by Kat Cotton
We headed down a narrow laneway and stopped outside a brightly lit building.
“This could be it,” Shun said.
There was a board at the front of the building with pictures of hot guys.
“Are they the hosts?” I asked.
Yuki nodded.
“Which one would you pick?” I asked her then regretted it. She’d have a snappy comeback. But instead of mocking me, she put her head on the side.
“The one with the blond hair,” she said.
She really did have a thing for the seedy type.
“He’s cute but the one on the end is cuter. He’s got those collarbones peeking out of his shirt.”
Yuki walked down and took a closer look. “That’s pretty hot, right? But the blond one has sexy eyes. They are ranked. That one at the top is the number one host, the most popular.”
“Can the two of you keep your mind on the job?” Shun said.
“Hey, if we have to check out host clubs, it’s important that we pay attention to who works at them. It’s part of the job.”
Shun’s eye roll proved he didn’t believe me.
“This isn’t the place,” he said. “The sign isn’t the same.”
We kept going down more alleys. I wanted to check out everything but I had to rush to keep with Yuki and Shun. A couple of guys stumbled out of a bar and nearly knocked me down.
“Hey, watch it,” I said.
The two of them stared at my boobs. I rushed away.
We got to another club.
“The sign is the same,” Shun said.
“Yeah and that’s Jin on the board,” Yuki said.
He looked much better in his picture than he had at karaoke but he still had that seedy look about him. I guess some chicks like seedy.
“Okay, let’s get our kami back,” I said, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt.
Chapter 24
I wanted to burst into the club but Shun wanted Yuki and I to enter like regular customers.
“It won’t take them long to recognize us,” I said. “They know what we look like.”
But then Yuki clicked her fingers and she’d completely changed. I didn’t have a mirror handy but I assumed she’d changed me as well since my red hair would stick out like a beacon in the darkness.
“Smart,” I said.
“It won’t last long but we can avoid attention while we look around.”
It made me wonder why she’d told me to dress up. I could’ve worn my pajamas without a problem.
We walked in and a man in a suit approached us.
“Since it’s our first time here, they’ll bring all the hosts over to meet us”, Yuki said. “We will need to order drinks but don’t worry. They’re so watered down you won’t get drunk.”
When the guy led us into the main room, I wished I had my sunglasses. I never knew a room could gleam so bright. The twinkling lights competed with the chandeliers all reflected in a million mirrors around the place. This is what it’d be like living in a disco ball.
Background music blended with the hushed conversations broken by a braying laugh.
Even though it was an open room, carefully placed palms and other plants gave a touch of privacy to customers sitting at the tables. Damn it. I wanted to look around and take this in.
As we moved to our table, the air became heavier, like the heating worked overtime to keep this place at a near uncomfortable level. And that stuffiness made the perfumes mingling in the air become overwhelmingly cloying. The entire place had a feeling of too much-ness.
We got shown to a booth with velvet seats and sat down.
Two guys also wearing suits joined us at the table then a waiter brought over drinks. I didn’t like being blocked in but there wasn’t much we could do without looking suspicious.
One of the hosts wiped our glasses then he smiled at me. I smiled back but he didn’t hold my attention. I focused on trying to sense the kami.
I let Yuki do the talking. Well, obviously, I couldn’t contribute much to the conversation since I couldn’t speak Japanese but also if we wanted to be rid of them fast, she’d be best for that.
While she chatted, I tried calling out to the kami in my head. I got no response. With the chatter and clinking of bottles and background music going on, maybe I couldn’t get through to him.
That’s if he was here in the first place. Maybe they’d taken him somewhere else.
A guy carried a champagne bottle across the room. I knew that guy. Jin. I bashed Yuki’s leg with my knee to let her know. She barely glanced up but she said something that soon got rid of the guys talking to us.
Then the sparkle dimmed. The lights flicked and a brown slime began oozing down the walls. It looked like the plumbing had burst.
I heard people gasp as they noticed the walls. A few women stood up, one covering her mouth. While the hosts tried to entice them to stay, they put on their coats and picked up their bags.
A strange smell floated through the place as that oozing slime increased.
“Should we leave?” I asked Yuki, then I noticed the glimmer in her eyes.
She didn’t exactly smile but her mouth twitched at the corners. She did this? Nice work.
Within minutes, chaos broke out over the club. More of the women left. A few of the hosts tried to stop them, others attempted to mop up the damage.
Yuki sat back and toyed with her drink, her eyes darting around and shining even brighter.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” I whispered to her.
She winked at me.
Then I noticed Jin was one of the hosts trying to get women to stay. He didn’t realize it but it looked like he had horrific boils on his face. One of the customers looked at him and shrieked then ran.
Maybe I needed to make more of an effort to stay on Yuki’s good side.
Two of the hosts rushed out of a back room. I gasped.
Hokuto.
But Hokuto with his hair slicked back and a suit on was a whole other level of hotness. Why did he have to be our arch rival? It seemed unfair that the hottest guy I’d ever met in my life was off limits.
“Are they all Snakes?” I asked Yuki.
“No, not all of them. Some are just part of the club, I’d say. It’s a good front. They probably make a ton of money out of it as well as having a base. All we have is a lousy apartment block.”
“We could start a host club,” I said. “Or something, some kind of business.”
Yuki snorted. “We have enough to do.” Then she nodded at a guy across the room. His face shone with perspiration and his hair had become erratic. “He was the one with Jin today.”
When all the guests had left, Yuki stepped it up a bit. Suddenly, snakes squirmed around the floor. Snakes for Snakes. That was a nice touch but I’d have preferred something less crawly. I raised my feet up to the seat even though I knew they weren’t real.
Most of the hosts running around the place rushed out not Hokuto, though. He stood in the middle of the floor. Jin and the other guy joined him
“Yuki!” Jin yelled. “I know it’s you. You can show your real face.”
Yuki turned back into her real self and smiled at me before standing up. She walked over to him until she was right in his personal space.
“You took something of ours and we’re here to get it back.”
Jin laughed.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about but you’re so cute when you get angry.”
Yuki lunged for him but, before her punch connected, she rose in the air just like that box had done.
Jin began to glow, just like he had in her apartment, while Yuki yelled curses and lashed out at him. If she got down from there, he’d be dead.
Before he could move her too much, Shun tackled him from behind, knocking him to the floor. With the connection broken, Yuki dropped to the floor.
Then Hokuto stepped forward.
“We don’t have your kami. I think you should leave.”
My stomach lurched, like I’d been punched hard. I hugged myself, trying to ease that pain. We’d never mentioned the kami. How did he know that’s what we were looking for?
Despite everything Shun and Yuki had said, I’d kinda hoped Hokuto wasn’t that bad, that Shun and Yuki had been exaggerating or mistaken. But nope, he’d been the one behind the attack and he’d used me. That meant I had to hate him.
And he could say that they didn’t have the kami but I no longer trusted him.
But it struck me that maybe we were outclassed here. Shun’s dream eating would do nothing to help us in a fight and Yuki’s tricks would only go so far with them knowing about her powers. As for me, I had no fighting abilities at all. Like maybe I could get a swarm of crows in here, but those crows never seemed that willing to be counted on in a crisis.
Before I could panic too much, Yuki shot a fire ball at Jin.
Whoa.
Who knew she could do that? I had serious Yuki envy.
Jin raised his hand and deflected the ball but it shot upwards, shattering the chandelier. I covered my head as glass rained down on the room. Yuki didn’t stop, though. She moved forward, shooting more fireballs at Jin.
“Burn in hell, you bastard,” she said.
Wow, they must’ve really had a bitter breakup. The fire ball narrowly missed him but I could smell his hair singe.
Shun rushed to me. “The back room,” he hissed. “Look for the kami.”
I slipped out of the booth and headed to the door Hokuto had come out of. It looked like a store room all dark and full of cartons. The perfect place to keep a kami.
I turned on the light and shouted out to him. “Kami, we have chocolate.”
No reply.
“Kami!”
“He’s not here.”
I spun around. Hokuto stood in the doorway. The light shining from behind him just highlighted his perfect cheekbones and that carelessly floppy hair. He moved closer while keeping eye contact with me.
“You took him. Your gang were the ones who broke into Yuki’s apartment. You can’t deny that.”
I tried to back away but there were cartons behind me. Cartons of glasses judging by the way they tinkled when my back hit them.
He took a few more steps, standing so close that my skin prickled. Those deep brown eyes with the long lashes stared into mine. Damn him. Damn his beautiful eyes.
He had super powers of seduction, that had to be it. And he thought he could seduce me into believing him. And, I hated to admit it, but those seduction super powers worked the heck out of me.
“Wasn’t us,” he said. “Trust me, Mori.”
I wanted to trust him. I really did. There were parts of my body that distinctly shouted for me to trust him.
“How did you know we were looking for a kami then?”
“Lucky guess.”
If I didn’t look at him, he couldn’t do this to me. I’d keep my gaze on the floor. The floor was safe. The floor didn’t have eyes I could drown in.
“I’m not an idiot,” I said.
Maybe I was. Because all I wanted to do was look back up at him. One glimpse surely wouldn’t hurt.
“We broke in to the apartment but we didn’t take the kami. That’s the truth. You have to believe me. Get Yuki out of here before she destroys the place.”
Of course it was the truth. He wouldn’t lie to me. He stroked my cheek. Anyone who could touch me so gently wouldn’t be lying.
I shook myself. He had lied. I wouldn’t be fooled by those preternatural seduction powers again. Shun had said he was a demon. Obviously, a sex demon.
Before I could pull away, Shun rushed in to the store room.
“They didn’t take the kami,” he said.
What? Hokuto hadn’t been lying? How did Shun know? And, if Hokuto didn’t have the kami, who did?
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Shun said, grabbing my arm and pulling me away. “We’ve got to find him.”
“I’ll be sending you a bill for damages,” Hokuto yelled at us as we left the room.
“You’re sure it’s not them?” I asked Shun.
“I’m sure. They can’t lie to me.”
We walked back out through the trashed room, glass crunching underfoot. I couldn’t see Yuki anywhere. She was no longer fighting. As we neared the bar, I spotted her. Up against the wall, glued to Jin’s lips.
This was no time for getting it on with her ex. Shun and I pulled her away as she wiped her mouth. We had a kami to find and the clock kept ticking down.
Yuki didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed.
Chapter 25
The sun was high in the sky when we got out of the club. We didn’t have much time until Yamaguchi turned up to collect the kami.
“Any ideas?” I asked Shun.
The way his shoulders drooped said that he didn’t any.
“Did Yamaguchi give you any clue why he thought the kami was in danger? Anything at all?”
Shun shook his head. “He just said an enemy. And that man has a lot of enemies.”
“If we only had some way to track him,” I said.
“You know who’d have something like that?” Yuki said. “Yamaguchi.” Then she gave a bitter laugh.
“He could be anywhere in this city,” I said. “Literally anywhere.”
The three of us walked down the now empty streets. There was something cold and depressing about this light with morning remnants littering the streets.
“We’ll just have to tell Yamaguchi and take the consequences,” Shun said.
The three of us hung our heads and walked in silence. The idea of telling Yamaguchi seemed like the absolute worst-case scenario. Maybe we still had time. We could find the kami. Well, when I said “we”, I guess I meant me since no one else in this world could see him.
No one else in the world could see him.
I stopped walking. An idea grew in my head, so bold and insane, I could barely voice it.
“Hurry up,” Yuki said.
I gulped. Yuki would yell at me if I told her what I was thinking and even Shun would think I was insane. I wanted to yell at myself. I doubted my own sanity. But it might just work.
“We could not tell him,” I said.
Shun and Yuki spun around to look at me. Yuki gave me that look like she couldn’t believe what she’d heard and Shun gasped in shock.
“Well, we could,” I said. “How would he know? If we acted like the kami was in that box safe and sound, it’s not like he can check. It might not be the best solution but it’d buy us some time. And maybe draw out the people who really stole him.”
I had zero qualms about lying to Yamaguchi. Well, apart from those qualms about being caught and thrown in Tokyo Bay. But on a moral level, he could go screw himself.
“What about the priest?” Shun asked. “He needs to put the kami in the mikoshi for the matsuri. He’d know.”
I remembered what the kami had said about the priest.
“Not necessarily. He can’t see the kami. He can’t talk to him. He can only sense his energy. Yuki could magic up something to fool him.”
Yuki scratched her nose, still staring at me. At least she didn’t shoot down my idea straight away. But then she shook her head.
“It wouldn’t work. I don’t have those kinds of tricks. Not with energy. I don’t even know what the kami’s energy is like.”
“I bet Jin would,” Shun said.
Yuki’s glare nearly knocked Shun over.
“No Jin,” she yelled. She crossed her arms in front of her. “No. No way.”
She’d had no problems with Jin not that long ago. There sure had been some “energy exchange” going on there. I didn’t think Yuki would be that amused by my observation, though.
“No!” Yuki repeated. She looked like she’d kill us.
“Are you going to tell Yamaguchi we failed this job?” I asked her. “Because those are your options. Get Jin to help us or tell him.”
&nb
sp; Yuki leaned against a vending machine and screwed up her face as though she was in extreme pain.
“He’ll want something for his help. The price will be high.”
At least that meant she was considering it.
“Molly is right,” Shun said. “We should go back now and get him. We’re running out of time.”
“Why would those guys even help us?” she asked. “You know we can’t trust the Snakes. They’ll double cross us and we’ll end up worse off than ever. Even if they didn’t take the kami themselves, they were involved in it.”
But the way she pursed her lips showed she just talked for the sake of it now.
“So, we’re in?” I asked.
I put my hand out and Shun put his on top. Yuki looked at us and huffed. She hesitated for a moment then added her hand.
“I guess we have no other choice,” she said.
We walked back to the club. The door was locked but Shun did something to open it. I tried to watch because that would be a really handy skill, but he blocked me with his body.
When we got inside, the Snakes were still cleaning up.
“We’ve come to apologize,” Shun said.
Then he and Yuki knelt on the floor, leaning forward until their heads touched the ground. That was some heavy-duty apologizing.
“Am I supposed to do that too?” I asked. “Because I’m not sure my body can bend that far.”
Hokuto reached his hand out to me. “You don’t need to,” he said.
Wow, he had those seduction powers on full force. I pretty much melted inside. I could only stare at him while Shun and Yuki got up from the floor.
“We’ve come to ask a favor,” I said.
I wasn’t sure if I should just spit it out but we had no time for small talk.
Jin and Hokuto laughed. “Of course you have,” Jin said. “That’s the only thing that would get her to bow her head.”
Mai had joined them but she just leaned on a broom, not talking.
“Then you’ll owe us a favor, to be called in later,” Jin said.
That smirk on his face annoyed me so much. It’s a good thing he and Yuki weren’t together. The thought of them having children scared the hell out of me.