"You ready, Phichit?" Yuuri asked, his hands moving swiftly over a keyboard.

"Hamsterboy to Eros" Phichit replied, his voice crackling over the earpiece "I'm ready"

Yuuri rolled his eyes fondly "Ten months into you being a phantom thief and you still can't pick a proper name?"

"But Hamsterboy is a proper name Yuu-Eros" Yuuri could see Phichit gesturing wildly with his hands through the security cameras that Yuuri was currently desperately trying to turn off "It's what the world knows me as!"

"The only reason 'the world' knows you as that is because you brought your hamsters with you on one heist. Cameras are down."

"Entering the main exhibition. And Eros, my hamsters were crying when I was about to leave. I couldn't just abandon them"

"Uh-huh. Just try and get the jewels before the police get there. We can't carry on arguing if you manage to get yourself arrested."

"Noted"

Sighing, Yuuri flopped backwards in his chair (it had a tall back, and spun- ideal for being stuck in a confined space for hours on end), and carried on disabling various alarms, electric doors, etc in the building through his laptop.

He was the Guy In The Van.

One of the most overused spy movie tropes, which is what Yuuri had immediately thought when Phichit had introduced him to the black van, and had announced proudly "You can do all your handy-dandy computer stuff in here!"

(Phichit had then proceeded to have an argument with Yuuri about how 'Yes, Yuuri the van is necessary' followed by the one about 'No, Yuuri you can't just work from home' Finally ending with the hour long debate of 'It doesn't matter how expensive the van was. And no, Yuuri you can't pay me back')

That all transpired a month after Yuuri had accidentally become a hacker for a criminal organisation.

Key word: accidentally

He'd been close to graduating college, good with computers, and blissfully unaware that his roommate was a phantom thief that would be later dubbed as 'Hamsterboy'.

Until one fateful night, when Yuuri had been awoken by a call from Phichit. It was garbled, and sounded like Phichit was running, but it pretty much outlined the concept 'Yuuri I'm at an art gallery downtown and about to die, help'

Two minutes later, Yuuri had hacked into the art gallery's security

Five minutes later, he managed to switch off the power in the gallery.

Two hours later he was explaining to Celestino, who was apparently Phichit's boss that he was not an idiot, drunk, or going to tell anyone.

Five hours later, he was welcomed aboard as a hacker and Phichit's business partner.

All in all, it was a very stupid decision.

But he was getting paid for it (and quite a generous amount), and if he hadn't joined, Phichit would probably be dead by now, as a result of all the issues he managed to get himself into.

He tried not to think about just how illegal it was, and the amount of jail time he would get if caught, because the last time he tried, he'd had a panic attack .

And it had all turned out fine in the end- he and Phichit shared an apartment, Yuuri had a nice stable job at the ice rink where he worked , and he and Phichit occasionally pulled a heist.

Normal life stuff.

"I'm at the display case. Have you disabled the alarm?" Phichit's voice brought Yuuri back to the present.

"Hmm? Oh- yes. I did"

There was silence for a few moments- Yuuri imagined Phichit deep in concentration as he cracked the lock on the display case.

"Almost got it.." Phichit said over the earpiece.

Yuuri was about to respond, but was interrupted by the van door being quickly opened, and someone hopping in. Frozen, he stared at possibly the most handsome man he'd ever seen. Looking somewhat familiar, he had piercing blue eyes, striking silver hair, a police uniform-

Wait.

Oh. That's why he looked familiar.

Yuuri began to have a silent panic attack in his very comfortable chair.

"I'm telling you Chris-" Victor Nikiforov, head detective of the Hamsterboy case started to speak, before breaking off mid-sentence as he stared at Yuuri, who stared back, eyes wide.

This was it. This was the end. Yuuri started to reach for his earpiece, to tell Phichit he'd been compromised and to get the hell out of there, when Nikiforov started to speak

"I'm so sorry! I thought this was my- well, my colleague Chris' van, and well…it's not"

Yuuri's brain slowly catches up to what's happening.

"You thought this was your van" he says numbly

"Yeah. I'm Victor by the way." Victor scratches the back of his neck sheepishly. Then he seems to take in the actual inside of the van, and blinked "What's all this crazy tech for?"

Exactly at that point, Phichit seems to decide that it's an appropriate time to make Yuuri's earpiece buzz to life, and yell "YUU-EROS, THERE ARE LASERS. THERE IS A WHOLE FREAKING GRID OF LASERS. THEY ARE SURROUNDING ME."

Yuuri kept his eyes on Victor as he surreptitiously reached his hand behind him, and slowly started typing on the laptop.

To Victor, he says "The tech? It's for, um, astrology. It's a hobby of mine. I'm an astronomer."

"YOU'RE A WHAT?" Yuuri hears Phichit scream through the earpiece "THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO BE TELLING ME ABOUT YOUR SECRET HOBBIES!"

Right. Phichit didn't know Victor was there. And he couldn't tell him without revealing to Victor that Phichit was there.

Yuuri just needed this very attractive man out of his goddamm van.

"Astronomer?" Victor was saying "But it's cloudy tonight?"

"Yeah. I'm, um, seeing how the cloud..f-formations are, um, affected by the moon"

"UPDATE!" Phichit screeches "THERE ARE NOW A LOT OF VERY SCARY PEOPLE POINTING GUNS AT ME!"

"Anyway, what's your job?" Yuuri hastily asks Victor. He was sure that his heart was only beating faster because of the stress from this whole scenario.

"My job? I'm a detective- Hang on" Victor's phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out, reading a text. His face grew a shade paler "Yakov's going to kill me for missing the heist, Crap."

He started to move towards the exit, and Yuuri sighed with relief. But just as Victor was exiting the van, he turned and looked at Yuuri.

"Are you here a lot?"

"Um…sometimes?" Yuuri both loved and hated the way this was going.

Victor grinned "I'll drop by again sometime then!"

And then he was gone, disappearing with a heart-shaped smile. Yuuri watched him leave for a second, barely able to believe that he hadn't been arrested, before spinning around in his chair, and started furiously typing and screaming at Phichit through his earpiece.

….

Four hours later, Yuuri and Phichit were stretched out across couches in their apartment.

"I can't believe that happened" Phichit huffed through a mouthful of pizza. "Now the whole astronomer thing makes sense."

"Neither can I" Yuuri agreed, staring up at the ceiling "What do you think'll happen now?"

"He said that he was coming back?" Phichit enquired, getting up, and heading to the bathroom

"Yes.."

"Then a forbidden love story!" Phichit said brightly, shutting the door behind him

Yuuri blinked, but was unable to even begin to process that statement before Phichit called from the bathroom "We're out of soap!"

"Have you checked the top shelf?!"

"Yes- wait, nevermind! I'm using shampoo!"

"What? Why shampoo?!" Yuuri gave the bathroom door a worried look.

"It keeps my hair smooth and lustrous! It's pretty much the same thing"

"Wha- Phichit shampoo and soap are not the same thing!"

I'm not entirely happy with how this turned out, but it'll improve in future chapters!