The Man Who Ran Off With The Moon - [ Tsukkiyama Art Thief AU! ]

The Belly Of The Snake

Tsukishima observed as the corn snake unhinged it's jaw to gulp down the half thawed rat. The children watching shrieked and jumped back from the glass, but one brave boy approached the enclosure to press his hands and face up against it, gazing in awe at the carnage.
This was the only part of the job Tsukishima enjoyed.

He fixed the child with a long perfected glare and said, "Hands off the glass, please."

The little boy wrinkled his nose.
It seemed, momentarily, that he had half the mind to fight this weird, angry adult in khakis (and Tsukishima sincerely hoped he would fucking try) but the boy stepped back to watch the snake at a respectful distance.

Coward.

Tsukishima leaned back against the cool wall of the reptile encounter, questioning why the idea of fighting a child was so appealing to him.
It was possible that he needed a hobby or something, but hobbies require expense. If he had money, his job wouldn't consist of telling dirty children not to smudge up the glass he would inevitably have to clean by the end of his shift. Tsukishima sighed.
The snake flicked a fork tongue over its scaly mouth, satisfied.
The rat was nowhere to be found.

At the end of the day, Tsukishima boarded a train home. When he entered the car, a figure, a man going by height, quickly got up and moved away from the door. In the process of his movement, he rudely bumped into a girl in a school uniform.  She had been drinking something pink, milky, and iced.

The unfortunate concoction, by way of the shove, traveled through the air and onto Tsukishima.
He cursed loudly, wringing his hands as she apologized. Tsukishima scanned for the man as strawberry syrup pooled past his knees. He was nowhere to be seen.

Coward.

When he finally arrived at his apartment, a bulldozer squealing in the lot next door, he was sticky, hot, and irritated.
As Tsukishima fiddled with the lock, thinking about how Ikumi was probably on some stupid beach somewhere, he noticed a hastily taped up yellow piece of paper.

EVICTION NOTICE BY END OF MONTH. BUILDING TO BE DEMOLISHED.

Excuse me?

Tsukishima ran downstairs to the building manager's office. A crowd of other tenants were also gathered around the desk, all angrily waving the papers. Tsukishima pushed through them and slammed his hand onto the table, startling the balding man who had been crouched underneath. The man, Hiroshi, peaked over the side.
Tsukishima stared him down, standing up to his full height. A thin bead of sweat trailed across Hiroshi's many chins.

"Hey, Kei!", he stuttered meekly.

"It's Tsukishima.", the blond man snapped back, drumming his long fingers against the desk.

A neighbor pushed against him, trying to also lodge his complaint with the building manager, but Tsukishima silenced them with a look.

"What can I do for you?", Hiroshi gulped.

Tsukishima unfurled the eviction notice.

"Respectfully, Hiroshi, what the fuck is this?"

The fellow apartment dwellers behind him yelled in agreement. Hiroshi cupped his face in his hands, sweating harder.
"I sold the building.", he squeaked.

"You what?"

"I sold the whole building. All of it."

Tsukishima leaned back, looking at the landlord as if one might look at a bug or an unexpectedly rotten piece of fruit.

"To who?"

"The Goda Corporation."
His words were barely a whisper.

Tsukishima leaned over, cupping an ear, signaling the shorter man to speak up.
Hiroshi repeated himself, turning a violent shade of red.
The man who had been jostling for attention yelled out, "What about our leases?"
There was a chorus of "yeahs!"
Tsukishima nodded, signaling Hiroshi to answer. Hiroshi paled.

"Non refundable."

Tsukishima clutched his fists, his knuckles starch white. "Speak up."

Hiroshi ducked into the back office, clicking the lock behind him.
"NON- REFUNDABLE!"

Tsukishima stepped out of the cramped office. People were still surging into the small room, trying to force Hiroshi out from his hidey hole, like a termite with smoke. Tsukishima's head swam with worry.
The pink syrupy drink still caused his clothes to stick against his body. He didn't have enough money saved to acquire a whole new apartment. This couldn't be legal, this couldn't...
It was then that he noticed all the construction that had been a backdrop to his life, the machinery and the hard hats, it all bore a G insignia. G for Goda.
They had been buying up the entire block, probably for some kind of stupid mall.
He should've seen it coming.

Tsukishima trudged back up the stairs to his tiny apartment. He couldn't bring himself to go inside, so he slumped against the door.
Here he was, in the shittiest part of Tokyo, in an apartment already crumbling at its foundation.

This wasn't the life he had imagined for himself.

Whatever this was, it had completely taken him by surprise. Chewed and swallowed him before he could even realize he had entered the mouth of the problem.

There were the brief moments, the times in which he had loved, be it a person or a task or a test. He had loved these items so desperately that their worth illuminated something within him. That had felt good to him, but the goodness flickered fickle in the wind, as the love was not returned.

Tsukishima was hit with the sudden notion that within the last months, he may have become habitually depressed.
It was a depression that grew out of an inability to imagine a plausible future, a future that was different from his current standing in the world.

"Great.", he grumbled.

Just great. Very convenient. Thanks, brain.

Tsukishima thought about the stupid people in those medication commercials, the ones where they would dance around at a bar or in a field. Is that what he had to do now? Go to a fucking jazz club? Garden?
Would that restore a sense of direction?

He tipped his head back against the door.
The sun was dying on the horizon, oozing an orange glow that spread softly across his face.

Fucking Goda corporation, Fucking zoo rat defrosting, fucking Khakis, fucking Ikumi, fucking-

A thought too painful, one buried so deep it had turned yellow with age, briefly surfaced in his mind. A cold crept through Tsukishima's body.
Maybe, things would have turned out different, if..
He dropped his head into his knees.

"Hey, Glasses. You haven't been answering the phone."

A tall man with wide shoulders, shoulders that tapered into a neat V at the waist, approached him. He was dressed for office work, or something like that.
The man was remarkably handsome, but in a wild way, dark hair sticking up in every direction.
There were indents in his ears where earrings usually stuck and if he pushed up a sleeve, the thin slice of a tattoo was visible.
A silver wedding band sat comfortably on his left hand.

"Don't call me that." Tsukishima growled wearily.

The man, Kuroo Tetsurō, shrugged. He was used to Tsukishima's moods.

He offered a hand to help the blond up.