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

False Gem

Yamaguchi turned, reentering the apartment with a small gesture they should follow.
He looked at Kuroo, flicking his eyes to the couch, "You should lay down, but keep your head up some. Don't fall asleep."

"I'm not gonna fuckin fall asleep, what do you-"

Yamaguchi stare didn't waver, "It's to monitor concussion symptoms. You got knocked out, didn't you? Tsukishima, can you get him some ice?"

It was strange, the collected way Yamaguchi acted sometimes since he had appeared. Tsukishima did as he was told, thunking an ice pack down on the still angry Kuroo.
Yamaguchi sat across from them, looking down at his hands. "If you feel light headed, nauseous, or disoriented, say something. But the swelling isn't too bad.", he mumbled.

"I feel fine. Start talking.", Kuroo snapped.
Tsukishima looked at the green haired man curiously, "When did you become a concussion expert?"
Yamaguchi shrugged, "I've had a couple. Here and there. From work."

Work...

The word stirred the air with a peculiar and charged sense of dread that ran entirely deeper than Tsukishima's own aversion to attending his job. Even Kuroo was summoned to silence.

"What work?", Tsukishima asked.
Yamaguchi sighed. He pressed his face into his knees, then looked up at the two of them.

"People always want things they cannot have. Always. It's part of life, finding your own version of fulfillment for the desire to have what you cannot obtain. Maybe it's religion, or relationships. I don't know. Some people, many people, never figure out how to soothe that need. But everybody wants."

Tsukishima shifted uncomfortably on the couch.
He understood that, a bit. Wanting.

Yamaguchi watched his small movement and furrowed his brow.
"Some people, though, acquire enough money in their life that they can only take satisfaction is seizing what they have been told, explicitly, they cannot posses. Rare items. Secrets. Special pieces of art and history."

The green haired man looked small in the fading shadows of the day. The cubes of ice clinked as Kuroo pressed the bag deeper into his forehead.

"I don't want to talk about how it began, why I left, why things got to this point. But, I work-worked. As a contractor, I guess. An important, powerful man hired me to be the middle person in providing for his wants. Anything. I figure out how to get it, and I do."
Yamaguchi smiled bitterly, laughing slightly to himself.
"Honestly, I'm good at it. Nobody's ever quite noticed me much, so nobody really notices when I take something until it's too late."

Kuroo, amidst all his headache, connected the dots. "So.. you're like.. a professional thief? Seriously? Like Ocean's 11? Like heist shit?"
Yamaguchi's face hardened. "I don't like that word. Thief. It's ugly."

"But you've stolen stuff... for money?"
He nodded with the slightest dip of his chin. "But I only mess with stuff. Objects. I don't hurt people, unless they try to hurt me. Even then."

Tsukishima looked intently at his friend. He almost wanted to laugh. The idea that Yamaguchi could be involved in some strange underworld of crime seemed so ridiculous. Yamaguchi, who hated spiders and would cry during thunderstorms when they were small. It didn't make sense.
"Why are people looking for you?"
He seemed to mull the question over before deciding to answer.

"The Eye of the Moon."

"You mean that rock? The one all over the news?"
For weeks, the Tokyo National Museum had been publicizing the arrival and display of the gem. It was the first time the jewel had ever been exhibited outside of the scientific community. It had originated in a Sri Lankan mine, and it was one of a kind, unlike any other valuable mineral that had been unearthed. Even taafeite, which had previously been considered to be the rarest known jewel, had fifty other existing samples.

There was only one Eye of the Moon.

Tsukishima remembered from the news that it was a milky white, oval shaped, about the size of a golf ball. He hadn't cared much about all the attention the precious stone was receiving, but it would be dishonest of him to say that he hadn't been a little bit curious about the arrival of an object so rare in Japan.

Yamaguchi nodded, "It's possibly the most priceless item in the world."

"And you, what? You were gonna steal it?", Kuroo scoffed, "Could you really do that?"

"I could. But.. I didn't want to. I haven't wanted to do anything I've been doing for a long time. So I ran away."

Tsukishima folded his long fingers in his lap. It all felt too implausible. He breathed into the discomfort and chose to ignore it. In all of places he had imagined Yamaguchi to be in his absence, this had not crossed his mind. He leaned forward, "Why are people looking for you, then? Do they want you to come back and finish what you started?"

Yamaguchi shifted with uncertainty. His freckles seemed to jump and twist a bit on his cheeks. "I'm not sure how this all happened, but someone, somewhere, convinced my former boss that I have the gem. I'm not surprised, I always figured someone would develop a vendetta against me at some point. There was a power outage in the museum about a week ago, which originally had been a key part of my plan for obtaining the stone, but it's purely coincidental. I wasn't even in that part of Tokyo at the time."

"Sorry if I'm being stupid, but, wouldn't... if you had, y'know, taken the gem.. it wouldn't be in the museum?"
Yamaguchi rolled his eyes at Kuroo's question, in a slight way that only Tsukishima perceived. "There was a fake made. With the current security measures in place, it's impossible to discern the difference between the two, because nobody has the ability to get too close to it."
"Why don't you just hand over the fake version and set things straight?"

Yamaguchi looked at the ground. When he met their eyes again, his face was sheepish. "I pawned the fake to a broker in America and told him it was some other precious stone that closely resembled the Eye of the Moon, instead of a cheap recreation. It's long gone."
Tsukishima put his head in his hands, annoyance rising in him. Stupid Yamaguchi. Always getting himself into easily avoided trouble. At least there's one thing that hasn't changed..
"Why would you do that? It's lying", he asked coldly.

Kuroo looked at him, a bit surprised by his friend's sudden forcefulness. Yamaguchi's eyes reddened and his face crumpled slightly. He was clearly negotiating the possibility of crying. A small tear escaped over his pale face, but he quickly brushed it away, like it had never existed. Yamaguchi took another long breath.

"I know.. I know I have hurt everyone I have ever cared about.
Every person that has met me, felt for me.
The way I just left, ran off, caused so much pain. And I've perpetuated that pain. I have taken so much. From so many people.
I just wanted to be free of it all. I wanted.. it sounds so stupid now. I just wanted a little house. By the sea. With blue shutters. I wanted to live somewhere far, far away from everything until I could figure out how I would be able to set all of this right.
And...once I knew how to do that, Tsukki, I was gonna come find you."

More tears escaped, as perfect and crystalline as any precious stone.
Tsukishima forgot that Kuroo was there.
He forgot about his own doubts, his own anger. He kneeled down on the floor across from Yamaguchi and reached out, gently brushing the wet off his face with a swipe of his thumb. This tender act only caused Yamaguchi to sob a bit harder. Tsukishima took the other man's face in his hands, forcing their eyes to meet.

"Nothing's perfect. Nothing's ever perfect. I'm just glad you're here. And you're safe.
I swear, I'm not going to let anything change that.
We're gonna figure this out. Okay?"

The two men looked at each other, their knees touching on the wooden floor. There was an intensity, an ambiguous vulnerability pouring out of one and into the other.
They saw each other as the children they had been and the people they had grown into throughout their time apart.
It looked a bit like trust.
It felt a bit more natural.

"Okay", Yamaguchi nodded.

The pair on the floor looked up at Kuroo on the couch. He arched an eyebrow, but gave in.
"Okay, okay. I'll do whatever I can to help, too."