Sungmin quickly moved in with Ryeowook. He lost his job at the bank, which was quite predictible (he actually didn't even go back lest he met an angry Siwon) and now worked as a cashier in Ryeowook's cake shop (pâttiserie, hyung!), made a great friend, even bought the cat he had always wanted.

Thanks to him the shop didn't have any financial problems - incomes and outcomes were neatly written in a book, which gave them a possibility to spare some money and the debt was payed. Ryeowook could even let himself waste eight small special cakes everyday. He never sold them, they weren't on the shop window display either. Although they should be, as Sungmin thought they were the perfect cakes.

Sungmin was quietly eating a chocolate pudding when an unusual customer appeared.

Usually it would be some young girls, older aunties or little kids with their mothers. Definitely not handsome men in black coats.

"One tangerine cake, please" the man said, husky voice making Sungmin recall some images and sounds and...

"You're... Y-you're..." he stuttered, not really tactfully pointing at the man.

"I'm Yesung. Is Ryeowook here?"

Sungmin nodded fervently and ran to the kitchen.

"Wook! Wook!"

The latter was working on a decoration for a pink cupcake when his friend, with eyes wide open, said the words he always wanted to hear, "Wook... tangerine...cake...the robber ...".

Ryeowook didn't even let him finish, took a plate with a prepared cake (always fresh just for that special person) and bolted out of the kitchen.

"Yesung-shi!"

He couldn't believe it. He was losing hope already and now in full 3-D image stood the guy he fell in love with. A warm feeling floated through his veins and reached every part of his body. Relief, happiness, love, cakes, everything was now in his eyes for anyone to see.

Though he saw only one person.

 

___________________________

 

"So you have a new worker, huh?" stated more than asked Yesung after eating a piece of cake and a small make-out session with his new lover.  

"Yeah, it's quite obvious that Siwon would have fired him anyway" Ryeowook got up from Yesung's lap and took the plate, "But don't try talking to him about that incident. He's still mad because your boss stole his necklace."

"He what!?"

Ryeowook didn't know why his newfound boyfriend seemed to be schocked.

"He stole his necklace" he repeated slowly and tilted his head in curiosity "What's so surprising about this?

Yesung just blinked.

"Tell me!" Ryeowook exclaimed and pouted. He left the plate on the counter and sat in Yesung's lap again.

The robber could not win with the boy's trick. He had always had a weak spot for cute pouting bakers.

"Well, you remember how I told you we never take other poeple's money?"

Ryeowook nodded.

"And... uhm... it is a rule we cannot break under no circumstances. Kyuhyun himself stated this. If any of us ever did steal - really steal - they were to be either kicked out of our gang or even killed. I don't understand why he would do that."

They stayed in silence for a while, both thinking about their friends. No one but them was inside the shop for Ryeowook quickly hung a "Closed" sign after he had given Yesung the cake.

"I think we need to find a way to make them talk to each other" stated Ryeowook "Sungmin wants his necklace back and Kyuhyun... I guess Kyuhun has to explain why he took it that day"

"I think I know a perfect place" whispered Yesung and hugged his lover " where Kyuhyun can show himself without being afraid of being caught by the police."

"Great. We need to act now. Let's do it tomorrow!" 

Yesung smiled seeing Ryeowook's enthusiasm.

"Let's hope Sungmin likes jazz." 

***

The next day

***

 

The room was dimly lit, everything looked as if one was trying to look through a grey silky material.

The cigarette smoke was beautiful.

Sungmin himself didn't smoke but he loved how it looked like little clouds from a children's fairytale, slowly, leisurely going higher and higher to simply disappear within the next blink of an eye.

It was also connected to other things banned by the society.

Whiskey, dance, jazz…

As a Siwon's employee Sungmin didn't have the opportunity to indulge himself in those evil

things.

Now he was grateful that Ryeowook was with Yesung which made it possible for him to see a jazz concert, for instance.

They were supposed to sit together at one table but just a moment earlier the robber decided that he had to present his boyfriend to some important people but he didn't want to take away Sungmin's opportunity to listen to some great music, as Yesung said himself.

Maybe Ryewook's puppy eyes also had do to something with making Sungmin agree to it.

 

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, welcome our best singer who decided to sing today three songs, I don't know if you heard me, I said - THREE songs. I was surprised myself when he suggested it!" the man on the microphone let the audience make some gasps and smiled when his prediction was right. Their best singer didn't have time to sing every week and if he had, it would be barely one song, two if the audience was convincing enough.

He never sang three songs on his own accord.

 

Sungmin guessed that this particular singer must be well-known and good if the other reacted so violently.

 

Everyone went quiet when the man in black trousers and a white shirt and suspenders appeared on the small stage.

Sungmin couldn't see his face clearly because of the smoke but also because of the hat the man had on his head. 

But he could clearly hear his voice.

It made him shiver.

Just the sound of it, complimented by the continuous swinging beat on a hi-hat accompanied by deep note of double bass, made promises of a long night full of prohibited but pleasurable conversations, touches, kisses…

 

Sungmin had to remind himself how to breathe so he could still be alive at least till the end of the concert.

But something distracted him right when the singer started improvising in his last song.

 

He moved so as to create the melody in a more comfortable position which made at least his neck appear in more light.

And apparently, the thing on his neck, too.

 

"My pendant!" Sungmin wanted to shout but something stopped him and told him to let the robber (Cho, his surname was Cho)  finish singing.

 

After the last note collided with the smoke and slowly dissolved within it, Sungmin stood up from his table and followed the singer into the backstage.

 

It was actually a long corridor with a lot of doors.

No one was around and Sungmin didn't know whether to be happy because no one can stop him or get angry because he doesn't know which door should he open.

 

When he looked at the floor he realized only one room had lights on, he was able to see it through a small crevice under one of the doors.

 

"I've got you"

 

Little did he know that was exactly what the robber thought when he heard hesitating footsteps outside his dressing room.

 

***

 

Sungmin didn't know why he still hadn't attacked the robber.

Instead, he was sitting on the couch, gaping at the man playing with his pendant right in front of his eyes.

"I guess you want it back?"

Sungmin nodded fervently, still watching his pendant (or the man's fingers but he wouldn't even dare to think about that possibility) like a little kitten staring at a moving toy.

"No way"

The robber quickly out the pendant in his pocket.

Sungmin was sitting dumbfounded for a while, which allowed Kyuhyun to observe the former in all his glory.

But it didn't last long since the smaller man decided to ask some questions.

"Why? You said you only take what's yours! This pendant is mine! Mine! You have no right to take it! Why did you-"

His sudden word attack was stopped by the robber's lips on his. They were persisting, not letting him take more air to complete his sentence, he was only allowed to take a quick breath between kisses and again, lost in the heat, the weird feeling in his head, the pressure in his heart…

"Why?" he finally asked when the robber decided to move away for a second.

The man smirked.

"I told you, we always take what has been taken away from us. But this time…"the robber started nipping on Sungmin's ear, "I couldn't take back what has been stolen from me so I had to take something in exchange"

"W- what? What did I t-take away from y-you?" it was very hard for Sungmin to form such a long sentence, the tongue, now somewhere on his neck, was very distracting. 

"My heart"

Sungmin snapped and immediately stood up, trying not to think about how cold he felt after the other's lips (and hands, he didn't know when and how but they also had started to touch him) left his body.

"What do you mean? We are strangers!"

The robber chuckled.

"Well, Lee Sungmin, my name is Cho Kyuhyun. You know I rob banks and sing in a cafe. You work at that weird little guy's bakery-"

"It's pâttiserie"

"you have a cat and I have your pendant."

Sungmin didn't know whether to stare wide-eyed at the man or blink in amazement.

"How do you know so much about me?"

Kyuhyun chuckled once again.

"It's not so much. For example, you know how my voice sounds when I sing. I don't know how you sing, if you do it at all. Would you care to show me?" he smiled slyly, which made Sungmin suspicious but the smaller man still decided to stay and talk.

"You want me to sing? Right now?"

The robber shook his head and stood up, his face suddenly just an inch away from Sungmin's.

"No, I guess there are other things I would like to hear from your throat"

 

 

Sungmin changed his mind and left the backstage.

 

 

With Kyuhyun.

 

 

Simply to go into the robber's apartment.

 

 

But it wasn't an ordinary robber.

 

 

 

 

It was the robber who took away his heart.