The Phantom Thief by Snowrabbit (short story to read TXT) 📖

to do too, as no one showed their real face, so it was a good idea for the police to have men there.
“Let me guess: You’re one of the people to supervise the whole thing?” The Phantom smiled amused as he asked the pretty obvious question. Alan simply didn’t seem like a person who liked to go to events like that. Also he had said ‘I have to’. The policeman answered anyway.
“Yes. And what about you?”
“Of course I’m going! It’ll be so much fun! And I love to dance! So watch out, maybe you’ll recognize me?”
As he told him that, he looked as if he knew something very funny about that, grinning the whole time.
“We will see.”, was the only answer he got though.

After that, both guys talked a bit, mostly about some harmless things. But after a while Alan made clear that he still had important work to do - though he did it nicer than the last few times - and as the Phantom himself had supposedly some ‘preparations’ to do he left shortly after that.
And surprisingly, the policeman got his work done the same evening, without being distracted or making a single mistake.


Chapter thirteen (Yuri)

The last days until the masked ball went by surprisingly fast. Most of the time I helped Lily, as she sold costumes on her site and there were so many orders that even she had some problems. But I liked helping her anyway, especially as she had done something really awesome: She had made an announcement - months ago - that she’d sell ‘Sapphire Phantom’ costumes. Meaning, everyone could run around dressed as the famous master thief. And you have no idea how many people seem to like that.
The reason it was that awesome? Well, if she sold wigs and costumes that looked like mine, I could show up personally in that outfit and no one would suspect me being the real thief.
Which of course helped me greatly in getting closer to Alan without having to reveal my real identity.

So just like that, Christmas arrived. My siblings and I didn’t really celebrate it, actually we just made some kind of wish list and I stole that stuff to hand it out at the 25th. But the masked ball still was an event we loved to go to, because we could simply be ourselves without really having to pretend being something we weren’t.
Which meant that we all made ourselves ready that evening, putting on our costumes. Lily wore an extravagant white dress with a lot of beautiful details and a mask over her eyes that looked like butterfly wings, also in white of course. Lucy was the complete opposite, with her short, black dress, which looked pretty tight but fit her nicely, just like the pretty simple, black mask in her face. Today probably was the only day in the whole year that she ever wore a dress, so it was kinda special.
Alec and me ‘only’ wore our thief clothes. Meaning the blue and white clothes - including the hat and the mask - for me and a black and white cloak with white fur on the shoulders and a black, metallic-looking mask for my brother.
And dressed like that, we left the house and went to the town hall, where the masked ball would be located. We got a few looks, but none of them said something like ‘how weird’ or ‘what are they wearing?’. Of course not, most of the town was dressed in a similar way, if we got looks it was more something like admiration. Well, in your face, looks like Lily (and me, somehow) did an awesome job with our costumes! She made new ones every year, so we normally never wore the same things twice. Well... at least the girls didn’t.
So at the entrance of the hall, we showed our tickets and went in, looking around a bit at the decorations. They did a nice job, getting the town hall ready for the big event. There were garlands at the ceiling, fake snow was lying around everywhere and I even saw mistletoes in some corners.
The people in charge of the decorations obviously had been woman, but hey, it looked fine.
After I observed the environment, I started looking at the people and I was surprised. I mean, I knew that Lily had gotten quite a few orders to make a Sapphire Phantom costume, but there were more people around with these clothes than I had originally thought. Oh well, easier for me to stay unnoticed I guess.
Also, I had to find Alan. But before I could go looking for it, someone suddenly started talking to me.
“Nice clothes mister.”
I turned and saw a pretty old man - maybe about seventy years old? - looking at me smiling.
“Thanks, my girlfriend sewed them for me!”, I answered, grinning and placing my arms around Lilys shoulder. Of course that was a lie, but we had agreed on playing two couples, because that was not as rare as four siblings who were only seen at Christmas each year.
The old man nodded. “How nice. But why are there so many people here dressed just like you?”
Looks like he didn’t follow the news...
“It’s the thief they’re talking about in the media. He’s pretty popular and there is an online shop selling clothes just like he wears.”, I explained smiling and he nodded, chatting a bit with me until he finally left.
I shook my head inwardly - I wasn’t such a big fan of people like that, but Lily had taught me to always play nice - before I finally parted from my siblings and started to look for Alan.
Most of the people were here now, because the music had started shortly after I began searching, but even though it was really crowded, at least I pretty much knew that Alan would not be a big dancer, meaning he probably stood around somewhere away from the dance floor.

I searched about fifteen minutes, then I was back at the place I had started searching. Oh great. But it’s pretty hard to find someone if you have no idea what they would be wearing. I had to ask more than one person if it was him, but no such luck. Not that I was the only one that was confused, it happened every year a lot of times. It still was pretty annoying, though.
Finally I had found another ‘candidate’.
“Alan...?”, I asked as I stood near the guy and he looked at me.
“Phantom.”, he answered curtly. Right, he didn’t even know my name... must be awkward to call me ‘Phantom’ or ‘you’, huh?
“Thank god I finally found you.”, I sighed, relieved that he actually was the one I searched. “It’s not easy to find you with all these people here. But you look nice in that outfit.”
“Thanks.”, he answered, not looking at me. Confused, I tilted my head sideways.
“Is everything alright?”
“Sure. Of course everything is alright. I’m just wondering what exactly you are doing here with me if you could spend time with your precious girlfriend.”
I blinked. What was he talking about? And even his tone was strange.
Seeing my confusion, he rolled his eyes.
“Oh come on, you know what I’m talking about! Back then, when that old man was talking to you. So your girlfriend is in on that thief stuff too, having sewed your outfit?”, he grumbled, looking angry, but I got the feeling that the anger wasn’t completely directed at me. Still, I had to clear up the misunderstanding.
“Look, I’m not sure why it bothers you that much-“ though I certainly didn’t dislike it “-but that girl isn’t my girlfriend or anything. She’s my sister. I lied to that guy, because of some reasons you’re better off not knowing, but still. Believe me, I don’t have a girlfriend.”
He still looked suspicious, but nodded. And somehow he even looked calmer than before, though it looked as if he tried to hide that fact.
As he still looked to the side I remembered something. After searching in one of the many hidden pockets my outfit had I pulled out a little wrapped box, holding it out to the policeman. Now it was his turn to look confused.
“It’s a Christmas present.”, I explained. “You can open it tomorrow if you want.”
“Okay...? Thanks, I guess.”, he answered and I smiled. I just hoped that he’d like it, though I wasn’t sure he’d open it at all if I really went through with what I had planned.
But for now, I ignored that voice, looking at the dance floor.
“Let’s dance!”
Alan stared at me in horror. “No way!”
“Why not?”
“I... just don’t want to.”
“Don’t worry if you can’t dance, I’ll lead you!”
Blushing slightly, the man shook his head. “Forget it. Also, I never said that I couldn’t dance! But it will be awkward... we’re two guys!”
I raised an eyebrow. “So what? No one recognizes us anyway and from far away you can be mistaken for a girl. Don’t worry!”
That might not have been the most intelligent thing to say, but as Alan sputtered I just took his wrist and dragged him onto the dance floor.
And he had no time to protest because as soon as we arrived there we had to get into position and begin dancing, because otherwise it would’ve caused a big commotion. Since it was a Christmas party the only music that was played was classical music, but I could dance to that sort of music pretty well and helped Alan a bit as I took the lead.
After a while he stopped trying to fight it but instead somehow relaxed to the music, trying to get the dance steps right. Fortunately he caught on fast and my feet weren’t actually stomped on all that much.
In the end, he even opened himself a bit more to everything, having a content look on his face. And it really was enthralling somehow...

Like that, we continued dancing quite a long time, not even feeling the growing exhaustion (because dancing isn’t just

nice, you know? It can be pretty tiring too), until we finally stopped in the middle of the dance floor, a spot, where the pairs danced around but never crossed, because some dancers rested here shortly, meaning they wanted to continue right afterwards.
Slightly out of breath we looked at each other, ignoring everyone else around us.
“See? Dancing isn’t that bad, right?”, I told him, smiling.
“...maybe.”
I could swear that he was slightly red - and not because of the exhaustion - but before I could ask about it, one of the dancers who weren’t really good (probably dancing for the first time?) suddenly stumbled and fell, pushing Alan right into my arms in the process.
Now I was probably blushing too, but not as bad as Alan. After he freed himself from the surprise-embrace he looked down, definitely embarrassed.
And then I did something that was probably - no, definitely - not the best thing to do. But he was looking so cute right not that I couldn’t help myself.
I kissed him.
In front of nearly every person in town.
I could just hope they weren’t interested in two kissing people somewhere or at least didn’t get that Alan was a guy.
Not that that was something on my mind in that moment.
Actually my mind went blank the moment our lips touched and I just let my feelings take over my brain. And this time I could swear that my opponent reacted. Not negatively, like screaming, punching my lights out or whatever you might think of, no, I was sure that he was kissing me