you.

“Oh-chan, scoot over,” Nino says as he pulls over just right in front of Aiba and opens the back door for him.

“Yo!” Aiba greets them after he puts his luggage in the trunk and joins the two inside the car with a comment. “Nice choice.”

“We’ll make do.”

Still navigating in Kanazawa rush hour, it takes them a little more than 5 minutes to get Sho. Nino pulls over in front of an alley in a quiet neighborhood where Sho’s already standing on the sidewalk with two large plastic bags of what seems to be boxes of bentos.

“Oh my god, something smells so good,” Ohno says when Sho joins them in the front passenger seat. “Sho-kun, you brought lunch!”

“Calm down, Oh-chan,” Nino says as he drives back into the road. “No eating in my taxi.”

“This is not your taxi,” Aiba reminds him. “It smells heavenly here. Oh my. Sho-chan, what did you buy?”

“I stole this taxi so unofficially this is my taxi.”

“The tonkatsu special bento. It’s super delicious and I bought enough for everyone,” Sho says, turning back with a beam of a smile and thumbs up. He notices Nino has been using his phone as a navigator. “That’s neat. Should I plug in the route for our last destination?”

Nino sighs with relief. “Yes, please. Try to find us one with the least traffic, Sho-chan.”

“It should take no more than twenty minutes,” Sho says, already tapping an entry to Nino’s phone. “Or even less if we’re taking the south route.”

The drive takes less than twenty minutes, because they meet less traffic and Sho keeps giving suggestions on which route is better. Nino makes a turn, just as Sho instructed, entering an estate through a large iron gate.

“Here?”

“Yes,” Sho says, pointing at the end of the driveway. “That’s Matsujun. You can just pull over behind that black car.”

Nino gets out of the car after he parks, frowning at the large cottage in front of them. Ohno and Aiba soon join him after retrieving their bags from the trunk.

“What’s this place?” Aiba asks, turning in confusion to Ohno, who only shrugs and turns also in confusion to Nino.

“Sho-chan?” Nino turns in confusion to Sho who is already walking toward the cottage to meet Jun, leaving them no other option but to follow.

Jun laughs as he sees the confused looks on the three of them. “Sho-kun, you haven’t told them yet?”

“Told us what?”

Sho takes out a key chain out of his pocket and puts his palm into the security plate by the door. The alarm light blinks green, and the door opens. He finally turns to face the others, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “Welcome to my house.”

Aiba lets out a shriek as he goes to Sho. “Wow. Like, wow!”

Jun lets out a chuckle. “Wait till you see the inside of the house.”

There’s a glint of excitement in Nino’s eyes. “What are we waiting for then?”

Sho then leads them inside, and Aiba can only repeat his delighted shriek. “Oh. Wow. Wow. Wow!”

The large living room has most of the furniture covered with sheets and plastics. Tall windows give a spectacular view of a vast garden, with a larger estate on the far side of the garden in view. Nino can easily recognize the antiques, subtle positioning of the paintings—which is strategically set to blend in with the room without reducing their intensity.

And then the massive curved staircase leading to the second floor, and what’s beyond it.

“Sho-chan, you’re filthy rich,” Nino says as he steps closer to admire vintage Chippendale mahogany chairs by the fireplace.

“My father, my grandfather, my great grandfather are the ones who are filthy rich. I got crossed out from the family register long ago, so none of this is actually mine. Only in paper.” Sho huffs his irritation. “The dining area and kitchen is over here, unless you want a tour.”

“Dining area, he said,” Aiba says with glee. “That’s what rich people call the place where they have meals.”

“Don’t touch things!”

“Hands off, yeah,” Ohno says distractedly. “I’m not touching anything Sho-kun, I swear.”

Sho glares darkly. “That’s photo frame is Stradivarius, and I can see the tip poking out of your jeans, Satoshi-kun.”

“Dammit.”

“And what a beauty we have here.” Aiba says, stroking a large vase, as they move very slowly toward the kitchen.

“That’s a genuine Ming! Don’t touch it. Just don't. Please. Guys.”

“Why did you take us to this place if you don’t want us to touch anything then?” Jun says with apparent amusement. He turns to Nino who is in the middle of examining two paintings on the wall. “Ohno-san, you better pick the Van Gogh one, the other is fake.”

Ohno grins. “Good eyes, Matsujun.”

Sho has had enough so he just huffs and turns dramatically to go to the kitchen. Following Sho with slower pace—because the room is truly impressive and Nino cannot imagine what other surprises the house has in store; very exciting— they finally arrive at the kitchen where Sho has already started to unload their lunch boxes.

“Pardon our rudeness, Sho-chan,” Nino says with a soft tone as he approaches Sho. He can clearly tell that Sho is truly irritated even if Aiba and Ohno mean no harm at all. “We just got a bit over excited.”

“I wouldn’t call it a bit,” Sho mutters grumpily as he sets the next bento onto the counter with unnecessary force. “I told Matsujun we could use this house because it’d be easier for us to coordinate. No one is going bother us here. No one from the main Sakurai house, besides the caretaker of the house I paid, even goes to this part of the estate.”

Nino ignores the display of temper and takes a seat next to Sho. “You should’ve just told us from the beginning.”

“And look at how you all reacting when I told you.”

“You completely surprised us with the house. It’s just a lot to take in in a very short span of time, okay? We’ll get over it soon enough, perhaps longer for those two silly thieves. But we’ll get over this eventually.”

“Let’s see about that,” Sho says with a softer voice. He is still irritated but Nino has put out the initial annoyance.

“Now, can we eat lunch? I’m starving and you promised me a special. What was it? Katsu something?”

“Tonkatsu special bento,” Sho corrects Nino’s mistake, knowing that it was done on purpose to tease him. “I probably won’t feed those two until they properly apologize. They don’t know I also got us all chocolate pudding.”

“Good idea,” Nino nods in agreement. “And maybe Jun-kun too because he’s also an accomplice in this.”

“Hey! I heard that,” Jun says from outside the kitchen. “I did nothing, and we need to talk about our next plan.”

Nino raises his voice to make sure Jun, and the others, hear him perfectly. “Well, you all better get here, apologize to Sho-chan, and get your lunch so we can begin to talk about our next plan.”

Next to him, Sho lets out a small smile and bumps his shoulder to Nino’s.

An hour later, the table is cleared. Sho has already set up his portable screen and tabs when everyone gathers again to talk about their next plan.

“Your mother has been a great help,” Jun says as he produces a stack of documents from his briefcase. “These are the copies of the case files and Kuro Sasaki’s victims report. I have to say I didn’t expect this to be this smooth.”

“What did you tell her?” Ohno asks.

“That I came from Tokyo, a criminal lawyer from Madarame Firm. It’s a cover I often use to deal with law enforcement,” Jun says. “She examined my fake business card for a long time before staring at me in silence for a few minutes. Damn, that was scary.”

Sho only sighs. “That means that she doesn’t buy your cover. At all.”

“So why did she give Jun-kun the case files?”

“Probably because she figured out that we mean no harm and are trying to help out,” Sho says. He sips his coffee with a frown. “I was so sure I didn’t give anything away when I set up the appointment for Matsujun.”

“Anyway,” Jun continues. “Now that we have the victims data, we should be able proceed to the next stage.”

“Which is?” Aiba asks.

“Sho will need remote access to their server and Ohno-san will get you that,” Jun says as he points his finger to both Ohno and Sho. “We’re also going to have Kuro Sasaki led us to their central office and his personal safe.”

“At his office?”

Sho presses a few keys and several schematics appear on screen. “In Kanazawa, Kuro Sasaki lives in a sparse 2LDK apartment with minimal security. His residence in Tokyo is seized and currently sealed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. He has no record of having any bank account in Tokyo, which is why the police haven’t been able to find this fund.”

“And you believe he has his money in this office here?” Nino asks.

“It has to be in both his offshore accounts, which Sho-kun will get into once he has access to the company server, and at his office here. The police surveillance reports indicate that after being released from prison, Kuro travelled to Kanazawa in an unmarked large van. He didn’t bring any furniture.” Jun says with a sigh as he finds his coffee has turned lukewarm. “What still worries me is how this Kato Marie plays into this.”

Sho continues the explanation for the rest of them. “Kato Marie is an alias.”

“For who?” Aiba asks.

“From what I can gather in a very short notice, it is an alias of another alias. Good ones. Someone very skillful had worked very hard to create this Kato Marie alias while maintaining the other aliases. Now, Kuro Sasaki might be our target but as Matsujun said just now I also think that the danger that lies in this is Kato Marie. So far I tracked down five of her aliases.”

“That’s a lot.”

“Yet, it’s almost like these aliases disappear overnight.” Sho taps his keyboard to summon a list of identities. “On the way here I tried to match her ID photo with the national database only to no avail.”

Nino asks, “Didn’t you have something else? The news clip from her arrest or something?”

“Nothing. There’s no coverage for her arrest. I even hacked into the CCTV footage archive of Kanazawa police station and the Municipal Attorney office, found nothing. Nothing that can give me enough to do a face match recognition. The only trace she left is her arrest record, which as of now means nothing because she has disappeared.”

“Your mother mentioned something about Kato,” Jun says, forehead pinched as he tries to remember. “She said his boss, the Municipal Attorney, arranged a special interrogation session, off-limits to anyone else but people he handpicked. The recording of the session was labeled confidential and cannot be accessed.”

“I bet Mom was pissed,” Sho mutters with a smirk. “That dirty attorney won’t stand a chance.”

Nino turns to Jun. “So, what we are going to do about this Kato Marie?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“She’s not the reason we’re here,” Jun says, making sure he has everyone’s attention. “Or at least she’s not our first priority. We’re here to steal that money back from Kuro Sasaki, and we should focus on that.”

*

The next morning, Aiba drives the taxi to go to Kuro Sasaki’s neighborhood while the rest of them go with Jun’s car to midtown to set up in the Evtn Ltd. Sho has set up a fake company account and finds a small corner office on the 4th floor. It’s a small space with only two desks and a few chairs, but it’s enough for Sho and Nino to arrange Sho’s portable screen and laptops.

I see him. Aiba reports through the earbud. He just exited his apartment and is looking for a taxi. I’m driving up to him now.

“Good. How long till we’re all set up?” Jun turns to Sho who’s still plugging in cables into his second laptop.

“Five more.”

Aiba says, On.

“Start the countdown,” Jun tells Nino who manned the first laptop. Nino nods and says, “20 minutes.”

They can hear Aiba greeting Kuro Sasaki through the earbud, asking his destination—which is confirmed as in the office—and starting his way there.

Nino begins his directions. “Follow your taxi navi system for now, Aiba-chan. You’ll encounter heavy traffic in 2 minutes. Just go right ahead.”

Got it.

“I’m online,” Sho announces, turning to Jun and Ohno. “You’re good to go, Matsujun.”

“We’re at 16 minutes 30 seconds,” Nino says, anticipating Jun’s question.

Jun nods and takes the company visitor cards from Sho. “We have 15 plus minutes, Ohno-san. Let’s go.”

“Till later,” Ohno smiles to Nino and Sho before following Jun out of the office and to the elevator.

Jun is already waiting for instructions. Which elevator?

Sho is already on it. “Elevator 1, for the Lobby, arriving— Now.”

Meanwhile Nino is already focused on his screen again. “Aiba-chan, I need Kuro to unlock his phone so I can start the cloning.”

Aiba whispers, Got it., before going into a friendly chat, asking about the weather, throwing some trivia to Kuro, and not before long Nino is getting a readout that cloning is ready to start.

“Nice,” Nino says, clicking a series of the next orders to access Kuro Sasaki’s cloud. “Ignore the next two directions from the GPS and keep heading south instead until you meet a gridlock on the Musashigatsuji intersection.”

Sho says: “11 minutes 15 seconds. Satoshi-kun, you’re there yet?”

The last lock pad.

Nino says: “At this rate, Kuro will be here in 10 minutes, Jun-kun. Do you need more time? I’m done with the cloning already.”

No, I’m all set. If Nino’s done with his phone, drive Kuro here, Aiba-kun.

Okay, Aiba softly whispers. He’s beginning to catch on to all the wrong turns I’m making anyway.

“We’re at 7 minutes 10 seconds now,” Nino says.

Sho-kun, I’m in.

“Get to the far end,” Sho replies to Ohno. “Far end, it should be at bottom of the largest one.”

Okay. I’m sending you images now.

Nino plugs a connecter between two laptops, transferring the data he retrieved from Kuro Sasaki’s cloud account with a few clicks. A glance to Sho’s screen gives him a view of a large photo Ohno just sent, of a selfie of him grinning in front of blinking full-duplex TCP server ports. He says, “Just why did you have to include your sleepy face?”

Ohno only chuckles, as Sho zooms in and scrolls across the picture before giving his next instruction. “Plug the blue firewire cable to second from bottom port. Then, red one to the middle one, third from left. And then, set the transmitter.”

There’s silence for a few moments as Ohno follows Sho’s instruction, and then. Done.

“Okay, I should be able to—“ Sho is already typing remote terminal commands rapidly. “There you go. I just need— What the hell, multiple passwords at this stage you say? Are they expecting us or something? I’ll show you what multiple passwords are—“

Aiba’s soft voice over the earbud: Pulling over at the lobby.

Nino checks his monitor, closing his cloning apps, and says, “3 minutes.”

Sho-kun? Jun asks.

“I just need— Oh, that was clever, but not clever enough. I can give you—“ Sho’s eyes are fixed on his monitor as he works quickly.

“Do you still need Oh-chan?”

Sho is nodding madly. “Yes! He needs to activate the transfer manually. Now. All I need to do is— Two down. One more.“

“Jun-kun, we need more time,” Nino says as he’s watching the CCTV feed from the lobby. “Kuro already passed the reception security.”

I’m on it. Aiba-kun, go around the block again. I’ll meet you at the lobby.

Aiba swiftly answers. Got it.

“Sho-chan.” Nino says as he watches Jun intercept Kuro Sasaki and try to delay his way to the elevator by bumping into him. “50 seconds.”

“I almost got it. Just a little bit—. A little bit—”

“Oh-chan, you will have to sprint back to the elevator,” Nino tells Ohno. His eyes are now fixed on the timer. “31 seconds. Sho-chan!”

“Almost there,” Sho says before he exclaims breathlessly. “And I’m in! Hit it.”

Done. And going now.

Nino checks the screen one last time. “Jun-kun, we’re done.”

Jun in the lobby is currently bowing his apology to Kuro Sasaki. Good. Few more seconds I would have to punch him. He’s getting in to the elevator now.

“I see that. 15 seconds,” Sho announces. “Satoshi-kun, I’ve cleared elevator 2 for you.”

Nino grabs his suit jacket and sprints to the elevator.

Nino, you’re up.

“Yeah,” Nino adjusts his suit jacket, and is ready when Sho’s voice rings through his earbud. 5 seconds. Elevator arriving in, 3, 2, 1.

The elevator doors slide open, revealing Kuro Sasaki who appears in the worst mood standing in one corner. Nino steps into the elevator and stands in the other corner. The door slides shut and the elevator proceeds going up.

Nino breathes out a soft whisper, “On.”

*

Nino distracts the entire 30th floor with his policeman con long enough to allow Ohno to crack the safe in Kuro’s office. Ohno finds not only a few million yen in cash but also ledgers for all the transactions the man has done in the past years, including exact notation of every scam he’s ever done. Sho comes to the 30th floor with a janitor disguise and with the garbage cart he and Ohno sneak the money out of the office. They drive out of the building within 30 minutes, picking up Nino at the lobby, and head back to Sho’s house.

Meanwhile, Jun and Aiba manage to break into the Municipal Attorney office but find no recording of Kato Marie interrogation or documents that could help them finding the woman. They return to Sho’s house, meeting the others who are already packing their equipment and getting ready to head back to Tokyo.

They’ll be taking the taxi to the station because Jun is firm in returning the taxi back to the company. Besides Sho will not need additional arrangements to get his car from the station parking lot.

They were trying to decide who’s going to drive this time by janken when Ohno alerts them. “Guys.”

A woman, fierce in her sharp business suit, is walking toward them. Her strong facial features and big eyes give away who she is immediately.

Sho takes one step forward to shield the others from her view. “How did you know I’m here?”

“I know everything that happens in this estate. I also know quite a lot of things,” she says, meeting Sho in the middle of the driveway. “It’s nice to see you again, Miyama-san.”

Jun immediately straightens his posture to bow his greeting. “Likewise, Sakurai-san.”

“And it’s nice to see the rest of your friends,” she says as she bows to Nino, Ohno, and Aiba, who awkwardly bows back in greeting.

“We’re just about to get going,” Sho says coldly. “I’m—“

“My office received an anonymous delivery of new evidence for the Kuro Sasaki case. We’ll be able to request a retrial. We also received reports from his victims saying that the money they lost has been transferred back to their accounts.”

“I don’t—“

“Thank you,” she says, staring straight at Sho before aiming her sharp gaze to the others. “Thank you very much.”

“Mom, you’re mistaken. We’re just —“


Sakurai-san takes two steps forward and surprises Sho with a hug, startling Sho and everyone else. She says in a softer voice, “Thank you.”

“Mom,” Sho complains halfheartedly as his hands wraps tighter around his mother. “You’re embarrassing me in front of my friends.”

Sakurai-san finally releases Sho, but refuses to let his hand go as she smiles proudly at her son.

Sho tries to wiggle out of his mother’s iron grip. “Mom. We need to go.”

Aiba jumps on the opportunity to beat everyone to the driver seat and starts the car. Ohno and Nino bow their goodbye to Sakurai-san before sliding into the back seat.

“It has been a pleasure, Sakurai-san,” Jun says before he walks to the car and joins Ohno and Nino in the back seat.

“I need my hand back. Preferably soon.”

Sakurai-san ignores Sho’s cold tone and reaches up to touch Sho’s cheek. She leans to drop a kiss on his forehead. “Stay safe, okay.”

“I will, Mom,” Sho replies softly. ”Now, please, can I go?”

The moment she lets Sho’s hand go, Sho bolts into the car but to his dismay Aiba deliberately drives away slowly.

Aiba lets out a chuckle. “Sho-chan.”

“What?”

Nino picks up what Aiba wants to say and can barely hold in his chuckles. “Your mom is waving goodbye.”

Jun laughs and Ohno turns to see Sakurai-san stop waving and now standing still and watching them drive away. “She really was. That’s so cute.”

“Shut up.” Sho takes a glance into the rearview mirror and groans. He then gives up and palms his face instead to hide the smile blooming on his face. “Just shut up.”

*

Sho and Nino walk into the dining room with their eyes still fixed on their newest gadgets. Nino takes a left turn and aims his scanner to the direction of the kitchen—picking up nothing but the normal electrical waves from the appliances. He reaches the end of the room, meeting with Sho who has also finished his scan.

Sho turns to the direction of the dining table, still aiming his scanner but smiling widely. “We’re officially bug free! I jammed and reroute them. They’ll be getting loops of statics from now on.”

“That’s excellent news,” Jun says flatly. “Can we eat now? The food is getting cold.”

“Of course,” Sho answers enthusiastically and heads to the table to join the others. “Sorry for the wait!”

Aiba immediately starts to fill his plate with the sautéed beef Jun has prepared for them. “I don’t know why you needed to have us wait for setting up.”

Nino takes a seat next to Ohno. “He didn’t want us to start without him, leaving him with only morsels of leftovers.”

Sho mumbles with his mouth full and tries to deny it, but ended up shrugging off his complaints.

“You found a lot, then?” Ohno says as he slowly begins partaking.

“Sho-kun said there were 2,” Jun says before turning Nino. “Or did you find more?”

“No,” Nino says as he slowly scoops fried rice onto his plate. “Finding two already says a lot.”

Silence falls into the room with each one of them partaking of their dinner quietly after that. But Nino knows that each one of them is giving this situation a serious thought. They will talk about this tonight, and set a new plan.

In an unspoken agreement, after dinner they stay in the dining room. Sho is already setting up the display run for their talk when Aiba and Ohno begin to clear the table. Jun brings a new wine bottle to the table and Nino goes to get more beer and bring Sho a refill.

“Let me do the talk for you,” Nino says to Sho, reaching for the console only to have Sho slap his hand lightly. “At least the beginning so we can go on with this.”

“What? No. I can do this.”

“No, you can’t,” Nino corrects him. “Especially while munching some cake with insane amounts of overflowing melted chocolate all over it.”

“Cake?” Sho blinks in confusion before turning to see Ohno and Aiba each holding a small plate of chocolate molten lava cake. Eyes wide, he says in a shrill voice “Is that lava cake? From that Ginza shop?”

Nino just slides into the seat Sho hurriedly vacated and takes over the prep. He nods at Jun who signals him to go on.

“Sho-chan will have to pick this up midway, but from what we worked on—“ Nino starts the run with several clicks on the console. “Once we identified the model of the first bug we found, it was not difficult to fine tune the search. Those bugs are high grade. I’ve never seen one this fancy.”

“Those are military grade indeed. Foreign military,” Aiba says, face serious even if there’s a smear of chocolate on the side of his lips, “Why would anyone go to such great length with superior equipment only to tap into our conversation?”

Next to Aiba, Ohno sets his half eaten cake down and asks the question. “Why would anyone want to listen to our conversation in the first place?”

Jun sips his wine slowly. “I have some rough guesses, but let’s hear the rest of your findings first.”

Ohno shifts on his seat to allow Sho to move next to Nino to take over the display run.

He brings up projections of a digitally notated map. “Anyway. I wasn’t not able precisely pin down the exact location of our listeners, but I can tell you that this has been going for a while, more like six months to a year. They haven’t been listening intently, only intervals. I crosschecked the timing with the jobs we took, and mostly it overlapped.”

“They were listening to our plan meetings?” Aiba asks.

“Yes,” Sho says, “And oddly enough, also to our celebration after jobs.”

“Mhmm.”

Everyone turns to Jun, who’s been quiet at the head of the table and now is sitting with his head perched on one hand, eyes closed, his fingers tapping absently onto the base of his wine glass.

They then wait. They have learned to wait for Jun, Nino realizes, for Jun to sort out his convoluted thoughts, for Jun to come up with the plan that suits them most.

Nino’s mind drifts to their previous job, to job from last winter, to their first job as a team. Aiba has asked why anyone would go to great length to listen to the conversation but Nino is much more interested in having answers for Ohno’s question: why anyone would even want to listen to their conversation, their plan meetings and celebration nights.

The taps of Jun’s fingers on the glass stop, and everyone’s attention is back on him. They watch Jun rise from his seat to go to the other room for a moment and return with a stack of dossiers in hand.

“I got into this mess long ago,” Jun says pensively as he opens the top folder. “I guess now I’ve dragged you all into it and we all are in this mess together.”

Aiba asks with a frown, “What do you mean ‘dragging us?”

Jun only opens the next folder on the stack, and the next, and the next, before spreading it over the table. “See for yourself.”

Nino takes the folder nearest to his reach and sees Aiba’s file. Flipping to the next pages of the folder, he finds long lists of Aiba’s suspicious activities. Turning to Ohno and the folder that he reads, Nino sees

“This is ours.”

Jun nods, opening the last folder he’s still holding before turning it for everyone to see. “And this is mine.”

Aiba and Nino exchange silent glances before nodding to each other. Sho reaches for his forgotten drink and lets the screen go to sleep. Nino takes another small sip of his beer and leans on Ohno’s shoulder.

“So you have our files,” Sho says.

“You guys are awfully calm about this,” Jun says again, face marred with slight confusion. “I was expecting a much more, let’s say, heated reaction.”

“I think what Sho-chan’s trying to tell you is ‘so the fuck what’,” Nino says with a small smile.

“I did a Level One background check—that’s the highest level authorized only to Japan Intelligence Agency senior agents, on each one of you. Especially you Nino,” Sho says with a smirk. “Because you used to annoy me the most.”

“A compliment coming from you.”

“I’ve read all of your files because Sho-kun made me,” Ohno says, as he turns and smiles at Sho. “Especially yours, Matsujun, because your file was the shortest.”

Sho reaches out to give Ohno a pat on the shoulder.

“And Aiba-kun doesn’t read,” Nino lets out a chuckle when Aiba responds with a loud ‘Oi!’ “But he’s good at reading people and will possibly beat you to pulp if you as much as try to flip him.”

Jun stares at them for a long silent minute before he softly says, “Aren’t you going to ask me where or how I obtained your files?”

“Are you going to tell us?” Nino asks. “Because it matters very little to us.”

The moment Nino says it, he realizes that he’s speaking the truth. They work better now compared to six months ago, compared to a year ago when they first teamed up. Somewhere along the way, while playing with danger, breaking the law, helping helpless people, and stealing money, they have come to understand each other.

Each of them no longer associated con jobs with cold lonely nights, of intricate plan and striving alone. Con jobs now mean Sho trusting Nino to use his precious equipment and work alongside each other. Con jobs mean Ohno sharing laughter with Nino as they mess around playfully with Aiba. Con job mean Nino trusting Jun to come up with the best plan and seeing it through together till the end.

They’ve run smooth and clean con jobs so far, so Nino is almost certain their listeners’ intention is not to interfere with their jobs. They are careful, so their listeners didn’t actually have anything on them except of their plan meetings. They have always been respectful; sure, they steal from the rich and powerful and take down some of the corrupt but they give back and never take more than they need to take.

Trust has been earned; respect has been given. Jun has nothing to worry about.

“Matsujun, have you been keeping this to yourself the whole time?” Aiba asks, concern in his voice.

“Nino asked me once in the beginning about why we do short cons now,” Jun says. “Do you still remember that?”

“Yeah.”

“I stopped working long con two years ago because I realized that it will never do good for anyone involved. We will only be thieves and conmen. We are not helping clients with long cons. We are not helping just when we think we are.”

Jun has to stop to take long sips of his drinks. “Then, someone sent these files. I did my research and contacted you. Working with you all felt really good and made me more determined to do short ones, especially since we’re very good at it. Not that I am trying to brag—“

Nino raises his glass in a salute. “Well, credits due when credits’ due. We are very good at what we do.”

Ohno quips. “Yeah.”

“We did pull off big jobs,” Sho says, addressing the room with a serious tone. “That puts us on the top of the list. I’ll say one of the top three.”

“And the higher the hill the stronger the wind would be,” Jun says. “It’s going to hit us stronger from now on.”

“But we are better now,” Aiba says. “You make all of us better. We make each other better.”

Jun sighs again, but this time with a hint of a smile. “Yeah.”

“You’ve been so worried about me fitting into the team,” Nino says and pauses to raise one finger when Jun opens his mouth to interrupt. “Worrying about Sho-kun and his mother, worrying about Aiba-chan’s health and Oh-chan’s being lonely. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

Jun has to look away to hide his surprise, but he’s not fooling anyone in the room.

“But you are forgetting, Jun-kun,” Nino continues, his voice full of conviction. “I’ve been worrying about you, too. We all have. It didn’t matter what brought us together. It matters that we are in this together now.”

No one voices agreement out loud. No one has to. Still, Sho smiles as he nods at Nino. Aiba’s eyes are swimming with tears, and Ohno reaches out to touch Jun’s arm.

Overwhelmed and nearly speechless, Jun’s lips slightly tremble when he says, “You guys are soft to me. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

“Good. We want you to notice.” Nino has to take a moment, sipping the remainder of his drink to calm himself. “Now, please wipe your face before this gets even more embarrassing.”

“But Aiba-kun is crying now,” Jun says with a watery laugh.

Nino turns, sees Aiba wiping his snot on his sleeves, and rolls his eyes.

“I’m not crying. You are!” Aiba says as he points to Ohno who is quietly sniffling next to Nino.

“Guys,” Sho says. “We’ve only had our first drink of the night. This is really embarrassing.”

“Thank god we’ve swept the apartment clean then,” Nino says. “Or else those listeners would have a field day eavesdropping to a bunch of old men crying over their team.”

When Jun and the others laugh at his quips, Nino knows they are going to be fine.

Aiba asks. “What we are going to do about our listeners then?”

Jun answers. “Nothing.”

Sho lets a chuckle. “Somehow I knew you’re going to say exactly that.”

“Don’t get me wrong. This was fucking insult. I take insult seriously. We take insults seriously,” Jun says. “But now they no longer have access to our meetings, to our conversations. And most importantly, they don’t know that we know about them.”

“They will find another way to get onto us,” Nino points out.

“They certainly will. But next time we won’t be so careless, we will be better.” Jun replies. “We’ll be ready for them.”

Ohno says with a short nod, “We will.”

“We definitely will,” Jun says with strong conviction and finality.

Sho breaks the following silence by declaring that they need another round of drinks and chocolate cake and Ohno wholeheartedly agrees. Aiba walks to Jun, giving him a quick hug, before hurriedly joining Sho and Ohno in the kitchen.

Jun turns to meet Nino’s eyes, smiling, and this time he is the one who scoots closer. “I know everyone still has doubts, and I still wonder if I’m going to regret all this one day.”

“I can tell you that what matters is that none of us doubts a good mastermind. I can also tell you that I will always regret all this.”

“You just want a raise.” Jun then leans closer and rests his head on Nino’s shoulder for a moment. “But you’re also right. We’ll regret all this together a little bit longer then.”

“You know me best, Jun-kun,” Nino says with a smile, staying right there. “You know us best.”

Comments

[mikunicchi]

Aaaaaaaa! Anon!!! You have no idea how much I love you!!!!!!! I love you to the moon and back to earth!!!!

I will be back in a few hours, I can't wait to read this!!!!! 💛❤️💚💙💜

Dear Anon, I am back with a really really long comment that you might feel creepy but I can't help it :")

First of all; I don't know who you are but once I find out, I will hug you! You have no idea how much this story made me happy, I couldn't sleep because of excitement and stayed up to read it <3
I am really a huge fan of Leverage and those kind of crime team scenarios, and I have watched the whole series of the Leverage a couple of times already. This was the best that I have read for a long time already :") I loved it so so so so so much and I can't thank you enough for picking this to write. You literally made my whole year with this fic!

And Nino!Grifter(Σ>―(〃°ω°〃)♡→) There's no way I can thank you enough! Gosh, I love it! It was my ultimate wish to see Nino as the grifter of the team and here you are, making that wish of mine come true :") That first scene with Jun inviting Nino in *squeals* I am fangirling so hard now! ｡ﾟ(TヮT)ﾟ｡

Jun is the mastermind!!!!! Oh my! Oh my! How cool Jun looks as the mastermind! And his talk with Nino, just soooo good. This is a lot better than I could imagine <3


“Yeah, and if you hack into my email again ever, I’m going to hack yours right back and delete all your cloud porn collection.”

Sho looks a bit miffed. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Ha! So, you do have cloud porn collection.”

Sho is the hacker!!!!! OMG You are awesome! This is so good! Age of geeks babe! Or more likely age of Sho! Haha omg I am so in love with this fic already! Sho being a computer geek and a food geek at the same time is just so funny :D I can't keep my smile away for most of the time when Sho started to eat something. It's so lovely! And Nino threatening Sho with deleting his collection... I am laughing! This is perfect!

“This cute guy next to me just groped my ass twice, by the way.”

“Satoshi-kun!” Sho chides, elbowing the man on the center of the back seat even if his eyes are still fixed on his iPad. “That’s rude.”

The man Sho just called Satoshi only grins wider, waving Nino’s wallet the next minute with an innocently creepy smile. “Hello. I was trying to pick your wallet but you have none.”

Nino does the first thing that comes to him. He smacks the man on the head. “You’re a thief.”

“Nino doesn’t carry a wallet, Ohno-san,” Jun says helpfully.
And Ohno is the thief!!!! Our cinnamon roll is so cute especially when he hangs with Sho :D Such a lovely guy! And of course, Nino never carries his wallet around LOL It's so like him! Jun knows Nino so well :D

“So you want to steal it back?” Nino smiles as he nods in understanding.

“Something like that,” Jun says, his eyes fiery now. “And revenge.”

“And punching them in the face,” Aiba says.

“And money,” Ohno adds.

“And lots of lots of money,” Sho says heatedly.

I am literally in love with this part. LOL And lots of lots of money of course!!!
Aiba is the retrieval specialist and basically, he is the one who is responsible for punching bad guys... I was honestly curious about what happened between him and Nino until you revealed it! It was so Nino-like; he would never apologize for it anyway :D But I am happy that they made up in the end.

Also one of my most favorite lines;
“He doesn’t think. That’s why,” Nino says sulkily, going back to fold his arms and restrain himself from growling in frustration. “I’m so going to kick him—“

“—in the ass real hard when you find him,” Jun says with a smile. “I’ll hold your coat myself, Nino, but now we need to move. As soon as Sho-kun gets initial reading of the security system, we’re going in.”
XD Nino and Jun is so lovely together! And I really really love how Nino is determined to kick Aiba's ass :D

Jun and Nino's Harajuku funky stlye........ LMAO I would have give my everything just to see them in those clothes!!!! xD

And I really fell in love with how Jun's mind works quickly as a mastermind. He keep setting the best plans to save everyone and just so amazing o(*°▽°*)o

Oh they are visiting Ohno's beach house!! How sweet of him! And his house was so comfy, I would want to visit it too!!

“Shut up. You all acted like he just proposed or something.”

“What? He didn’t?” Ohno says, clutching the front of his t-shirt, feigning shock while making a cute surprised face. “How dare he!”

Sending an elbow jab to Ohno’s belly, Nino doesn’t hold back his laughter this time. “Shut up.”

Ohno (ง ื▿ ื)ว You are such a sly man! Haha but it was so cute how they tease each other


“And we’re going to use the dining table this time. I still haven’t recovered from the exorbitant bill of dry cleaning my couch and the carpet.”
LOL NINO! how can you do that to Jun's couch and carpet?! XD


“Reporting for duty from his window seat,” Nino says with a chuckle.

Ohno also taps his earbud. “Reporting for duty too, next to his stolen window seat.”

Ohmiya is at their lovely bickering again! As expected! :D I love these two oh God!


“Suit yourself,” Nino says. “Wait, who’s eating lunch noisily? Sho-chan?”

I’m doing our setup here. I missed breakfast because of all the rush. Do not talk to me about lunch.

SHO!! LMAO no matter what happens he eats and he eats XD I love it so mucb!


“Dining area, he said,” Aiba says with glee. “That’s what rich people call the place where they have meals.” I am in love with Aiba logic here :"D


“Don’t touch things!”

“Hands off, yeah,” Ohno says distractedly. “I’m not touching anything Sho-kun, I swear.”

Sho glares darkly. “That’s photo frame is Stradivarius, and I can see the tip poking out of your jeans, Satoshi-kun.”

“Dammit.”

“And what a beauty we have here.” Aiba says, stroking a large vase, as they move very slowly toward the kitchen.

“That’s a genuine Ming! Don’t touch it. Just don't. Please. Guys.”

“Why did you take us to this place if you don’t want us to touch anything then?” Jun says with apparent amusement. He turns to Nino who is in the middle of examining two paintings on the wall. “Ohno-san, you better pick the Van Gogh one, the other is fake.”

Ohno grins. “Good eyes, Matsujun.” Oh my God, poor Sho haha! And Ohno is just so adorable while trying to steal that frame xD

Nino raises his voice to make sure Jun, and the others, hear him perfectly. “Well, you all better get here, apologize to Sho-chan, and get your lunch so we can begin to talk about our next plan.”

Next to him, Sho lets out a small smile and bumps his shoulder to Nino’s. I am in love with the sakumiya interaction here. Just so perfect and lovely :")

“That I came from Tokyo, a criminal lawyer from Madarame Firm. It’s a cover I often use to deal with law enforcement,” Jun says. Miyama strikes!!!! Oh dear Anon, you are really awesome :")

“Mom,” Sho complains halfheartedly as his hands wraps tighter around his mother. “You’re embarrassing me in front of my friends.” Sakurai-mother episodes were always my favorite :") So sweet!

“But you are forgetting, Jun-kun,” Nino continues, his voice full of conviction. “I’ve been worrying about you, too. We all have. It didn’t matter what brought us together. It matters that we are in this together now.”My heart!!!

Okay so far this is the biggest highlights that I couldn't contain my excitement and read out loud to my roommate (yes, she also loved this fic even though she is not a fan lol) But mostly, I loved this so much... It was such a good thing to read and thank you for million times for writing this for me!

I couldn't have get any thing better than this, honestly! It is the best combination for me who is a fan of crime movie/dramas and me again who is a fan of Arashi! And even if you said that most of the con plots are rip-offs from the series, it had a refreshing and awesome taste! You are an angel, and your touch to those con plots made it heavenly!

Thank you for again for giving me this awesome fic, I can't stop my tears :") I am going back to read it again (and probably for countless times) after I post this comment.

I will wait for reveals to thank you personally again! But you really made this mere person happy to the moon and back to earth! <3

[gomushroom]

Hi there! First, reading your comment made me smiling so wide! Although I’m so sorry you had to forgo sleep for this! :D And it’s not creepy at all, I love long comment <3!

I noticed your Leverage prompt before assignment and I was thinking ahhh it would be nice to work on it. AND THEN I GOT YOU AS ASSIGNMENT! I was practically brimming with excitement. I just know that I’m going to write this AU. I truly enjoyed the series back when it aired, and it was so much fun rewatching episodes and finding bits and pieces of reference I then used on this fic. It’s been a long while since I write Arashi friendship without specific pair, and it was so much fun writing them in an adventure. Your other slice-of-life prompts are also lovely and I really want to include all of them into this. Guess, only several of them managed to be in, hahaha.

It was a true pleasure writing for you! I was totally on ambitious-mode and planned more than I can handle so I hope to revisit this lovely universe another time. When time comes, I will thank you again for having such a great prompt <3!

[mikunicchi]

I am more than happy to forgo that sleep :") It was more than worth to it!
I really really wasn't expecting that someone would be willing to have take that Leverage prompt so you really made me the happiest person all over the world :") I mean how can I not!?! This is absolutely perfect and I am still having a hard time to believe that this is written for me :")

*hugs* please, if you revisit this universe I will die for it (*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ) like, really! I am a lot loss from words but I am in love with this fic and I worship you so badly now!!! („ಡωಡ„)

[gomushroom]

This definitely wouldn't be written if it weren't for your prompts <3! So, don't forget to also thank your awesome self!

And please don't die! :D :D You are too sweet, and once again, it was a true pleasure to write in this universe for you <3! /hugsss

[nicefinalbeam]

GO TEAM ARASHI!! :D This was a really interesting read, anon. I love that each of them brought something unique to the table. Nino challenging Sho on his tech prowess made me giggle, and I love how that kept developing and really became a solid partnership before long. Aiba and Nino's backstory!! I love a good Aimiya friendship~

Forcing Nino to take a beach vacation was A+ And I felt for Jun, who was worried that they'd all be furious with him, but in the end he was of course overthinking it. What matters is they make such a perfect little group :D

[gomushroom]

YESSSS GO TEAM ARASHI! :D

Thank you for the lovely comment! It was a long while since I work on Arashi friendship and I'm very happy that all the banters inside the friendship can show how close they are.

[astrangestorm]

This was fun! I liked the five of them teaming up to take down the scumbags of the world. Each member was in a role that suited them, especially Jun as the mastermind of every mission.

[gomushroom]

Thank youuu! Jun is most definitely fitted for the mastermind role. <3!

[reveetoile]

This story was wonderful and I don’t really have lots of words to say to you dear anon. But this Arashi friendship was so cute and heartwarming and felt so real. I probably have to reread it now. So sorry for the short comment. Just know that I really really loved this story.

[gomushroom]

Thank you for your lovely comment! Arashi friendship is special and it was so much fun to write <3!

[shofa]

I love this story Anon!! Their job really suit their characters here :D
Go team Arashi

[gomushroom]

Thank you <3!

Yes, go team Arashi!!! :D

[bluelight89]

I loved all about the relationships they had with each other, they make up such a funny, smart and friendly team^^ I loved Nino and Aiba reconciliation, Nino couldn't have really betrayed him! Sakumiya was just hilarious lmao Thanks for sharing this nice story!