Work Text:
Before this, before everything, Hollywood had him believe that dividing the spoils of a jewel heist is some grand, decadent affair – Good-looking people dressed all in black laughing around a table while drenched in diamonds and good champagne.
Of course now that Park Seonghwa is actually a jewel thief, it would turn out that dividing the spoils, as it were, is a long, methodical, and ultimately tedious process. Hours, sometimes days would go to carefully appraising each item, determining their value and deciding if it's worth more as it is or disassembled from its settings. It involves bleary eyes, nightmarish Excel spreadsheets and unhealthy amounts of convenience store-grade caffeine. Definitely no champagne in sight.
What Hollywod got right in their case, however, is the first fifteen minutes of it. Their group of eight (previously seven) had agreed that everyone is allowed to take one item that strikes their fancy regardless of its value. If you see it and you like it, you get it. Keeps the romance alive, Wooyoung had once said, - To Yunho’s open laughter and Yeosang’s small, rare smile.
Amongst them, Wooyoung and Mingi always goes for the flashier things – Rubies and garnets and emerald encrusted around each other, diamond necklaces so heavy and tiered that it has him worrying over Mingi's oft-misbehaving lower back, stuff that they will usually wear once in some underground soiree or another and then tuck away God knows where.
Yeosang, face impassive and quiet, calculating gazes, is more discreet in his choices. He’d pick up small, understated things, things that won’t get spared a second glance by the untrained eye - A diamond earring here, a platinum ring there. Yet Yeosang is not their appraiser for nothing, and all of those things, Seonghwa is sure, are actually worth a lot more than their appearance suggests. In any case, those trinkets always ends up decorating Wooyoung’s person, being a mainstay that he would wear day to day.
Jongho and Yunho are both almost utilitarian in their choices, opting for unset gems that are easy to transport and fence off - Whole fortunes fitting in the palm of a hand. Seonghwa doesn't exactly know what they're actually preparing for, what kind of situations they foresee making them feel they have to have such a thing handy, but he supposes he understands the feeling. San, however, is more whimsical - Going with whatever he fancies at the moment, amassing a bizzare yet surprisingly tasteful collection of illegal baubles he keeps in his grandparent's home in Namhae.
Although relatively new to the whole affair, Seonghwa quickly realized that he has a penchant for old things. All of his other share he usually just fork over to Yeosang’s trusted fence, taking comfort that everything would transform into plain old numbers spread out neatly over his bank accounts (The idea of harboring glittering, incriminating gemstones in his apartment still freaks him out, sometimes). But the things he chose, he fancies each of those has a story behind it, and sometimes he just turns them in his hands for the longest of times as he works – like horridly expensive office table curios.
And then there is Kim Hongjoong, or otherwise known to him as the guy he met in a coffeeshop with the sinful grin and criminally tight leather pants that in a bizarre turn of events made a jewel thief out of him.
Hongjoong likes rare things - Period pieces, red diamonds, Russian Tsar heirlooms. Once, he went completely nuts over a piece of the Cullinan diamond, which he actually had to google to know what the fuss was all about.
From the things spread out before them in Seonghwa kitchen table (of all places), Wooyoung had already happily snatched up a Baroque monstrosity of pearls and fire opals, San a string of cat's eyes that allegedly reminds him of his childhood pet cat, while the others are still opening some boxes they swiped from their latest target – The heir of a prominent Chaebol that won’t really be able to report his loss since a lot of the things in the vaults itself were acquired by questionable means.
He grabs one himself, eagerness and the slightest hint of trepidation making his fingers fumble on the latch. Seonghwa loves being a jewel thief – not that he will say this to anyone in casual conversation, in any conversation, really - But these fifteen minutes, these fifteen minutes are his favorite. He loves the sheer wonder of the whole thing. The sense of discovery that he thought he’s lost forever when he grew up and planted himself in an office cubicle.
The box in his hand opens with a soft click, revealing what appears to be a brooch of some sort, the delicate gold filigree work placing its make at roughly somewhere in the Art Noveau period. If anything, the job has decidedly upped the ante of his google searches. The brooch centers itself on the milky shine of an opal – two delicate dragonflies framing the stone with curved bodies and the fan of peacock-colored gossamer wings that glitters iridescently in the soft light of his kitchen.
He doesn’t exactly know his Art Nouveau, but the thing is definitely stunning.
“Ah, I think I’m taking this one.”
“Huh, that's fast,” Hongjoong blinks and inches towards him, Wooyoung and San following suit, the larger man draping himself over both his friends.
Hongjoong’s eyes widens as he sees the object in his hand, lips rounding in a tiny gasp.
“Oh” Hongjoong mouths, and Seonghwa’s mind totally, absolutely did not go to the gutter with the imagery it incited.
“Our Seonghwa Hyung definitely has good taste, huh?” Wooyoung nudges his friend and winks playfully before going back to the boxes still littering his table, San in tow. Hongjoong, however, lingers beside him, eyes wistful as he continues to glance at the piece.
“You can have it, actually,” Seonghwa blurts out before his brain actually catches up with his mouth. Later, he can just blame it to said brain being overworked from all the code breaking and entering that he now seems to do on a daily basis. Or hormones. Or both, probably.
Hongjoong raises a brow, looking at him as if he has suddenly grown a set of wings of his own.
“Are you sure? You do realize that that is a Rene Lalique original, right?” Despite his words, his eyes are shining with excitement, his slight frame bouncing on the balls of his feet and oh, Seonghwa is so lost.
“Actually I have no idea who…Lali..Laique? is. But you know, it's not like I have anywhere I could wear it to,” Seonghwa tries out a hapless smile, picking up the brooch carefully and extending it to Hongjoong, “I’m sure you’ll put it to better use.”
And it will look really good on you, he thinks fervently. Do you know it matches your hair? And you’re really cute when you want something. And by some kind of small miracle, Seonghwa keeps his mouth shut as Hongjoong gingerly picks up the brooch from his hands, twirling it a few times. And then, as if reading his mind, as if Hongjoong specifically wants him dead, he fastens it on his shirt, just right above his heart - The peacock hue of the wings immediately echoing the blue of his hair.
Seonghwa might have forgotten how to breathe.
“Thanks, Seonghwa.”
And then Hongjoong smiles, and Seonghwa doesn’t even remember what he says as a reply, or if he even replies at all. It must have been something fairly non-incriminating and halfway decent, though, as the other man only pats him on the shoulder and resumes his work on the remaining boxes, glancing back to give him another small, almost shy smile far removed from his usual devilish grin.
He thinks he could hear Wooyoung cackle, somewhere behind him, but Seonghwa couldn't care less.
Contrary to what Hollywood would probably say about the vain, petty, and materialistic nature of jewel thieves – Although hey, Seonghwa would be the first to admit that the lot of them are indeed a petty bunch - there are some things that is worth more than diamonds for a jewel thief. There are some things that can be worth everything.
Like smiles.
. . . * . . .