achilles is in your alleyway, he don't want me here, he does pray;
title: The Palace of Dreams (2/3)
pairing(s)/character(s): Japan, Greece, China, Korea, cameo by Turkey; Greece/Japan and slight China/Korea
rating: PG-13 just in case yo
summary: By several strange twists of fate, Kiku Honda becomes one of the proprietors of a Kabukicho host club, with Heracles Karpusi as his number one host. As something like love develops between the two, Kiku has to face the fact that desires, dreams, and hopes are something that inevitably make up every person, including himself. [AU; written for disownmereturns for the giripanexchange winter exchange.]
☆THE PALACE OF DREAMS (2/3)
(no time lapse between this and the previous part)
They watched, and made dissatsifying small talk, as the other hosts dragged their girls to the door, gave them groggy hugs just outside. Yong Soo was still yawning and he was bouncing on the coattails of the already dismantled night; there was a pop song playing over the speakers, some schmaltzy little thing that was colored pink and white.
What they would usually do at the end of the day (when Heracles was finished putting away his money, when Kiku cashed out for the day) was sit by the counters- abandoned bottles, a multicolored skyline of glass- and share a cigarette, long and charcoal gray. It was a repeat of that one night, in a way that Kiku didn’t even realize. Sometimes they’d talk, sometimes Heracles would just hand Kiku a smoke and take a quick nap; sometimes they’d both be silent, feeling the ruins of the night collect, build, buzz with static and life as the first edges of sunlight slinked in, looking on all the city and its soul and its lost loves and electricity. Heracles was always welcome company to Kiku, and the reverse was true; moreso than anyone there, they were bound by real companionship- quietly facing nothing in particular in the same way.
Tonight it was the same deal again. Yong Soo was changing in the back, and other hosts were getting ready to go, or counting their money, while they sat at the counter, ruminating on the colors turning bright with the slowly sifting sun.
“It was that girl’s birthday?” Kiku asked as he punched this and that into the calculator.
“Hm,” Heracles nodded. “She was turning...26, I think? I don’t really remember.” He closed his cashbox, having done the figures for the day, and leaned forward, elbows on the counter and smoke lifting lazy by his eyes. “I wonder why she wanted to spend her birthday here...”
Kiku looked up momentarily from his calculations. “Hm? I suppose...I suppose because Japan is an odd country.”
Heracles smiled. “Yeah...it is. I like it that way, though,” he answered.
Kiku went on with his calculations; a pause full of clicks and taps, and then he asked, “How would you spend your birthday?”
Heracles paused, deep in thought. He hummed a bit to himself, and then took a drag. “I’d sleep really late...oh and have a lot of sex, probably,” he answered, and since he was looking out the window, he wasn’t aware that Kiku was blushing furiously up to his ears. No, his attention was concentrated outside- the spinning lighted ad, the billboard with a shampoo advertisement. “I probably wouldn’t go to this kind of place, though.” His eyes flickered lazily to Kiku’s. “Not that I mean any offense.”
“None taken,” Kiku answered, urging him to go on with a nod. He could sense the undercurrent of Heracles’s words- what he was actually saying underneath.
“Hm...to spend so much money just to- come here...I mean...I just get the sense that you erase your real self. But if people are happy,” Heracles continued, flicking the ashes off his cigarette into the ashtray between them, “Then I guess that’s enough...most people deserve to be happy.”
The billboard woman smiled wide and white, and you could tell behind her eyes there was the sadness of the camera reflected. Kiku took a drag of his cigarette, and his eyes brushed over Heracles’s face, just lighted a little by the rising light outside and the still flickering signs. His own eyes seemed to disappear in the high-up lights. He wondered- even though it was dangerous to- if happiness was really everything. Heracles lit another cigarette; his hands and his wrist put a strange thought in the back of Kiku’s mind. Just another thing to ignore, though.
One of the things that Kiku liked the least about working at the host club were the irregular hours. It seemed extremely strange to him to wake at 4 PM and go to sleep at 8 AM; he was used to it now, after two years, but he wished he weren’t. It wasn’t normal, was all. Ah, well.
In the mornings- or the afternoons- he would almost invariably wake up at the same time as Yao. The same small apartment in Takadanobaba; Yao had decided to stay in it because to live well below one’s means was a good formula for building fiscal security. Kiku had his own salary and was tacitly free to go whenever he liked, but they still shared the apartment, for some reason; Kiku tried not to think about the fact that two years ago, he would have hated himself for it. It was better, now, to save that money so that he could-
Did he have any plans? Anyway it was a normal morning-afternoon, and Yao was second in the shower. Kiku was dressing- a charcoal black suit, tailored thin, with a gray tie and crisp white shirt. He looped his tie, put on his dress socks, gathered his briefcase and papers. He asked, somewhat reluctantly, if Yao would like some tea. Kiku never asked himself if he or anyone around him was happy; perhaps he asked that in the back smoke of his mind. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He did wonder sometimes if Heracles was happy. That was only because he knew the answer, though.
They would arrive at the club, and from there they would arrange the rest of the day, or how the rest of the day was supposed to go. First to arrive to work after the extraneous staff and the bartender was usually Yong Soo, because in all honesty, work was the most exciting thing he did in a day. After that Heracles would arrive with Yoh because they took the same train (or, at least that was what Kiku figured- was it something else?- why should he think of it?), and then the rest.
It was busy out in the main room; usually Kiku would be in there along with the hosts and the girls, looking over things, making sure everything was in check, but today he was on the phone with the man who supplied their drinks; apparently he wanted to hike his prices up a little bit, and that little bit turned out to be by 15%. Kiku dealt with the man with his usual impenetrable politeness, nodding with a “yes” that only gave the man a sense of dismay; it wasn’t his fault, he said, it was the recession, the recession. “Yes, the recession has been hard on everyone,” Kiku said, with a nod, and at that moment Yong Soo came into the back room carrying a small plastic bag, twirling around and then waltzing with nobody into the employees-only bathroom that was in actuality the Yao-and-Kiku-Only bathroom.
“Hey, aru! What are you doing in my bathroom!” Yao yelled, getting up from the desk and banging on the door, “You use the other bathroom!”
“Nope! No can do! That’s all filled!”
“Filled with what? Everybody’s working!”
“Filled with uhm- poop,” Yong Soo returned, and Yao was about to say something until he heard the sound of a splash, that choking sound. He figured, for now, that he would let it slide.
“No, I didn’t happen to catch that, Mr. Ishihara. Yes. Yes. I’ll see what I can do but- yes- but for now it’s impossible. Yes. Have a good day, then.”
Yong Soo bursted out of the bathroom, minty-fresh with Listerine and toothpaste after having purged the alcohol from his system by way of upchuck. “Jeeeeeez! I’m so hungryyyy,” Yong Soo wailed, throwing himself on one of the leather armchairs. Nobody took notice, so he pouted, and called, “Yaooooo!”
Yao turned to him in irritation. “What now, aru? Get back out there!”
“I’m so hungryyyy,” he went on, “I need foooood. If I don’t eat, I get drunk too easily.”
“Like that’s- like I- get back to work, aru!” Yao snapped, thwacking Yong Soo on the leg.
Yong Soo fake-sniffled. “I can’t,” he said, quietly, and then spread out his arms, spread-eagle across the cushions as though dying in a dramatic movie, “I’ll die.”
Yao sighed heavily. “Then get something to eat and stop irritating me!”
Yong Soo bolted up from his place and looked dazzled. “Oh, Sensei is so wise,” he said, bowing, giving Yao’s anger a rise; he held up his finger, and grinning, said, “One problem though, Yao. There’s no food here!”
“Ai-yah,” Yao answered, sighing as though the world was against him; he turned to Kiku, “Would you mind getting this moron food? Just get him McDonald’s or something.”
Kiku nodded. “I understand,” he said.
“There, moron, now get back to work until your food gets here, aru,” Yao said, rushing and pushing Yong Soo up from his place.
“R-really!?” Yong Soo said, looking like he was going to cry from happiness, “I love you, Jii-chan! I always knew you cared about me! You and Kiku are the best family a guy could ask for!” He threw his arms around Yao and Yao let out a string of sputtered curses, trying to wiggle and hit his way out of Yong Soo’s arms. Kiku was extremely disinclined to think of them as a family, but remained silent on the matter. Yong Soo released Yao and turned to the door, where Heracles was just coming in. “You too, Heracles,” he said, with a television advertisement smile, “I think of you as my family, too.” He proceeded to fix his wrinkled suit and bounce aimlessly around the room.
Heracles paused to mull that over. “That’s interesting,” he answered, like it was a piece of historical trivia he had never considered before. He was passing- presumably on his way to the bathroom- and brushed against Kiku as Kiku was going out.
“Oh, excuse me,” Kiku said, looking up; “Ah, that’s right, I’m going to get Yong Soo something from McDonald’s. Would you like anything?”
Heracles smiled. “No thanks,” he answered, and went off into the other direction.
“And where are you going, aru?” Yao asked.
“...Bathroom- ?” Heracles replied, looking confused and slightly troubled as to why Yao sounded so indignant.
“I want a Big Mac!” was the last thing Kiku heard before he left the room.
The curtains were drawn across the big windows in the main room, and it gave the place a labyrinthine feel, labyrinth of the mind; you could feel people’s minds in the room. It seemed that when the lights were low, when there were drinks on the table, people lifted the shroud from off their eyes and let themselves come out- they couldn’t do it in the light, where they could see themselves too much in the reflection of other people’s eyes. Everybody was laughing and there was a thick cloud of smoke he passed on his way out. He was glad to be out in the world where not everything was a reflection; where people
were normal and assumed that his suit was the uniform of some generally upstanding young man.
It was tiring; the whole thing was tiring, but he didn’t think too much about it because he didn’t want to be the kind of person who can’t deal with what life hands them. The McDonald’s nearby wasn’t crowded, except for a bunch of schoolkids on their cell phones. Kiku ordered the Big Mac, got a soda as well, and then went out; he was going to go straight there, but he noticed there was a convenience store, and decided to stop in to get something.
The sky was darkening by the time he was nearing the club, but darkening with straight shots of dark purple. He straightened his tie in the reflection of the elevator doors, both bags in hand and eyes not reflecting much. The elevator doors slid open at his floor and he stepped out, and then into the club, where under the spell of bruise-colored night the atmosphere had become a slow dew wind.
There were some newer hosts, away from the lounge and booths and bar, two of them with plain clothing who were being briefed by Yao. It struck Kiku, how miserable this business was, when he heard Yao saying- “We sell a product. If you choose to think it’s artificial, then do that. If you choose to think it’s real, then do that, aru. Whatever gets you through the workday.”
What a life that must be! Dragging yourself along- living off the steam, the lunar glitter, of unfulfilled aspirations; walking around trying to stimulate the could-be completion of dreams as weary as desert horses, walking around in an eternally groggy smoke. Fooling yourself, wasting yourself, to no one’s benefit. And yet, although it was an exclamation to his mind, the thought was hollow to him- it left no resonance, no feeling, as though he was too familiar with the idea of useless fantasy to feel anything about it anymore.
He found Yong Soo yukking it up with a group of customers, and Kiku just made a slim signal with his eyes and held up the bag. Yong Soo, at first, looked crestfallen, despaired, that he couldn’t eat it right away although the sweet temptation was so close; but he amended his expression, nodded back to Kiku, and looked back toward the three plainclothes women and the one himeko he was entertaining.
Kiku slid the bag toward the bartender and told him it was Yong Soo’s food, do something with it please. The bartender nodded and tucked it away somewhere. Kiku turned back toward the room. Wisps of smoke were tumbling upward like lucky money from scattered tables- it looked like a group of chimneys or something. He felt the weight of the other bag, looked around as though he was hiding the object of his search even from himself, and then saw Heracles at a table smoking a cigarette with a customer.
She had a round face, pock-marked, sort of; she looked like she was in the water trade, as well, you could tell by how loosely her clothes hung off her shoulders. Heracles didn’t look at her like she was a queen but like she was a conspirator; you could tell she liked it by the way her fingers twitched around her cigarette. It was quite admirable, Kiku thought, how Heracles could subtly change his expression and his interest to fit the woman (was that admirable, though? from professional perspective, perhaps).
Her black widow eyes were shining like they came from the bottom of the sea. “Amazing! You can drink so much!” she said with a spider’s smile, the glow in back of her a contemptuous halo; she pushed a bottle toward him, she went on, “Have another!”
Heracles’s face was slightly flushed. For some reason this lady really wanted to see him drink, and so he did, knocked back another glass of whatever they were drinking, and when he was done his smile continued and he leaned closer to her.
Kiku felt suddenly blackened, like he had intruded upon something private; nevertheless, he approached and said, “Ah, Heracles- may I speak with you for a moment?” He leaned over Heracles’s shoulder, at a good enough distance.
Heracles looked up and his blue eyes emptied. A different expression. “Oh, sure,” he said. He turned to the woman with a slight understanding nod and started to get up.
“Oh- eh- please don’t fuss- it’s nothing at all,” Kiku said; then he slipped him the box, clandestine, almost, “I just picked something up I thought you might like.”
Heracles seemed confused for a moment; he felt the box in his hand and then looked down at it. A box of Meiji chocolates, those Takenoko no Sato things that were shaped like bamboo shoots. Kiku wondered why Heracles suddenly looked so intensely thoughtful; but then he just turned his eyes up and smiled just slightly. “Thank you, little one,” he said, eyes feeling to Kiku like the brush of electricity, half low like his smile was.
“Think nothing of it,” Kiku said, and smiled back, in that moment, completely unselfconscious. He didn’t seem to catch himself; he turned to the woman and nodded apologetically, to which she just smiled like a sadist queen. He turned, knew that Heracles would be, in a moment, telling her he wanted her, nobody couldn’t want her. Kiku didn’t bother to try and decipher her motivations and didn’t try to decode what they meant for himself. This was the water business, but a muddy water business as well, as hard to see
into as it was to breathe in. Heracles, however, seemed untouched by this; Kiku was glad for it, vaguely- or maybe it was something else...it was a strange sort of desperate giddiness to know that Heracles was probably the only person here who didn’t desire things he couldn’t have.
He passed by Yao; Yao’s expression froze as though in terror at a miracle and he asked Kiku, “Why are you smiling?” Kiku’s eyes widened and the smile dropped, and a strange heat crept up his neck so that he had to loosen his tie just to return to feeling comfortable.
“I hate that guy,” Heracles ground out, looking up at the television with his eyes suddenly darkened, sparkling with asperity.
Kiku looked up, taken aback by the sudden strange tone in Heracles’s voice. Blinking and confused, he turned back to the television screen behind him, where Yong Soo had put on some world music channel. There was a Turkish pop star called Sadiq on the screen (last name Adnan, a gunballer with edge’s grin and an angle of smugness); you couldn’t hear his voice, but there were subtitles on the bottom of the screen.
Kiku turned back at Heracles, wondering where this had suddenly come from and if he should do anything about it. Heracles was calm and logical, and nothing much bothered him; so to hear this from him was actually a shock.
“Can you change the channel?” Heracles asked, turning quite suddenly to Yong Soo, expression disheartened.
Yong Soo looked up blearily at Heracles. “What? Whyyy? I’m tired, you change it.”
“But...you have the remote...”
“Nothing could be sweeter than to be in Carolina in the moooorning,” Yong Soo sang in return, falling back into the couch cushions.
Heracles looked shocked and helpless. Kiku tried to amend the situation quickly. “Y-Yong Soo, please count your money instead of sleeping or watching the television,” he asked.
“Nope, don’t wanna,” Yong Soo laughed. Kiku sent a text message to Yao, who was probably halfway home by now, saying, I’m sorry to bother you, but Yong Soo isn’t doing his job. Yong Soo’s phone rang a couple of seconds later, and he looked excitedly at it; then fell into a disastrous pout, and then bounced up from his place to count his money in the back room.
Heracles went over brashly to the couch, searched in the cushions for the remote, and then turned to the TV. “Shut your douche mouth, Ottoman jerk,” he muttered as though they had personal vendettas against each other, and shut off the television. Kiku watched in a form of mild wonder as Heracles let the stress pass and then moved back, fluid and calm as ever, to his seat. He seemed to not even remember what he had just seen as he set aside the last of what he was counting and closed the box.
“-You’re done for the day?” Kiku asked, breaking the silence.
“Hm? Yeah,” Heracles answered, with a nod. He sat still for a moment; then he folded his arms on the counter and laid his head across them, eyes closing, and then slowly opening again, looking like a sorry schoolkid.
He could have been asleep, but Kiku knew he wasn’t (when he was asleep, his breathing was more peaceful, deeper- how had he come to know that?). He finished his calculations, saying, “Thank you again for your hard work today.”
Heracles rested his chin on his arms and looked up at Kiku with a smile. “Formal,” he pointed out, too lazy to say anything else.
“-Ah?” Kiku asked, sort of raising his eyebrows.
Heracles shook his head; then his expression turned serious again, and he concentrated on Kiku’s hands, the surface of the counter. “Nothing,” he answered, seeming to think of something else, to brush over that. Heracles never pushed the formality thing; for that, Kiku was grateful (somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered if he was being unfair).
“Is it tiring?” Kiku asked.
Heracles paused; he looked at Kiku with a steady type of concentration, perhaps finding it strange that Kiku had actually asked him a direct question for once. “Lots of things are,” he answered, “Which do you mean?”
“Oh, I hope you won’t take any offense, I just- your job, I mean,” Kiku went on, “Being a host.”
Heracles paused; he hummed, deep in thinking for a moment, and wondered how to express it. “It probably is...” he answered. Kiku cocked his head, wondering what Heracles meant by that. “Depends on what you mean by tired.”
Kiku paused, by that pause, allowed Heracles to go on. Heracles shifted, still looking up at Kiku through that slight shade of ash-colored eyelashed. Disastrous, actually; Kiku had never really fully contemplated how good-looking Heracles was, but he rather was, and it struck him strongly then. “I’m tired...well I’m usually sleepy.” He paused again. “My body is tired, I mean. My mind is tired. I’d say the customers are more tired, though.”
“How so?” Kiku asked. He figured that perhaps Heracles meant that they, too, were tired from work; after all, the women who frequented host clubs were invariably overworked, be it from business-type professions or the sex trade.
“Most of the girls...some of the girls are prostitutes, or dancers, you know. They still smile, though; still come here, too.”
“Hm.”
“You can tell that they want something and that they’re looking for it here...or something. Or maybe that they wanted something once, and they’re looking for it here.” Kiku felt something clandestine strike his chest, and Heracles went on; although, he seemed to realize they weren’t smoking, so slowly as usual, he got the pack of Seven Stars from his coat pocket, along with the silver Zippo. “I usually think that they’re looking for an identity, maybe.”
Pink buzz, dark black, all the blinding white of advertisements and everybody’s dreams all crowded together on the polite, indifferent streets- the darkness descending onto the fighting glow of capitalism, colored like a heart in Tokyo, the loneliest city on Earth. Heracles paused thoughtfully. “Maybe they want love?...That’s no way to want love, though.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Kiku said, eyebrows furrowing.
Heracles shrugged; he handed Kiku a cigarette. “That would be bound to make someone tired.” He paused, thought about what he’d said; then nodded, as though sure of it.
“Perhaps...” Why did this sound familiar to him?
Heracles lit his cigarette; then he handed the Zippo to Kiku, their fingers brushing. “Love isn’t something that should only exist in secret.” The way he said love, Kiku noticed, it was as though he was saying it in a foreign language.
It was true, Kiku never wondered about these things. Love, to him, was something from a manga or something from a movie he’d once seen; he never thought of himself as residing in that strange kingdom of love. Nor did he think of identity. He was himself, and that was where the thought ended. All he perceived was the falling stars of every day, and perhaps that was a defense mechanism.
Heracles’s words were always spun slow and calm but he had a way of saying things that stuck in your mind like a good book would stick in your mind, so that you’d be under its spell, walking within its lines, for days. It was like honey and it stuck to everything, dripped off everything. Kiku did realize that it was dangerous to think as such; if he started to think of himself within the context of these things, everything might fall apart.
If he started to think that way, he may seem incomplete, half a person. He may start to harbor resentment toward Yao; that was needless. If he began to think in what-ifs, desires, and possibilities, he may start to seek someone to complete all the places where his mouth left off. Was that a bad thing? He had never really thought of it.
“Where’s Favorite?”
Kiku paused in his steps and looked at Yong Soo. He blinked twice. “Excuse me?”
“Y’know? Favorite? Your favorite?” Yong Soo went on, still smiling as though he wasn’t saying something offensive. “Where is he?”
A dark shade pulled over Kiku’s eyes, and he was sure that Yong Soo was talking about Heracles; but he shook the thought from his mind and looked up at Yong Soo with nothing but a tired expression. “I have no favorites, Yong Soo,” he said.
Yong Soo’s smile widened; a band of yellow light turned to blue and passed over his face, and then met with the other overhead lights. A girl at his table whined, “Munsuuuu, come baaaack!” so he turned back to her and shrugged as though he was getting ripped a new one by The Boss. The girls laughed; Yong Soo turned back to Kiku.
“Anyway,” he went on, “can you find him and tell him he has a customer? I can’t find him. She just came in and she told me to tell you. Oh, also, there’s some other girls who want to see him but they’re new I think.”
“Ah. Do you know her name?”
“Kanako- uhmm Mishima, like the writer.”
“Understood,” Kiku said, “Thank you.”
Kiku’s thank-yous in these types of situations were always entertwined with a polite “now please get back to your table,” so Yong Soo grinned and then ran back to his table. When he reached it, he got down on one knee and asked, “How hard did you miss me!” which was met with a laughing chorus of “Not at all!” at which he pretended to be hurt as Romeo. Kiku turned away; there was a song playing over the speakers, went- Love me, say that you love me, lead me and say that you need me- pretend that you love me. (As an aside, Kiku kicked himself mentally when he realized that he’d, in that conversation, acknowledged Heracles as his “favorite.”)
Kiku looked around the lounge and bar areas, and couldn’t distinguish Heracles anywhere; he probably wasn’t in back, which means maybe he was taking a nap in one of the booths. That was one of Heracles’s bad habits that Kiku was determined to hide from Yao, that of taking naps whenever he had nothing to do. Yao was, of course and rightly so, the kind of employer to whom there is always something to do, but his temper didn’t need to be inflamed over this matter in particular.
The booths- private seats for women who wanted to pay for the full attention of their host- were always one of Kiku’s favorite aspects of the club. They were made in a combination of dark and light woods that gave the impression of cleanness; lit only low so that every light was an isolated pool, and covered by curtains (for no other purpose than to get someone’s heart racing; there was usually nothing overtly sexual happening in the booths). Kiku peered into a couple before finding Heracles lying peacefully on his side in the fourth one, in a powerful deep sleep that his whole body sailed in. Kiku drew aside the heavy curtain, that was, the heavy armor of protected love, and looked in with a cautious frown. “Heracles,” he said.
Heracles made no answer. Kiku leaned down slightly and gave Heracles a conservative touch on the shoulder. “Heracles,” he said, watching the angle of light on the side of his face, “there’s a customer here for you.”
Heracles breathed in deeply; eyes opened slow. “Who is it?” he yawned.
“Kanako,” Kiku answered.
Heracles nodded but made no move to get up. Kiku tarried, uncomfortable, like moving toward the edge of water. “Kanako Mishima,” he said like that made a difference. “Also, there are-”
“If anything...I’d like to be a cat,” Heracles said, looking lazy up to the ceiling.
Kiku blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Cats don’t have to think of much but what’s necessary,” Heracles continued. Kiku paused, trying to decipher the code in his language. But Heracles just got up in one long shot, straightening out his suit jacket and smoothing the wrinkles on his pants. He looked up to Kiku with a lazy smile. “They don’t have Kanakos to answer to.”
“-Perhaps not, unless Kanako happens to be their master,” Kiku answered; he stepped aside as Heracles neared, with a slight “excuse me.”
“Hm,” Heracles nodded. “Masters are strange.” He put his hand on Kiku’s shoulder (a friendly touch; but it had some kind of fire that made it necessary to straighten his thoughts) and sort of led them away from the booth. “In that way...the same as you’re my boss, right?”
“I- I suppose so,” Kiku answered, “Although I am by no means a master.”
Heracles, by some margin of shadow and bright, looked at Kiku and smiled- that small smile that was like the end of a road, turning blue, turning light. “I wouldn’t mind answering to you,” he said, like he knew something- that undertone of insight that shot disorienting light behind Kiku’s eyes. He ruffled Kiku’s hair, not seeming to think more of it- and got out his silver lighter, and started off toward the main room with his casual lean walk that left nothing behind.
-Not even the remnants of recent memory. Kiku watched after him; and then he watched over the whole room- saw Kio pouring Jack for a customer, saw Yong Soo laughing around two girls (one of whom’s birthday it was; Kiku made a mental note to bring around a bottle of champagne in twenty minutes or so), saw Heracles with that woman Kanako- his ashen glow and his dark blue eyes, her pearls and lipstick, smoke for both of them. They were talking; she was laughing, and he wasn’t touching her- but the way he was leaning toward her imperceptibly was more than enough, was enticing and suffocating, was the hammer of the dark beating against the chambers of love- ugh, that word, it haunted just as if it were liquid. Ah, Yoh just came in with a new customer; there, Yao was bringing the menu. The new customer shook off her umbrella and smiled shyly, under a beatific halo left by the rain.
Kiku stood under a veil of all these dreams. It was only when he noticed the pixellated hearts exploding on the screen across from him, and when Yao passed him asking the hour, that he realized how hard his heart was beating (how hard it had been beating since he’d come upon Heracles lying in the sweet melancholy shadows of exhaustion, spent energy, his breath of quiet and calm).
It was a busy day; or, it hadn’t been a busy day until around 9. There was a woman whose birthday it was, so she had a bottle of champagne on the house. Then another woman (a younger woman, almost a girl, girl whose designated host Heracles was) saw the crowd of hosts around the woman, and the singing, and all the diamond lights focused on her, and demanded a bottle of champagne. Then the hosts ran over to her, and the other woman (who had always regretted that she hadn’t designated Yong Soo or Heracles as her host; this particular woman always wanted the best) was inflamed and ordered another. So the hosts ran over to her and started the singing, at which point Kiku was informed that the other woman wanted another bottle; her temper rose to a boiling point when she was informed that she would have to wait, but would get hers in a short amount of time.
So she ordered her bottle, and the hosts ran over to her (at this point Yong Soo was so confused that he started mixing up the names, but thank God neither woman could hear him) and started again. The birthday girl, to put it plain, was incensed, and, being drunk at this point, started to cry and curse everyone and shout, “It’s my birthday! I’m the princess on my birthday!” Her friends were deeply embarrassed at her show of bad manners and tried to placate her; her host, Kio, ran over as well, telling her she was the princess anytime, who needs birthdays!
The other girl couldn’t hold her alcohol so well (and was, by now, upset over the fact that she was using her father’s credit card and had ordered three bottles of Hennessey Richard), so she was irritated, too. Heracles came back to her table and the two of them sat for a while, looking like a tempermental girl and her boyfriend trying to break the lines of her bad mood. He smiled at her and tried to ask her what was wrong; she started, “You’re always somewhere else, you don’t care about me unless I spend money,” and he said that wasn’t true, it was just his job. She shook, she snapped, “You get on my nerves.” Kiku watched, or tried not to watch, as Heracles put his hand on her shoulder, leaned toward her with all that solid gentleness, whispered something to her. She looked insecure, naked for a moment; then she tried to kiss him and that was trouble again.
At the end of it, the birthday girl had a good time, and Heracles’s girl was placated with a kiss in the elevator going down, so it was fine. But Kiku wondered what it all meant; why did people strike out like this? Why did people pay so much money just for lies, for ephemeral bursts of emotion? Was it that important just to make yourself feel?
The night was in ruins for the employees by closing time. Everybody was tired, everybody’s nerves were stretched almost to the breaking point; Yoh was complaining, laughing, about how much his voice hurt from all the singing. Yao congratulated everybody on not disappointing him; you could see his face was heavy from not sleeping. He offered to order food for everyone, and that lifted spirits a bit. Heracles, though, told Yao not to order anything for him, because he’d be leaving earlier than that (sleep was much more important to Heracles than food).
Yong Soo, Heracles, and Kiku were at the bar. The bartender was cleaning and Kiku was helping him (the two tables on top of everything else were a big mess). Yong Soo was complaining about the girls- “Oh man, those two were crazy. I’m glad I’m not their host.”
Heracles sort of smiled. “I am, though.”
“Man! I feel bad for you. I heard her say she loved you.”
“Hm...yeah, she did,” Heracles answered, thinking on it for a moment. Kiku was cleaning off the counter, and Heracles watched him steadily, out of the corner of his eye. Kiku wondered why.
“Well,” Yong Soo said, swishing around his drink with a little smile, “At least she didn’t ask to sleep with you. Wait,” he went on, his face dropping as he reached a too-quick conclusion, “Did she?!”
Heracles shook his head. “No...she didn’t.”
Yong Soo sighed. “Wow, that’s a relief. I hate that. Some of the girls don’t come back when you say no, too!” Of course, by say no, he meant, utilize a host’s stock phrases- such as no, let’s take it slow, or, I want to really get to know you before I know you like that. All cheap things that appeal to the fine lines of a woman’s heart.
Heracles paused. “Actually,” he said, “I liked that better...having sex with them. At least then I didn’t have to-”
He was about to continue, but then he seemed to catch himself; his eyes flickered over to Kiku, who was acting indifferent as he stretched to get a bottle he could’t quite reach, as though he wasn’t listening (it was probably a manifestation of his politeness; perhaps, though, it was something else). Heracles smiled, said, “Let me get that,” and got up.
“Oh, no, please don’t trouble yourself-” Kiku started, but the words caught in his throat when he realized that Heracles was in back of him, standing over him- his arms and chest too close as he reached to get the bottle. He handed it to Kiku over Kiku’s shoulder, and Kiku felt his blood rush uncomfortably at the proximity. “Thank you,” he muttered.
“Go on! Go on!” Yong Soo demanded at the counter, “I wanna know what you were going to say!”
Neither of them could ever tell if Yong Soo had an ulterior motive or if he was really as tactless as he seemed. “Oh,” Heracles answered, “I just was going to say I liked that better than lying.”
Yong Soo nodded, seeming to understand what Heracles meant right away. “Oh, yeah,” he answered; but he paused, thought about it for a moment. He turned his eyes up and scrutinized both of them. “But, though, I always think that if people want to be lied to- then...you know?”
Kiku paused, hands still soft around the neck of the bottle. Heracles turned his eyes up, thinking. “I guess so,” he answered. “It’s not ideal...but I guess that’s the way it works. What makes people happy works, I guess...”
“Hm,” Kiku answered. He remembered Heracles had said something to that effect once before.
There was a pause; Yong Soo watched Kiku, and his eyes brightened. “Aniki doesn’t agree,” he said, smiling slyly.
“Yong Soo, please,” Kiku answered, putting the bottle- somewhere (why had he wanted that bottle in the first place?).
Heracles turned slightly to Kiku; Kiku was a little bit off-put, again, by how close they still were. “Why not?” he asked.
“Because he’s not happy!” Yong Soo answered, smiling and simultaneously throwing a wrench in everything.
Kiku’s expression withdrew and he was about to tell Yong Soo not to say things that were less than intelligent, but a movement on Heracles’s part distracted him- a small turn he did from his waist, looking at Kiku straight from the side. “You should be happy, Kiku,” he said, unsmiling, seeming gravely serious. Kiku’s eyes lightened, Heracles perceived that; Kiku bit his lip. “You deserve to be happy.”
Kiku paused, or maybe it wasn’t a pause so much as a stumbling over silence. “Ah? How so?” he asked, mistrusting.
Heracles didn’t mull on that; it wasn’t a thoughtful pause- it was a knowing one, one that knew the value of not speaking. Kiku was simultaneously appreciative and careful of that about Heracles, that he knew what silence meant. Heracles mussed Kiku’s hair, just a friendly touch, that was all; but Kiku was aware of it fully when he let his fingers slide through just a bit too long. “I don’t know...That’s just what I feel- or what I think- when I look at you,” Heracles said, and the way he said was just so casual, like it didn’t even matter.
So casual and natural that Yong Soo didn’t even comment- that was, until a deep cherry flush found its way across Kiku’s face, and Yong Soo hooted. “Wow! Look, Sensei!” he called to Yao, who looked over briefly, “Aniki is turning love-love cherry red!”
Kiku felt Yao’s amber eyes brush over him and felt the judgement that Yao made; Yao thankfully said nothing. Nor did Heracles, he just didn’t seem to think anything of it, and they talked about something else for a while that Kiku couldn’t even hear above the buzzing in the back of his mind. What did that even matter?- What was he, a customer, to be struck with such feeling at simple words?
Heracles said he was going to cut out, then; Kiku made sure not to make eye contact or even say anything before “goodbye-” ah but he saw all Heracles’s movements, and saw everything they meant. Heracles someone he’d be leaving first and a bunch of the hosts thanked him for his hard work.
Kiku was exhausted, in a melancholy way that made everything seem sweeter. He have a cigarette when Yong Soo offered him one; he just went over to lean bythe window, watch the street. The dawn had come and the sun was beginning to pervade the outside. What did happiness matter? It was odd, Kiku had never thought of happiness, or wished it, for anyone, not even himself- he hadn’t even thought of it when he had wanted to become an architect. He was tore-up, all in colored shambles, inside of his chest, in his stomach. Am I good-hearted? he asked himself- not in words, but in currents, dark purple and black expanding toward the lights and rooftops and streets- Am I strong? Can I comprehend love? Can I take it? The city was still badly lit, even though gray dawn was coming on strong and Heracles was walking along, away from the building, blending into the cigarette colors of small morning. He looked small, solitary; his walk was still unhurried.
A dark feeling clawed against Kiku’s chest; his thoughts were warm but they came into contact with the apparent cold outside and made raptures. How have I known him for two years and never loved him? It seemed ridiculous, inconceivable. He had never even asked to see him outside of work, and yet here he was, feeling so strange over all of it.
Kiku was more than a bit uncomfortable asking Yong Soo for anything, but he just felt to ask him as he turned from the window to the bar. “Yong Soo- would you mind very much if I asked you a question?”
Yong Soo looked up from his drink; then his eyes sparkled. “Of course! Aniki is welcome to ask me anything whenever, wherever!”
“Ah-ha,” Kiku answered, shrinking away a bit; but then he just went on, “Why did you become a host?”
Yong Soo paused; his eyes wandered. He put his drink down on the table. “I have a dream to finance,” he said, and then grinned widely.
PART III
(ahhhhhhh so long what the fuck am i tolstoy)
ALSO NO ONE SAW THAT FORMATTING FAIL B|
pairing(s)/character(s): Japan, Greece, China, Korea, cameo by Turkey; Greece/Japan and slight China/Korea
rating: PG-13 just in case yo
summary: By several strange twists of fate, Kiku Honda becomes one of the proprietors of a Kabukicho host club, with Heracles Karpusi as his number one host. As something like love develops between the two, Kiku has to face the fact that desires, dreams, and hopes are something that inevitably make up every person, including himself. [AU; written for disownmereturns for the giripanexchange winter exchange.]
☆THE PALACE OF DREAMS (2/3)
(no time lapse between this and the previous part)
They watched, and made dissatsifying small talk, as the other hosts dragged their girls to the door, gave them groggy hugs just outside. Yong Soo was still yawning and he was bouncing on the coattails of the already dismantled night; there was a pop song playing over the speakers, some schmaltzy little thing that was colored pink and white.
What they would usually do at the end of the day (when Heracles was finished putting away his money, when Kiku cashed out for the day) was sit by the counters- abandoned bottles, a multicolored skyline of glass- and share a cigarette, long and charcoal gray. It was a repeat of that one night, in a way that Kiku didn’t even realize. Sometimes they’d talk, sometimes Heracles would just hand Kiku a smoke and take a quick nap; sometimes they’d both be silent, feeling the ruins of the night collect, build, buzz with static and life as the first edges of sunlight slinked in, looking on all the city and its soul and its lost loves and electricity. Heracles was always welcome company to Kiku, and the reverse was true; moreso than anyone there, they were bound by real companionship- quietly facing nothing in particular in the same way.
Tonight it was the same deal again. Yong Soo was changing in the back, and other hosts were getting ready to go, or counting their money, while they sat at the counter, ruminating on the colors turning bright with the slowly sifting sun.
“It was that girl’s birthday?” Kiku asked as he punched this and that into the calculator.
“Hm,” Heracles nodded. “She was turning...26, I think? I don’t really remember.” He closed his cashbox, having done the figures for the day, and leaned forward, elbows on the counter and smoke lifting lazy by his eyes. “I wonder why she wanted to spend her birthday here...”
Kiku looked up momentarily from his calculations. “Hm? I suppose...I suppose because Japan is an odd country.”
Heracles smiled. “Yeah...it is. I like it that way, though,” he answered.
Kiku went on with his calculations; a pause full of clicks and taps, and then he asked, “How would you spend your birthday?”
Heracles paused, deep in thought. He hummed a bit to himself, and then took a drag. “I’d sleep really late...oh and have a lot of sex, probably,” he answered, and since he was looking out the window, he wasn’t aware that Kiku was blushing furiously up to his ears. No, his attention was concentrated outside- the spinning lighted ad, the billboard with a shampoo advertisement. “I probably wouldn’t go to this kind of place, though.” His eyes flickered lazily to Kiku’s. “Not that I mean any offense.”
“None taken,” Kiku answered, urging him to go on with a nod. He could sense the undercurrent of Heracles’s words- what he was actually saying underneath.
“Hm...to spend so much money just to- come here...I mean...I just get the sense that you erase your real self. But if people are happy,” Heracles continued, flicking the ashes off his cigarette into the ashtray between them, “Then I guess that’s enough...most people deserve to be happy.”
The billboard woman smiled wide and white, and you could tell behind her eyes there was the sadness of the camera reflected. Kiku took a drag of his cigarette, and his eyes brushed over Heracles’s face, just lighted a little by the rising light outside and the still flickering signs. His own eyes seemed to disappear in the high-up lights. He wondered- even though it was dangerous to- if happiness was really everything. Heracles lit another cigarette; his hands and his wrist put a strange thought in the back of Kiku’s mind. Just another thing to ignore, though.
One of the things that Kiku liked the least about working at the host club were the irregular hours. It seemed extremely strange to him to wake at 4 PM and go to sleep at 8 AM; he was used to it now, after two years, but he wished he weren’t. It wasn’t normal, was all. Ah, well.
In the mornings- or the afternoons- he would almost invariably wake up at the same time as Yao. The same small apartment in Takadanobaba; Yao had decided to stay in it because to live well below one’s means was a good formula for building fiscal security. Kiku had his own salary and was tacitly free to go whenever he liked, but they still shared the apartment, for some reason; Kiku tried not to think about the fact that two years ago, he would have hated himself for it. It was better, now, to save that money so that he could-
Did he have any plans? Anyway it was a normal morning-afternoon, and Yao was second in the shower. Kiku was dressing- a charcoal black suit, tailored thin, with a gray tie and crisp white shirt. He looped his tie, put on his dress socks, gathered his briefcase and papers. He asked, somewhat reluctantly, if Yao would like some tea. Kiku never asked himself if he or anyone around him was happy; perhaps he asked that in the back smoke of his mind. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He did wonder sometimes if Heracles was happy. That was only because he knew the answer, though.
They would arrive at the club, and from there they would arrange the rest of the day, or how the rest of the day was supposed to go. First to arrive to work after the extraneous staff and the bartender was usually Yong Soo, because in all honesty, work was the most exciting thing he did in a day. After that Heracles would arrive with Yoh because they took the same train (or, at least that was what Kiku figured- was it something else?- why should he think of it?), and then the rest.
It was busy out in the main room; usually Kiku would be in there along with the hosts and the girls, looking over things, making sure everything was in check, but today he was on the phone with the man who supplied their drinks; apparently he wanted to hike his prices up a little bit, and that little bit turned out to be by 15%. Kiku dealt with the man with his usual impenetrable politeness, nodding with a “yes” that only gave the man a sense of dismay; it wasn’t his fault, he said, it was the recession, the recession. “Yes, the recession has been hard on everyone,” Kiku said, with a nod, and at that moment Yong Soo came into the back room carrying a small plastic bag, twirling around and then waltzing with nobody into the employees-only bathroom that was in actuality the Yao-and-Kiku-Only bathroom.
“Hey, aru! What are you doing in my bathroom!” Yao yelled, getting up from the desk and banging on the door, “You use the other bathroom!”
“Nope! No can do! That’s all filled!”
“Filled with what? Everybody’s working!”
“Filled with uhm- poop,” Yong Soo returned, and Yao was about to say something until he heard the sound of a splash, that choking sound. He figured, for now, that he would let it slide.
“No, I didn’t happen to catch that, Mr. Ishihara. Yes. Yes. I’ll see what I can do but- yes- but for now it’s impossible. Yes. Have a good day, then.”
Yong Soo bursted out of the bathroom, minty-fresh with Listerine and toothpaste after having purged the alcohol from his system by way of upchuck. “Jeeeeeez! I’m so hungryyyy,” Yong Soo wailed, throwing himself on one of the leather armchairs. Nobody took notice, so he pouted, and called, “Yaooooo!”
Yao turned to him in irritation. “What now, aru? Get back out there!”
“I’m so hungryyyy,” he went on, “I need foooood. If I don’t eat, I get drunk too easily.”
“Like that’s- like I- get back to work, aru!” Yao snapped, thwacking Yong Soo on the leg.
Yong Soo fake-sniffled. “I can’t,” he said, quietly, and then spread out his arms, spread-eagle across the cushions as though dying in a dramatic movie, “I’ll die.”
Yao sighed heavily. “Then get something to eat and stop irritating me!”
Yong Soo bolted up from his place and looked dazzled. “Oh, Sensei is so wise,” he said, bowing, giving Yao’s anger a rise; he held up his finger, and grinning, said, “One problem though, Yao. There’s no food here!”
“Ai-yah,” Yao answered, sighing as though the world was against him; he turned to Kiku, “Would you mind getting this moron food? Just get him McDonald’s or something.”
Kiku nodded. “I understand,” he said.
“There, moron, now get back to work until your food gets here, aru,” Yao said, rushing and pushing Yong Soo up from his place.
“R-really!?” Yong Soo said, looking like he was going to cry from happiness, “I love you, Jii-chan! I always knew you cared about me! You and Kiku are the best family a guy could ask for!” He threw his arms around Yao and Yao let out a string of sputtered curses, trying to wiggle and hit his way out of Yong Soo’s arms. Kiku was extremely disinclined to think of them as a family, but remained silent on the matter. Yong Soo released Yao and turned to the door, where Heracles was just coming in. “You too, Heracles,” he said, with a television advertisement smile, “I think of you as my family, too.” He proceeded to fix his wrinkled suit and bounce aimlessly around the room.
Heracles paused to mull that over. “That’s interesting,” he answered, like it was a piece of historical trivia he had never considered before. He was passing- presumably on his way to the bathroom- and brushed against Kiku as Kiku was going out.
“Oh, excuse me,” Kiku said, looking up; “Ah, that’s right, I’m going to get Yong Soo something from McDonald’s. Would you like anything?”
Heracles smiled. “No thanks,” he answered, and went off into the other direction.
“And where are you going, aru?” Yao asked.
“...Bathroom- ?” Heracles replied, looking confused and slightly troubled as to why Yao sounded so indignant.
“I want a Big Mac!” was the last thing Kiku heard before he left the room.
The curtains were drawn across the big windows in the main room, and it gave the place a labyrinthine feel, labyrinth of the mind; you could feel people’s minds in the room. It seemed that when the lights were low, when there were drinks on the table, people lifted the shroud from off their eyes and let themselves come out- they couldn’t do it in the light, where they could see themselves too much in the reflection of other people’s eyes. Everybody was laughing and there was a thick cloud of smoke he passed on his way out. He was glad to be out in the world where not everything was a reflection; where people
were normal and assumed that his suit was the uniform of some generally upstanding young man.
It was tiring; the whole thing was tiring, but he didn’t think too much about it because he didn’t want to be the kind of person who can’t deal with what life hands them. The McDonald’s nearby wasn’t crowded, except for a bunch of schoolkids on their cell phones. Kiku ordered the Big Mac, got a soda as well, and then went out; he was going to go straight there, but he noticed there was a convenience store, and decided to stop in to get something.
The sky was darkening by the time he was nearing the club, but darkening with straight shots of dark purple. He straightened his tie in the reflection of the elevator doors, both bags in hand and eyes not reflecting much. The elevator doors slid open at his floor and he stepped out, and then into the club, where under the spell of bruise-colored night the atmosphere had become a slow dew wind.
There were some newer hosts, away from the lounge and booths and bar, two of them with plain clothing who were being briefed by Yao. It struck Kiku, how miserable this business was, when he heard Yao saying- “We sell a product. If you choose to think it’s artificial, then do that. If you choose to think it’s real, then do that, aru. Whatever gets you through the workday.”
What a life that must be! Dragging yourself along- living off the steam, the lunar glitter, of unfulfilled aspirations; walking around trying to stimulate the could-be completion of dreams as weary as desert horses, walking around in an eternally groggy smoke. Fooling yourself, wasting yourself, to no one’s benefit. And yet, although it was an exclamation to his mind, the thought was hollow to him- it left no resonance, no feeling, as though he was too familiar with the idea of useless fantasy to feel anything about it anymore.
He found Yong Soo yukking it up with a group of customers, and Kiku just made a slim signal with his eyes and held up the bag. Yong Soo, at first, looked crestfallen, despaired, that he couldn’t eat it right away although the sweet temptation was so close; but he amended his expression, nodded back to Kiku, and looked back toward the three plainclothes women and the one himeko he was entertaining.
Kiku slid the bag toward the bartender and told him it was Yong Soo’s food, do something with it please. The bartender nodded and tucked it away somewhere. Kiku turned back toward the room. Wisps of smoke were tumbling upward like lucky money from scattered tables- it looked like a group of chimneys or something. He felt the weight of the other bag, looked around as though he was hiding the object of his search even from himself, and then saw Heracles at a table smoking a cigarette with a customer.
She had a round face, pock-marked, sort of; she looked like she was in the water trade, as well, you could tell by how loosely her clothes hung off her shoulders. Heracles didn’t look at her like she was a queen but like she was a conspirator; you could tell she liked it by the way her fingers twitched around her cigarette. It was quite admirable, Kiku thought, how Heracles could subtly change his expression and his interest to fit the woman (was that admirable, though? from professional perspective, perhaps).
Her black widow eyes were shining like they came from the bottom of the sea. “Amazing! You can drink so much!” she said with a spider’s smile, the glow in back of her a contemptuous halo; she pushed a bottle toward him, she went on, “Have another!”
Heracles’s face was slightly flushed. For some reason this lady really wanted to see him drink, and so he did, knocked back another glass of whatever they were drinking, and when he was done his smile continued and he leaned closer to her.
Kiku felt suddenly blackened, like he had intruded upon something private; nevertheless, he approached and said, “Ah, Heracles- may I speak with you for a moment?” He leaned over Heracles’s shoulder, at a good enough distance.
Heracles looked up and his blue eyes emptied. A different expression. “Oh, sure,” he said. He turned to the woman with a slight understanding nod and started to get up.
“Oh- eh- please don’t fuss- it’s nothing at all,” Kiku said; then he slipped him the box, clandestine, almost, “I just picked something up I thought you might like.”
Heracles seemed confused for a moment; he felt the box in his hand and then looked down at it. A box of Meiji chocolates, those Takenoko no Sato things that were shaped like bamboo shoots. Kiku wondered why Heracles suddenly looked so intensely thoughtful; but then he just turned his eyes up and smiled just slightly. “Thank you, little one,” he said, eyes feeling to Kiku like the brush of electricity, half low like his smile was.
“Think nothing of it,” Kiku said, and smiled back, in that moment, completely unselfconscious. He didn’t seem to catch himself; he turned to the woman and nodded apologetically, to which she just smiled like a sadist queen. He turned, knew that Heracles would be, in a moment, telling her he wanted her, nobody couldn’t want her. Kiku didn’t bother to try and decipher her motivations and didn’t try to decode what they meant for himself. This was the water business, but a muddy water business as well, as hard to see
into as it was to breathe in. Heracles, however, seemed untouched by this; Kiku was glad for it, vaguely- or maybe it was something else...it was a strange sort of desperate giddiness to know that Heracles was probably the only person here who didn’t desire things he couldn’t have.
He passed by Yao; Yao’s expression froze as though in terror at a miracle and he asked Kiku, “Why are you smiling?” Kiku’s eyes widened and the smile dropped, and a strange heat crept up his neck so that he had to loosen his tie just to return to feeling comfortable.
“I hate that guy,” Heracles ground out, looking up at the television with his eyes suddenly darkened, sparkling with asperity.
Kiku looked up, taken aback by the sudden strange tone in Heracles’s voice. Blinking and confused, he turned back to the television screen behind him, where Yong Soo had put on some world music channel. There was a Turkish pop star called Sadiq on the screen (last name Adnan, a gunballer with edge’s grin and an angle of smugness); you couldn’t hear his voice, but there were subtitles on the bottom of the screen.
Kiku turned back at Heracles, wondering where this had suddenly come from and if he should do anything about it. Heracles was calm and logical, and nothing much bothered him; so to hear this from him was actually a shock.
“Can you change the channel?” Heracles asked, turning quite suddenly to Yong Soo, expression disheartened.
Yong Soo looked up blearily at Heracles. “What? Whyyy? I’m tired, you change it.”
“But...you have the remote...”
“Nothing could be sweeter than to be in Carolina in the moooorning,” Yong Soo sang in return, falling back into the couch cushions.
Heracles looked shocked and helpless. Kiku tried to amend the situation quickly. “Y-Yong Soo, please count your money instead of sleeping or watching the television,” he asked.
“Nope, don’t wanna,” Yong Soo laughed. Kiku sent a text message to Yao, who was probably halfway home by now, saying, I’m sorry to bother you, but Yong Soo isn’t doing his job. Yong Soo’s phone rang a couple of seconds later, and he looked excitedly at it; then fell into a disastrous pout, and then bounced up from his place to count his money in the back room.
Heracles went over brashly to the couch, searched in the cushions for the remote, and then turned to the TV. “Shut your douche mouth, Ottoman jerk,” he muttered as though they had personal vendettas against each other, and shut off the television. Kiku watched in a form of mild wonder as Heracles let the stress pass and then moved back, fluid and calm as ever, to his seat. He seemed to not even remember what he had just seen as he set aside the last of what he was counting and closed the box.
“-You’re done for the day?” Kiku asked, breaking the silence.
“Hm? Yeah,” Heracles answered, with a nod. He sat still for a moment; then he folded his arms on the counter and laid his head across them, eyes closing, and then slowly opening again, looking like a sorry schoolkid.
He could have been asleep, but Kiku knew he wasn’t (when he was asleep, his breathing was more peaceful, deeper- how had he come to know that?). He finished his calculations, saying, “Thank you again for your hard work today.”
Heracles rested his chin on his arms and looked up at Kiku with a smile. “Formal,” he pointed out, too lazy to say anything else.
“-Ah?” Kiku asked, sort of raising his eyebrows.
Heracles shook his head; then his expression turned serious again, and he concentrated on Kiku’s hands, the surface of the counter. “Nothing,” he answered, seeming to think of something else, to brush over that. Heracles never pushed the formality thing; for that, Kiku was grateful (somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered if he was being unfair).
“Is it tiring?” Kiku asked.
Heracles paused; he looked at Kiku with a steady type of concentration, perhaps finding it strange that Kiku had actually asked him a direct question for once. “Lots of things are,” he answered, “Which do you mean?”
“Oh, I hope you won’t take any offense, I just- your job, I mean,” Kiku went on, “Being a host.”
Heracles paused; he hummed, deep in thinking for a moment, and wondered how to express it. “It probably is...” he answered. Kiku cocked his head, wondering what Heracles meant by that. “Depends on what you mean by tired.”
Kiku paused, by that pause, allowed Heracles to go on. Heracles shifted, still looking up at Kiku through that slight shade of ash-colored eyelashed. Disastrous, actually; Kiku had never really fully contemplated how good-looking Heracles was, but he rather was, and it struck him strongly then. “I’m tired...well I’m usually sleepy.” He paused again. “My body is tired, I mean. My mind is tired. I’d say the customers are more tired, though.”
“How so?” Kiku asked. He figured that perhaps Heracles meant that they, too, were tired from work; after all, the women who frequented host clubs were invariably overworked, be it from business-type professions or the sex trade.
“Most of the girls...some of the girls are prostitutes, or dancers, you know. They still smile, though; still come here, too.”
“Hm.”
“You can tell that they want something and that they’re looking for it here...or something. Or maybe that they wanted something once, and they’re looking for it here.” Kiku felt something clandestine strike his chest, and Heracles went on; although, he seemed to realize they weren’t smoking, so slowly as usual, he got the pack of Seven Stars from his coat pocket, along with the silver Zippo. “I usually think that they’re looking for an identity, maybe.”
Pink buzz, dark black, all the blinding white of advertisements and everybody’s dreams all crowded together on the polite, indifferent streets- the darkness descending onto the fighting glow of capitalism, colored like a heart in Tokyo, the loneliest city on Earth. Heracles paused thoughtfully. “Maybe they want love?...That’s no way to want love, though.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Kiku said, eyebrows furrowing.
Heracles shrugged; he handed Kiku a cigarette. “That would be bound to make someone tired.” He paused, thought about what he’d said; then nodded, as though sure of it.
“Perhaps...” Why did this sound familiar to him?
Heracles lit his cigarette; then he handed the Zippo to Kiku, their fingers brushing. “Love isn’t something that should only exist in secret.” The way he said love, Kiku noticed, it was as though he was saying it in a foreign language.
It was true, Kiku never wondered about these things. Love, to him, was something from a manga or something from a movie he’d once seen; he never thought of himself as residing in that strange kingdom of love. Nor did he think of identity. He was himself, and that was where the thought ended. All he perceived was the falling stars of every day, and perhaps that was a defense mechanism.
Heracles’s words were always spun slow and calm but he had a way of saying things that stuck in your mind like a good book would stick in your mind, so that you’d be under its spell, walking within its lines, for days. It was like honey and it stuck to everything, dripped off everything. Kiku did realize that it was dangerous to think as such; if he started to think of himself within the context of these things, everything might fall apart.
If he started to think that way, he may seem incomplete, half a person. He may start to harbor resentment toward Yao; that was needless. If he began to think in what-ifs, desires, and possibilities, he may start to seek someone to complete all the places where his mouth left off. Was that a bad thing? He had never really thought of it.
“Where’s Favorite?”
Kiku paused in his steps and looked at Yong Soo. He blinked twice. “Excuse me?”
“Y’know? Favorite? Your favorite?” Yong Soo went on, still smiling as though he wasn’t saying something offensive. “Where is he?”
A dark shade pulled over Kiku’s eyes, and he was sure that Yong Soo was talking about Heracles; but he shook the thought from his mind and looked up at Yong Soo with nothing but a tired expression. “I have no favorites, Yong Soo,” he said.
Yong Soo’s smile widened; a band of yellow light turned to blue and passed over his face, and then met with the other overhead lights. A girl at his table whined, “Munsuuuu, come baaaack!” so he turned back to her and shrugged as though he was getting ripped a new one by The Boss. The girls laughed; Yong Soo turned back to Kiku.
“Anyway,” he went on, “can you find him and tell him he has a customer? I can’t find him. She just came in and she told me to tell you. Oh, also, there’s some other girls who want to see him but they’re new I think.”
“Ah. Do you know her name?”
“Kanako- uhmm Mishima, like the writer.”
“Understood,” Kiku said, “Thank you.”
Kiku’s thank-yous in these types of situations were always entertwined with a polite “now please get back to your table,” so Yong Soo grinned and then ran back to his table. When he reached it, he got down on one knee and asked, “How hard did you miss me!” which was met with a laughing chorus of “Not at all!” at which he pretended to be hurt as Romeo. Kiku turned away; there was a song playing over the speakers, went- Love me, say that you love me, lead me and say that you need me- pretend that you love me. (As an aside, Kiku kicked himself mentally when he realized that he’d, in that conversation, acknowledged Heracles as his “favorite.”)
Kiku looked around the lounge and bar areas, and couldn’t distinguish Heracles anywhere; he probably wasn’t in back, which means maybe he was taking a nap in one of the booths. That was one of Heracles’s bad habits that Kiku was determined to hide from Yao, that of taking naps whenever he had nothing to do. Yao was, of course and rightly so, the kind of employer to whom there is always something to do, but his temper didn’t need to be inflamed over this matter in particular.
The booths- private seats for women who wanted to pay for the full attention of their host- were always one of Kiku’s favorite aspects of the club. They were made in a combination of dark and light woods that gave the impression of cleanness; lit only low so that every light was an isolated pool, and covered by curtains (for no other purpose than to get someone’s heart racing; there was usually nothing overtly sexual happening in the booths). Kiku peered into a couple before finding Heracles lying peacefully on his side in the fourth one, in a powerful deep sleep that his whole body sailed in. Kiku drew aside the heavy curtain, that was, the heavy armor of protected love, and looked in with a cautious frown. “Heracles,” he said.
Heracles made no answer. Kiku leaned down slightly and gave Heracles a conservative touch on the shoulder. “Heracles,” he said, watching the angle of light on the side of his face, “there’s a customer here for you.”
Heracles breathed in deeply; eyes opened slow. “Who is it?” he yawned.
“Kanako,” Kiku answered.
Heracles nodded but made no move to get up. Kiku tarried, uncomfortable, like moving toward the edge of water. “Kanako Mishima,” he said like that made a difference. “Also, there are-”
“If anything...I’d like to be a cat,” Heracles said, looking lazy up to the ceiling.
Kiku blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Cats don’t have to think of much but what’s necessary,” Heracles continued. Kiku paused, trying to decipher the code in his language. But Heracles just got up in one long shot, straightening out his suit jacket and smoothing the wrinkles on his pants. He looked up to Kiku with a lazy smile. “They don’t have Kanakos to answer to.”
“-Perhaps not, unless Kanako happens to be their master,” Kiku answered; he stepped aside as Heracles neared, with a slight “excuse me.”
“Hm,” Heracles nodded. “Masters are strange.” He put his hand on Kiku’s shoulder (a friendly touch; but it had some kind of fire that made it necessary to straighten his thoughts) and sort of led them away from the booth. “In that way...the same as you’re my boss, right?”
“I- I suppose so,” Kiku answered, “Although I am by no means a master.”
Heracles, by some margin of shadow and bright, looked at Kiku and smiled- that small smile that was like the end of a road, turning blue, turning light. “I wouldn’t mind answering to you,” he said, like he knew something- that undertone of insight that shot disorienting light behind Kiku’s eyes. He ruffled Kiku’s hair, not seeming to think more of it- and got out his silver lighter, and started off toward the main room with his casual lean walk that left nothing behind.
-Not even the remnants of recent memory. Kiku watched after him; and then he watched over the whole room- saw Kio pouring Jack for a customer, saw Yong Soo laughing around two girls (one of whom’s birthday it was; Kiku made a mental note to bring around a bottle of champagne in twenty minutes or so), saw Heracles with that woman Kanako- his ashen glow and his dark blue eyes, her pearls and lipstick, smoke for both of them. They were talking; she was laughing, and he wasn’t touching her- but the way he was leaning toward her imperceptibly was more than enough, was enticing and suffocating, was the hammer of the dark beating against the chambers of love- ugh, that word, it haunted just as if it were liquid. Ah, Yoh just came in with a new customer; there, Yao was bringing the menu. The new customer shook off her umbrella and smiled shyly, under a beatific halo left by the rain.
Kiku stood under a veil of all these dreams. It was only when he noticed the pixellated hearts exploding on the screen across from him, and when Yao passed him asking the hour, that he realized how hard his heart was beating (how hard it had been beating since he’d come upon Heracles lying in the sweet melancholy shadows of exhaustion, spent energy, his breath of quiet and calm).
It was a busy day; or, it hadn’t been a busy day until around 9. There was a woman whose birthday it was, so she had a bottle of champagne on the house. Then another woman (a younger woman, almost a girl, girl whose designated host Heracles was) saw the crowd of hosts around the woman, and the singing, and all the diamond lights focused on her, and demanded a bottle of champagne. Then the hosts ran over to her, and the other woman (who had always regretted that she hadn’t designated Yong Soo or Heracles as her host; this particular woman always wanted the best) was inflamed and ordered another. So the hosts ran over to her and started the singing, at which point Kiku was informed that the other woman wanted another bottle; her temper rose to a boiling point when she was informed that she would have to wait, but would get hers in a short amount of time.
So she ordered her bottle, and the hosts ran over to her (at this point Yong Soo was so confused that he started mixing up the names, but thank God neither woman could hear him) and started again. The birthday girl, to put it plain, was incensed, and, being drunk at this point, started to cry and curse everyone and shout, “It’s my birthday! I’m the princess on my birthday!” Her friends were deeply embarrassed at her show of bad manners and tried to placate her; her host, Kio, ran over as well, telling her she was the princess anytime, who needs birthdays!
The other girl couldn’t hold her alcohol so well (and was, by now, upset over the fact that she was using her father’s credit card and had ordered three bottles of Hennessey Richard), so she was irritated, too. Heracles came back to her table and the two of them sat for a while, looking like a tempermental girl and her boyfriend trying to break the lines of her bad mood. He smiled at her and tried to ask her what was wrong; she started, “You’re always somewhere else, you don’t care about me unless I spend money,” and he said that wasn’t true, it was just his job. She shook, she snapped, “You get on my nerves.” Kiku watched, or tried not to watch, as Heracles put his hand on her shoulder, leaned toward her with all that solid gentleness, whispered something to her. She looked insecure, naked for a moment; then she tried to kiss him and that was trouble again.
At the end of it, the birthday girl had a good time, and Heracles’s girl was placated with a kiss in the elevator going down, so it was fine. But Kiku wondered what it all meant; why did people strike out like this? Why did people pay so much money just for lies, for ephemeral bursts of emotion? Was it that important just to make yourself feel?
The night was in ruins for the employees by closing time. Everybody was tired, everybody’s nerves were stretched almost to the breaking point; Yoh was complaining, laughing, about how much his voice hurt from all the singing. Yao congratulated everybody on not disappointing him; you could see his face was heavy from not sleeping. He offered to order food for everyone, and that lifted spirits a bit. Heracles, though, told Yao not to order anything for him, because he’d be leaving earlier than that (sleep was much more important to Heracles than food).
Yong Soo, Heracles, and Kiku were at the bar. The bartender was cleaning and Kiku was helping him (the two tables on top of everything else were a big mess). Yong Soo was complaining about the girls- “Oh man, those two were crazy. I’m glad I’m not their host.”
Heracles sort of smiled. “I am, though.”
“Man! I feel bad for you. I heard her say she loved you.”
“Hm...yeah, she did,” Heracles answered, thinking on it for a moment. Kiku was cleaning off the counter, and Heracles watched him steadily, out of the corner of his eye. Kiku wondered why.
“Well,” Yong Soo said, swishing around his drink with a little smile, “At least she didn’t ask to sleep with you. Wait,” he went on, his face dropping as he reached a too-quick conclusion, “Did she?!”
Heracles shook his head. “No...she didn’t.”
Yong Soo sighed. “Wow, that’s a relief. I hate that. Some of the girls don’t come back when you say no, too!” Of course, by say no, he meant, utilize a host’s stock phrases- such as no, let’s take it slow, or, I want to really get to know you before I know you like that. All cheap things that appeal to the fine lines of a woman’s heart.
Heracles paused. “Actually,” he said, “I liked that better...having sex with them. At least then I didn’t have to-”
He was about to continue, but then he seemed to catch himself; his eyes flickered over to Kiku, who was acting indifferent as he stretched to get a bottle he could’t quite reach, as though he wasn’t listening (it was probably a manifestation of his politeness; perhaps, though, it was something else). Heracles smiled, said, “Let me get that,” and got up.
“Oh, no, please don’t trouble yourself-” Kiku started, but the words caught in his throat when he realized that Heracles was in back of him, standing over him- his arms and chest too close as he reached to get the bottle. He handed it to Kiku over Kiku’s shoulder, and Kiku felt his blood rush uncomfortably at the proximity. “Thank you,” he muttered.
“Go on! Go on!” Yong Soo demanded at the counter, “I wanna know what you were going to say!”
Neither of them could ever tell if Yong Soo had an ulterior motive or if he was really as tactless as he seemed. “Oh,” Heracles answered, “I just was going to say I liked that better than lying.”
Yong Soo nodded, seeming to understand what Heracles meant right away. “Oh, yeah,” he answered; but he paused, thought about it for a moment. He turned his eyes up and scrutinized both of them. “But, though, I always think that if people want to be lied to- then...you know?”
Kiku paused, hands still soft around the neck of the bottle. Heracles turned his eyes up, thinking. “I guess so,” he answered. “It’s not ideal...but I guess that’s the way it works. What makes people happy works, I guess...”
“Hm,” Kiku answered. He remembered Heracles had said something to that effect once before.
There was a pause; Yong Soo watched Kiku, and his eyes brightened. “Aniki doesn’t agree,” he said, smiling slyly.
“Yong Soo, please,” Kiku answered, putting the bottle- somewhere (why had he wanted that bottle in the first place?).
Heracles turned slightly to Kiku; Kiku was a little bit off-put, again, by how close they still were. “Why not?” he asked.
“Because he’s not happy!” Yong Soo answered, smiling and simultaneously throwing a wrench in everything.
Kiku’s expression withdrew and he was about to tell Yong Soo not to say things that were less than intelligent, but a movement on Heracles’s part distracted him- a small turn he did from his waist, looking at Kiku straight from the side. “You should be happy, Kiku,” he said, unsmiling, seeming gravely serious. Kiku’s eyes lightened, Heracles perceived that; Kiku bit his lip. “You deserve to be happy.”
Kiku paused, or maybe it wasn’t a pause so much as a stumbling over silence. “Ah? How so?” he asked, mistrusting.
Heracles didn’t mull on that; it wasn’t a thoughtful pause- it was a knowing one, one that knew the value of not speaking. Kiku was simultaneously appreciative and careful of that about Heracles, that he knew what silence meant. Heracles mussed Kiku’s hair, just a friendly touch, that was all; but Kiku was aware of it fully when he let his fingers slide through just a bit too long. “I don’t know...That’s just what I feel- or what I think- when I look at you,” Heracles said, and the way he said was just so casual, like it didn’t even matter.
So casual and natural that Yong Soo didn’t even comment- that was, until a deep cherry flush found its way across Kiku’s face, and Yong Soo hooted. “Wow! Look, Sensei!” he called to Yao, who looked over briefly, “Aniki is turning love-love cherry red!”
Kiku felt Yao’s amber eyes brush over him and felt the judgement that Yao made; Yao thankfully said nothing. Nor did Heracles, he just didn’t seem to think anything of it, and they talked about something else for a while that Kiku couldn’t even hear above the buzzing in the back of his mind. What did that even matter?- What was he, a customer, to be struck with such feeling at simple words?
Heracles said he was going to cut out, then; Kiku made sure not to make eye contact or even say anything before “goodbye-” ah but he saw all Heracles’s movements, and saw everything they meant. Heracles someone he’d be leaving first and a bunch of the hosts thanked him for his hard work.
Kiku was exhausted, in a melancholy way that made everything seem sweeter. He have a cigarette when Yong Soo offered him one; he just went over to lean bythe window, watch the street. The dawn had come and the sun was beginning to pervade the outside. What did happiness matter? It was odd, Kiku had never thought of happiness, or wished it, for anyone, not even himself- he hadn’t even thought of it when he had wanted to become an architect. He was tore-up, all in colored shambles, inside of his chest, in his stomach. Am I good-hearted? he asked himself- not in words, but in currents, dark purple and black expanding toward the lights and rooftops and streets- Am I strong? Can I comprehend love? Can I take it? The city was still badly lit, even though gray dawn was coming on strong and Heracles was walking along, away from the building, blending into the cigarette colors of small morning. He looked small, solitary; his walk was still unhurried.
A dark feeling clawed against Kiku’s chest; his thoughts were warm but they came into contact with the apparent cold outside and made raptures. How have I known him for two years and never loved him? It seemed ridiculous, inconceivable. He had never even asked to see him outside of work, and yet here he was, feeling so strange over all of it.
Kiku was more than a bit uncomfortable asking Yong Soo for anything, but he just felt to ask him as he turned from the window to the bar. “Yong Soo- would you mind very much if I asked you a question?”
Yong Soo looked up from his drink; then his eyes sparkled. “Of course! Aniki is welcome to ask me anything whenever, wherever!”
“Ah-ha,” Kiku answered, shrinking away a bit; but then he just went on, “Why did you become a host?”
Yong Soo paused; his eyes wandered. He put his drink down on the table. “I have a dream to finance,” he said, and then grinned widely.
PART III
(ahhhhhhh so long what the fuck am i tolstoy)
ALSO NO ONE SAW THAT FORMATTING FAIL B|