It was dark. I couldn’t see anything and the rest of my senses were overwhelmed. My ears were intensely aware of the sound of footsteps moving steadily towards us from the outside. Feeling as though I had been blinded in the sudden onslaught of darkness I held my breath and waited. The sole light coming from the laptop had been eliminated at the first sounds of someone approaching and now I could only feel her warm breath on my neck as her body pressed against mine. The weight of her on top of me forced my back down on the hard, severe floor of the van making my shoulder blades ache with a sharp pain. A muted whimper escaped my lips.

“Quiet,” Taeyeon ordered me in a low voice. I felt her lips descend to the base of my throat where she placed a light kiss before I felt a more intense pinching sensation. Even as a strong sense of déjà vu gripped me, I suppressed the urge to cry out with surprise as she dared to give me a hickey at a time like this.

WHOOSH! The side door to the van slid open in a flash and I let out a startled yelp. “Aack!”

“Are you kidding me?!” Sunny’s irritated voice filled the interior of the van and Taeyeon rolled off of me just as everyone began piling in.

“Can’t you save that stuff for later, Unnies?” Seohyun complained.

Yuri laughed. “Maybe going on missions turns her on. Right, Taengoo?”

Taeyeon shot her an icy glare. She had long since righted herself and opened the lid to her laptop, tapping away as though nothing out of the ordinary had just happened, whereas I was scurrying clumsily into a sitting position trying to fix my hair and pull the neckline of my shirt up to cover the mark I’d just been given.

“Shut up,” Taeyeon said coldly. “We thought you were cops.”

“That’s a good one!” Sooyoung exclaimed, still amused by the situation. “You’re lucky this was only a scouting run.  Hyoyeon would be pretty upset if she knew you two were fooling around on the job.”

I didn’t say anything but blushed madly at Sooyoung’s teasing. Taeyeon had, in fact, told me she thought the approaching footsteps might be cops, but now I was starting to get the impression she knew it was the girls all along. Stealing a glance at her, I thought I saw a faint smirk of satisfaction on her lips.

When we arrived back to the hideout, Hyo was reclining at a table reading a fortune-telling book as she awaited our return. “Hey! Welcome back! How’d it go, everyone?”

Yoona was quick to respond. “It was a cinch, of course.”

“There are four security cameras on the outside; one on each corner of the building,” Seohyun began reporting. “The interior is protected by simple motion detectors. Nothing Taeyeon-unnie can’t handle. Right?”

“No problem,” she agreed.

Sunny smiled. “See, Hyo, this will be our easiest job yet. Piece of cake!”

Mmm…I thought to myself. “Chocolate,” Taeyeon and I both muttered absentmindedly under our breath at the very same time. It was hard to tell if anyone else heard us, but it hardly mattered if they did. We’d been having the same cravings at the same time for so long now that no one batted an eye when we jinxed each other anymore. Still, that little quirk of ours never failed to tickle me with amusement. I smiled to myself as I knew what Taeyeon and I would be having for a midnight snack tonight.

“Hey!” Sooyoung suddenly exclaimed. “Does anyone know what tomorrow is?”

We all stopped to look up at her. “Thursday” Yuri offered.

“No. Well…yes, but that’s not what I mean. Tomorrow marks one year since we stole the first painting by Korea’s Leonardo DaVinci!”

This realization slowly began to sink in with everyone and then another thought seemed to dawn on them. “That means that it’s been one year since we met…

Oh, no…here it comes. They all turned to look at me and I knew what Sunny was going to say.

“We should celebrate!” I rolled my eyes in un-surprised at Sunny’s happy shout, but I knew it was no use trying to stop her from bringing out trays of snacks and endless pitchers of alcohol.

One year already? Time had really flown. I could hardly believe that we’d been at this for a whole year. As it turned out, Grandfather had actually left twelve works of art in total. In addition to the