ʟᴜᴘɪɴ│ᴛᴋ [complete]

ᴀ/ɴ

Dear Lupin readers,

First of all, thank you so much for all the love you have shown this book whose sole ambition was to feature the boys wearing pinstripe suits, tailcoats and trilby hats.

I have Arthur Conan Doyle and Maurice Leblanc to thank for the Holmes and Lupin characters. And Leblanc again for this plot because he wrote stories starring both London's finest sleuth and Paris's most chivalrous thief (Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes).

This was my first time ever writing a detective story (and probably my last) and my biggest fear was for my hints to be too obvious. So to make up for the lack of real suspense, I tried to include as many Taekook moments as I could.

In order to stray from your cliché good guy vs bad guy trope, I made both my mains decent people to begin with, even if their upbringing would have them clash eventually because of the purpose that has been chosen for them (the game Holmes and Lupin were playing all along).

Taehyung's anxiety attacks are due to the fact that he is aware of how little control he has over his own destiny. He builds the glider with the hope to break free from the narrative that was imposed on both him and Jungkook.

Jungkook, on the other hand, grew up on the right side of the law but as much as he loves his job, he loves Taehyung more and is willing to overlook some things in order to protect him.

Both of them taking a step in the other's direction is what allows them to meet somewhere in the middle. There are no winners or losers here. Just two childhood friends who loved each other fiercely and who had to find alternative roles to the stereotypes bestowed upon them by moi.

To this day, I'm still not sure which label suits this fic best so please vote and help me decide:

Enemies to lovers

Friends to lovers

Neither (it transcends labels!)

Now, moving on to the stolen paintings (forgive me any anachronisms, I picked what I liked):

The Monet (Sentier dans les coquelicots, île Saint-Martin) (credit: BTS_twt)

The Pizzirani (credit: 1stdibs.com)

The Schiele (Four trees) (credit: BTS_twt)

I tried to find the artist of this painting (because it reminds me of Riomaggiore) but failed:

Here's an actual picture of Riomaggiore (credit: hiking-man.com):

And finally, if you would like to get an idea of how much Leblanc influenced contemporary French culture, check out the Lupin series on Netflix. It's a brilliant homage.