Teamwork
Title: Teamwork
Rating: PG-13 (some harsh language, some adult things implied)
Characters/Pairings: Ninomiya Kazunari/Kamenashi Kazuya
Summary: "You have a Kazu already? Well, so what. My name is Kazuya, and I’m a host who understands women."
Notes/Warnings: AU Nino/Kame for Katy because she deserves it.
Kame could honestly say he’d never seen a man with hair more beautiful than the man interviewing him. Not that he’d really ever been attracted to a good head of hair, but Kimura-san had to know some secret that Kame didn’t. But where Kimura-san’s hair was soft and luxurious, his eyes were hard and critical.
“I see twenty pretty-faced guys your age every day,” the man said. “Pretty-faced guys working off debt, pretty-faced guys who just want attention, pretty-faced guys who like the taste of Dom P enough to drink more than their guests and lose me money every night.”
Kame gulped. He hadn’t expected this harsh of an interview. It wasn’t like he’d had to submit a resume. They’d asked for a headshot instead. But Twist was one of the premier host clubs in this part of Shinjuku, so the screening process was bound to be strict. Kame had always gotten by on his looks in high school and college. The real world was a different story. He just wasn’t meant for marketing.
Kimura leaned forward, staring into his eyes. “Tell me why I need another Kazu working for me.”
Well, how was Kame supposed to know that there was a Kazunari working at Twist? He was Kazuya after all. Wasn’t that different enough? The wall at the entrance had had pictures of the other hosts. He just hadn’t noticed in his nervousness.
He’d been on at least a dozen interviews but no callbacks. He had to do something different this time.
“Well, I’m a hard worker. I was consistently high-ranked in my class, and I was working part-time the whole time I was in college...”
“Doing what?” Kimura interrupted, breaking Kame’s train of thought. The guy was trying to rattle him.
“Interacting with customers just like I would here.”
“Just like here?” Kimura asked. “So you were flirting and getting middle-aged women to buy expensive champagne, were you?”
He looked down. “I...worked at a grocery store as a cashier.” Kimura was already looking for the next headshot in his pile, and Kame shot his hand out, slapping it down on top of the glossy 8x10s. “I spoke with a lot of people. Happy people. Depressed people. People who were just buying cat food. I let people use expired coupons if they looked particularly down. That’s the kind of women who come in here right? The ones who buy cat food? The ones who want to save twenty yen on a seven hundred yen bag of rice?”
Kimura raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”
“I’m not working off any debt. I don’t really want all the attention. And I drink beer and sake, not champagne if I can help it. I’m not every reject who walks through your door, Kimura-san. I don’t need a lot of sleep, I have a good memory so I’ll remember the women who come in, and I don’t slack off.” He was feeling good now. “You have a Kazu already? Well, so what. My name is Kazuya, and I’m a host who understands women.”
Kimura leaned back in his leather chair, taking it all in. Kame didn’t think he’d spoken so passionately about something he really didn’t care about before. He didn’t want to be a host. He didn’t really want to listen to whiny women and their meaningless problems. He just needed a job that let him apply for things during the day so his degree didn’t go to waste.
“Okay then, Kazuya,” Kimura said, smiling and tenting his fingers like some kind of yakuza boss rather than some sleazy fellow who ran a host club. “I like your cute little go-getter attitude. You lie that well straight to my face, then I know you’ll get all those office ladies buying the best.”
Kame tried to mask his surprise. Kimura had seen straight through him.
The man held out his hand, and Kame knew that one of the man’s heavy looking rings cost more than an entire year of rent where he was staying. “Welcome to Twist. I know just how to transition you in to the team.”
--
The following day saw Kame arrive in a brand new suit, which meant rice and miso would have to be good enough until he got his first paycheck. He’d never put so much gel into his hair either, and he was not looking forward to how it would look or feel around 4:00 AM when he’d get home.
Kimura-san greeted him at the entrance, dressed in a suit so well-tailored that Kame’s looked like scraps from the fabric store. He led him to the main floor of the club, which looked far different with the lights on and without thumping bass that encouraged women to spend spend spend.
The other hosts were seated in booths, dressed slightly better than Kame but none as fancy as their boss. Maybe it was an unspoken rule of the workplace. None of them really seemed to show much interest in him.
“Afternoon, boys,” Kimura said, wrapping an arm around Kame’s shoulders. “This here is Kazuya. Since it seems the loan sharks have gotten the best of Junnosuke, we needed to fill his spot anyhow.”
“You don’t make stupid jokes, do you?” one of the hosts piped up, and the others snickered. Kame just shook his head, not really wanting to know what the loan sharks had actually done to Junnosuke.
Kimura squeezed him a bit and chuckled. “He’s got a lot of experience talking to women from his many years bagging groceries.”
The other hosts laughed again at Kame’s expense, and he stared at the wine red carpet instead. Bullying was going to be natural at the bottom of the Twist food chain. Everyone was going to be competing for the best tips, for the best sugar mamas to give them gifts and things. Kame had watched his share of dramas and movies after all.
“So be sure and make him feel welcome.” Kimura let him go briefly, but caught him by the sleeve once more. “Ah, lest I forget. Kazu!”
A shorter host with a rather innocent looking face stood. His hair was rather shaggy, framing the innocent face all the better, but Kame could already see keen intelligence in the man’s eyes. So this was the other Kazu, then.
“Kazunari, this is Kazuya. When I informed him I already had a Kazu on the payroll, he didn’t seem to mind,” Kimura continued, and Kame’s mortification continued.
“Oh, is that so?” Kazunari replied, voice just as tricky as Kimura's and full of a humor Kame didn’t fully understand.
“I trust that you’ll show Kazuya the ropes,” the boss said, pushing Kame forward until he nearly fell on top of Kazunari. He went back to his office while Kazunari brushed off his suit jacket as though Kame had gotten him dirty.
And yet Kazunari was even more touchy-feely than Kimura-san had been, linking their arms the next moment. “Everyone!” Kazunari announced to the assembled hosts. “This one’s mine to train, but don’t hesitate to break him in.”
Everyone laughed again, and Kame’s nervousness grew. Break him in? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what that meant. “Please take care of me,” Kame said weakly, feeling Kazunari tug him a little closer. He could smell the man’s cologne and hair gel. It didn’t smell all that fancy. Maybe the guy wasn’t terribly image conscious as far as hosts went.
“But I know there’s probably going to be some confusion namewise. Attractiveness-wise,” Kazunari said, giving Kame his best ladykilling smile. “So let’s all welcome the baby to our family by calling him Little Kazu.”
“Little Kazu!” the others shouted in unison before getting up and starting to get the club ready for the night’s guests.
“Little Kazu?” Kame murmured. He didn’t like the connotations of that very much at all. Especially since he had at least two inches in height on the guy.
Kazunari dragged him to the kitchen. “Since it’s your first night, we’ve got a very special job for you.”
What would it be? Greeting guests at the door? Bringing out champagne flutes and bottles of expensive bubbly? Maybe lighting cigarettes for host and guest alike?
Kazunari shoved him forward. “Roll up your sleeves, Little Kazu. Time to get wet.”
He really didn’t like the seeming double meaning to every word out of Kazunari’s mouth, but perhaps he’d meant this literally. Kame’s first job at Twist was to stay off the floor entirely. There was a sink full of last night’s glassware that hadn’t been finished up, and Kazunari gestured to the sponges and bottle of dish soap.
“I want to be able to see my smile in those glasses when you’re done. It’s one of my selling points,” Kazunari informed him, and Kame couldn’t tell if he was legitimately arrogant or pulling his arm. The guy was a mystery. “I’ll be in to check later. Scrub a dub.”
Well, little did his host club senpai know, but Kame was perfectly content to scrub glassware. He enjoyed cleaning, seeing the immediate results as the number of items in the soapy water decreased. It also beat faking conversation and trying to flatter women. He hadn’t cleaned a lot with limited lighting and thumping music before, but it actually made the work go faster.
The other hosts were assholes of course, returning with empty trays and dropping their glasses in the water just so it would splash back in Kame’s face. Even though Kame would have plenty of cleaned, dried glasses waiting for them, the hosts would still demand he get the glasses in the soap ready to go for them instead. They were worse than a bunch of junior high girls.
Midnight came and went, and Kame’s fingers were shriveled up like nasty little raisins. That was when Kazunari came in and knocked him aside with his hips. “Beep beep,” he said, reaching up into a cabinet above the sink. He pulled out a pair of rubber gloves. “Oh, Little Kazu, did I forget to tell you that you could wear these?”
Kazunari held the gloves in his hands and smacked Kame in the face lightly with them, almost daring him to do something about it. He grabbed Kame by one wrist, pulling the rubber glove down onto his hand, taking his time to ensure that each of Kame’s fingers made it into the openings. “There,” the older host said, “don’t want your pretty hands looking like a grandma’s, do we?”
He pressed a playful kiss to Kame’s rubber knuckles just as one of the other hosts came in, one of the lazier ones who always laughed when he dropped glasses into the water.
“Hey Akanishi,” Kazunari said, releasing him, “you be nice to Little Kazu.”
Akanishi, who Kame recognized as “Jin” from the signs at the front, seemed to be working a bad boy image while Kazunari seemed to be fulfilling the cherubic schoolboy fantasy. Where Kazunari’s suit was a little long in the sleeves but buttoned properly, Jin had his shirt untucked, tie loosened and his jacket was probably out at one of the booths. Kimura-san had a host for every guest, it seemed. What role would Kame fall into around here?
“Be nice?” Jin asked, dumping his tray of hardball glasses heavily into the sink, of course sending a bunch of suds onto Kame’s suit coat. “I don’t think that’s in my vocabulary.”
“Ah,” Kazunari replied. “You’re no fun.” He gave Kame a slap on the ass before heading back through the swinging door. “Should start to slow down again until last call!”
Kame turned back to the dishes, trying to ignore the ridiculously overt way Kazunari was treating him. It was hazing, bullying, whatever. The face and the mind definitely didn’t match in Kazunari’s case. Kame wasn’t masochistic enough to like that kind of attention, was he?
Jin added a few new glasses to his tray, thankfully from the ones Kame had already cleaned. “He’s good at his job.”
“What job is that? Sexual harassment professional?”
Jin laughed and headed for the door. “We’re all sexual harassment professionals around here.”
Kame looked back to the glassware needing his attention and sighed. Kimura sure had found an interesting person to train him.
--
He ended up spending the first two weeks in the kitchen away from the smoke and the noise. It was four days before Jin hinted that there was better soap in one of the other cupboards. It was six days before Kazunari let him put on his scrubbing gloves by himself, although Kame didn’t want to admit that he kind of missed the assertive way his senpai had done so.
As Kame came in at the start of the third week, he was carrying his jacket and ready to put on the gloves and stare at glassware for another night. Kazunari caught him before he could enter the kitchen. His voice was a whisper and unexpected warmth at Kame’s ear. “Where do you think you’re going, Little Kazu?”
He took a deep breath, feeling the heat of Nino’s fingers on his wrist. “The kitchen?”
“No no no,” Kazunari chided him, twining their fingers together. “I think you’ve paid your dues. And besides,” he said as one of the other hosts passed them by heading for the kitchen, “our special little flower Koki-kun dropped a bottle of rather expensive shochu all over a magazine editor’s nice kimono.”
Kame was only out of the kitchen because another host was below him on the totem pole now. It didn’t feel like that much of an advantage though. Kazunari wouldn’t let him go, sticking to him like glue as they welcomed guests for the evening alongside the other hosts.
A bachelorette party headed off with Jun and Masaki while a well-dressed woman, probably a lawyer or executive, departed for a more private room with Tomoya and Koichi. “We pair up a lot,” Kazunari said, hand under Kame’s jacket to rest on his back. “It aids in conversation and it’s two pretty guys instead of one to encourage them to keep drinking.”
Kame held in his sigh of relief when they were chosen by two normal-looking office ladies in their mid-thirties. They took a booth in the rear, low lit and cozy. He and Kazunari took the edges and kept their guests in the center, ostensibly so they wouldn’t want to get up.
Everything was calculated, Kame discovered as he watched Kazunari work. He listened to stories and jokes and talk of ex-husbands with a rather detached air, scratching his chin, scratching his nose. But when they were done, Kazunari would take their hands and say something so charming, so astute, so utterly perfect that Kame knew why Kimura felt there was no need for two Kazus in his club.
It went on for an hour, and finally Kazunari inclined his head and smiled. “But I haven’t properly introduced my newest friend,” and with the way the man had said it, ‘friend’ was definitely not the implication. “That’s Kazuya. We’re nearly name twins in a way.”
“You’re so cute,” one of the women said, giving him a nervous smile. “I mean, of course, you both are...”
“No, you’re absolutely right, Chieko-chan,” Kazunari replied. “Our newest Kazu is cute, isn’t he? But he’s got a special talent.” Kazunari took a sip of sake, and Kame knew he was being challenged. It was to see if he could think on his feet. “Don’t you, Kazuya? Something you do better than anyone else in this club?”
He took a sip of his own drink, as the two women tittered in excitement, wondering what this special talent was. Kazunari was watching just as intently, waiting for him to slip up or tell a lie. But he’d been bullying Kame long enough that it just wasn’t going to work this time.
“Baseball,” he said proudly, daring Kazunari to challenge him. “I was pretty good at baseball. I pitched, broke a few speed records for my school.”
Kazunari’s eyes changed, but his expression didn’t. That took talent. “Well, I’m getting an education here, too. Kazuya-chan, you never told me that.”
It was true. It was one of the things he could bring to this profession that wasn’t a lie or exaggeration. “Oh, you kept me so busy, Kazu-senpai, I never got a chance,” he shot back with a smile, taking another sip from his cup. Kazunari said nothing.
“How fast? Like professional fast?” Mariko-chan asked, already loosening the scarf around her neck as she and her friend went through the expensive bottle of wine that Kazunari had recommended for them.
“Professional fast. But I threw out my shoulder halfway through college,” he admitted, taking Mariko-chan’s hand and curling it into a fist. He held her fist, stroking it the same as he would a baseball. “It was really heartbreaking. Maybe if you’d been there to cheer me on, I would have done better.”
The two women weren’t even looking in Kazunari’s direction when they called for a second bottle of wine.
--
“You get home safely,” Kazunari said, waving to the two drunken ladies as they toddled off down the street. Kame went far enough to blow them a kiss, and they nearly fell over a curb as they giggled and headed for their train.
“Don’t envy the hangovers they’ll be nursing,” Kame said, feeling a pleasant enough buzz from the sake. The women had devolved into their own drinking and hadn’t seen much need to keep spoiling them. Kame preferred that anyway.
He’d talked on his own for almost an hour while Kazunari kept glasses full, almost like a subordinate. As though their positions had been reversed, but he’d done it without voicing a complaint. Kame had spoken at length about baseball, about troublesome teammates and being interviewed by the news. The women had been in the palm of his hand, asking about how he’d stretched before a game, how he’d cooled down his sore pitching arm with an icy shower.
But he didn’t get much chance to gloat on his victory because Kazunari was pulling him through the club to one of the private rooms as soon as the other hosts started leaving. Kame was maybe a little more buzzed than he thought since Kazunari locking the door made him laugh instead of freak out.
“Aww, Kazu-senpai, I didn’t show you up tonight, did I?” Kame asked, picking a piece of lint off of the man’s shoulder. It felt good to be talking down to the man after two weeks in the kitchen. “I’m awfully sorry.”
Kazunari grinned, moving them so Kame’s back was to the door, effectively trapped between him and the wood. “You sound really sorry, Kazuya-chan.”
“Why are you calling me that?” he protested weakly, suddenly aware of Kazunari’s hands worming their way inside his jacket to tug at his shirt and pull it free of his slacks. “We aren’t that close of friends.”
“You liked winning. You liked being the center of attention,” Kazunari said, fingers moving front to tap on Kame’s metal belt buckle. “And for someone who was into baseball for so many years, I’d have thought you understood the importance of teamwork.”
“What can I say?” he said, feeling a hum even though the club’s stereo system had already been shut off for the night. He stilled his senpai’s hand. “I had to carry the team tonight.”
Kazunari’s other hand moved so swiftly to grab his jaw that Kame inhaled sharply. It seemed that Big Kazu didn’t like losing to Little Kazu. He watched his senpai’s tongue dart out of his mouth to wet his lips. “You’ve got a mouth on you, Little Kazu. It’ll serve you well here.”
“That’s why Kimura-san hired me, I figured. For my mouth.”
“Mmm,” Kazunari responded, squeezing Kame’s jaw a little tighter. “Figure you’re right.”
But it was his senpai’s mouth who found him first, brushing his lips teasingly along the corner of his mouth before tilting Kame’s jaw roughly to the side to lick all the way to his ear and down his neck. He gasped at how instantly possessive his senpai was, nipping at his jaw and his neck with tiny, sharp bites. Then again, with the way Kazunari had been touching him at every opportunity since the day Kame started, it wasn’t all that surprising.
“Am I supposed to call your name?” Kame asked, barely holding onto control. He liked this attention, far more than he’d even imagined. More than the gratuitous groping, and the obvious eye fucking. “It would be awfully self-involved if I cried out for Kazu.”
“You won’t get the opportunity to do much crying out,” Kazunari said, kissing him hard and fast before pushing him down to the floor and onto his knees. “You did good tonight, Little Kazu, but I’ve always been a firm believer in adhering strictly to the whole senpai kohai arrangement.”
Kame stared up into his senior’s dark eyes, his shoe scraping against the door as he struggled to stay in the place Kazunari had shoved him. “I don’t think that’s entirely fair. I outperformed you tonight.”
“You have me wrong, kiddo,” Kazunari said, ruffling his hair as though Kame was merely his pet. “I wasn’t lying about teamwork. Senpai kohai business just means you have to go first. We’ll see who the best performer really is.” His fingers tightened in Kame’s locks, commanding. “Unzip.”
Kame smiled. His senpai wasn’t entirely selfish after all, was he?
--
Jin looked rather grouchy as Kame came in with a tray of glasses the next night. “What’d you do?” Kame asked sweetly, dumping the tray harshly enough to make suds splash out right onto the tip of Jin’s nose.
“Fuck off,” Jin grumbled, gesturing to some other glasses. “Take from the clean ones, and don’t be an asshole about it.”
Having put in his two weeks of kitchen duty, Kame helped himself to the clean ones as directed.
“Nice hickey,” Jin commented as Kame headed back through the swinging door. “Told you he was good at his job.”
Rating: PG-13 (some harsh language, some adult things implied)
Characters/Pairings: Ninomiya Kazunari/Kamenashi Kazuya
Summary: "You have a Kazu already? Well, so what. My name is Kazuya, and I’m a host who understands women."
Notes/Warnings: AU Nino/Kame for Katy because she deserves it.
Kame could honestly say he’d never seen a man with hair more beautiful than the man interviewing him. Not that he’d really ever been attracted to a good head of hair, but Kimura-san had to know some secret that Kame didn’t. But where Kimura-san’s hair was soft and luxurious, his eyes were hard and critical.
“I see twenty pretty-faced guys your age every day,” the man said. “Pretty-faced guys working off debt, pretty-faced guys who just want attention, pretty-faced guys who like the taste of Dom P enough to drink more than their guests and lose me money every night.”
Kame gulped. He hadn’t expected this harsh of an interview. It wasn’t like he’d had to submit a resume. They’d asked for a headshot instead. But Twist was one of the premier host clubs in this part of Shinjuku, so the screening process was bound to be strict. Kame had always gotten by on his looks in high school and college. The real world was a different story. He just wasn’t meant for marketing.
Kimura leaned forward, staring into his eyes. “Tell me why I need another Kazu working for me.”
Well, how was Kame supposed to know that there was a Kazunari working at Twist? He was Kazuya after all. Wasn’t that different enough? The wall at the entrance had had pictures of the other hosts. He just hadn’t noticed in his nervousness.
He’d been on at least a dozen interviews but no callbacks. He had to do something different this time.
“Well, I’m a hard worker. I was consistently high-ranked in my class, and I was working part-time the whole time I was in college...”
“Doing what?” Kimura interrupted, breaking Kame’s train of thought. The guy was trying to rattle him.
“Interacting with customers just like I would here.”
“Just like here?” Kimura asked. “So you were flirting and getting middle-aged women to buy expensive champagne, were you?”
He looked down. “I...worked at a grocery store as a cashier.” Kimura was already looking for the next headshot in his pile, and Kame shot his hand out, slapping it down on top of the glossy 8x10s. “I spoke with a lot of people. Happy people. Depressed people. People who were just buying cat food. I let people use expired coupons if they looked particularly down. That’s the kind of women who come in here right? The ones who buy cat food? The ones who want to save twenty yen on a seven hundred yen bag of rice?”
Kimura raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”
“I’m not working off any debt. I don’t really want all the attention. And I drink beer and sake, not champagne if I can help it. I’m not every reject who walks through your door, Kimura-san. I don’t need a lot of sleep, I have a good memory so I’ll remember the women who come in, and I don’t slack off.” He was feeling good now. “You have a Kazu already? Well, so what. My name is Kazuya, and I’m a host who understands women.”
Kimura leaned back in his leather chair, taking it all in. Kame didn’t think he’d spoken so passionately about something he really didn’t care about before. He didn’t want to be a host. He didn’t really want to listen to whiny women and their meaningless problems. He just needed a job that let him apply for things during the day so his degree didn’t go to waste.
“Okay then, Kazuya,” Kimura said, smiling and tenting his fingers like some kind of yakuza boss rather than some sleazy fellow who ran a host club. “I like your cute little go-getter attitude. You lie that well straight to my face, then I know you’ll get all those office ladies buying the best.”
Kame tried to mask his surprise. Kimura had seen straight through him.
The man held out his hand, and Kame knew that one of the man’s heavy looking rings cost more than an entire year of rent where he was staying. “Welcome to Twist. I know just how to transition you in to the team.”
--
The following day saw Kame arrive in a brand new suit, which meant rice and miso would have to be good enough until he got his first paycheck. He’d never put so much gel into his hair either, and he was not looking forward to how it would look or feel around 4:00 AM when he’d get home.
Kimura-san greeted him at the entrance, dressed in a suit so well-tailored that Kame’s looked like scraps from the fabric store. He led him to the main floor of the club, which looked far different with the lights on and without thumping bass that encouraged women to spend spend spend.
The other hosts were seated in booths, dressed slightly better than Kame but none as fancy as their boss. Maybe it was an unspoken rule of the workplace. None of them really seemed to show much interest in him.
“Afternoon, boys,” Kimura said, wrapping an arm around Kame’s shoulders. “This here is Kazuya. Since it seems the loan sharks have gotten the best of Junnosuke, we needed to fill his spot anyhow.”
“You don’t make stupid jokes, do you?” one of the hosts piped up, and the others snickered. Kame just shook his head, not really wanting to know what the loan sharks had actually done to Junnosuke.
Kimura squeezed him a bit and chuckled. “He’s got a lot of experience talking to women from his many years bagging groceries.”
The other hosts laughed again at Kame’s expense, and he stared at the wine red carpet instead. Bullying was going to be natural at the bottom of the Twist food chain. Everyone was going to be competing for the best tips, for the best sugar mamas to give them gifts and things. Kame had watched his share of dramas and movies after all.
“So be sure and make him feel welcome.” Kimura let him go briefly, but caught him by the sleeve once more. “Ah, lest I forget. Kazu!”
A shorter host with a rather innocent looking face stood. His hair was rather shaggy, framing the innocent face all the better, but Kame could already see keen intelligence in the man’s eyes. So this was the other Kazu, then.
“Kazunari, this is Kazuya. When I informed him I already had a Kazu on the payroll, he didn’t seem to mind,” Kimura continued, and Kame’s mortification continued.
“Oh, is that so?” Kazunari replied, voice just as tricky as Kimura's and full of a humor Kame didn’t fully understand.
“I trust that you’ll show Kazuya the ropes,” the boss said, pushing Kame forward until he nearly fell on top of Kazunari. He went back to his office while Kazunari brushed off his suit jacket as though Kame had gotten him dirty.
And yet Kazunari was even more touchy-feely than Kimura-san had been, linking their arms the next moment. “Everyone!” Kazunari announced to the assembled hosts. “This one’s mine to train, but don’t hesitate to break him in.”
Everyone laughed again, and Kame’s nervousness grew. Break him in? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what that meant. “Please take care of me,” Kame said weakly, feeling Kazunari tug him a little closer. He could smell the man’s cologne and hair gel. It didn’t smell all that fancy. Maybe the guy wasn’t terribly image conscious as far as hosts went.
“But I know there’s probably going to be some confusion namewise. Attractiveness-wise,” Kazunari said, giving Kame his best ladykilling smile. “So let’s all welcome the baby to our family by calling him Little Kazu.”
“Little Kazu!” the others shouted in unison before getting up and starting to get the club ready for the night’s guests.
“Little Kazu?” Kame murmured. He didn’t like the connotations of that very much at all. Especially since he had at least two inches in height on the guy.
Kazunari dragged him to the kitchen. “Since it’s your first night, we’ve got a very special job for you.”
What would it be? Greeting guests at the door? Bringing out champagne flutes and bottles of expensive bubbly? Maybe lighting cigarettes for host and guest alike?
Kazunari shoved him forward. “Roll up your sleeves, Little Kazu. Time to get wet.”
He really didn’t like the seeming double meaning to every word out of Kazunari’s mouth, but perhaps he’d meant this literally. Kame’s first job at Twist was to stay off the floor entirely. There was a sink full of last night’s glassware that hadn’t been finished up, and Kazunari gestured to the sponges and bottle of dish soap.
“I want to be able to see my smile in those glasses when you’re done. It’s one of my selling points,” Kazunari informed him, and Kame couldn’t tell if he was legitimately arrogant or pulling his arm. The guy was a mystery. “I’ll be in to check later. Scrub a dub.”
Well, little did his host club senpai know, but Kame was perfectly content to scrub glassware. He enjoyed cleaning, seeing the immediate results as the number of items in the soapy water decreased. It also beat faking conversation and trying to flatter women. He hadn’t cleaned a lot with limited lighting and thumping music before, but it actually made the work go faster.
The other hosts were assholes of course, returning with empty trays and dropping their glasses in the water just so it would splash back in Kame’s face. Even though Kame would have plenty of cleaned, dried glasses waiting for them, the hosts would still demand he get the glasses in the soap ready to go for them instead. They were worse than a bunch of junior high girls.
Midnight came and went, and Kame’s fingers were shriveled up like nasty little raisins. That was when Kazunari came in and knocked him aside with his hips. “Beep beep,” he said, reaching up into a cabinet above the sink. He pulled out a pair of rubber gloves. “Oh, Little Kazu, did I forget to tell you that you could wear these?”
Kazunari held the gloves in his hands and smacked Kame in the face lightly with them, almost daring him to do something about it. He grabbed Kame by one wrist, pulling the rubber glove down onto his hand, taking his time to ensure that each of Kame’s fingers made it into the openings. “There,” the older host said, “don’t want your pretty hands looking like a grandma’s, do we?”
He pressed a playful kiss to Kame’s rubber knuckles just as one of the other hosts came in, one of the lazier ones who always laughed when he dropped glasses into the water.
“Hey Akanishi,” Kazunari said, releasing him, “you be nice to Little Kazu.”
Akanishi, who Kame recognized as “Jin” from the signs at the front, seemed to be working a bad boy image while Kazunari seemed to be fulfilling the cherubic schoolboy fantasy. Where Kazunari’s suit was a little long in the sleeves but buttoned properly, Jin had his shirt untucked, tie loosened and his jacket was probably out at one of the booths. Kimura-san had a host for every guest, it seemed. What role would Kame fall into around here?
“Be nice?” Jin asked, dumping his tray of hardball glasses heavily into the sink, of course sending a bunch of suds onto Kame’s suit coat. “I don’t think that’s in my vocabulary.”
“Ah,” Kazunari replied. “You’re no fun.” He gave Kame a slap on the ass before heading back through the swinging door. “Should start to slow down again until last call!”
Kame turned back to the dishes, trying to ignore the ridiculously overt way Kazunari was treating him. It was hazing, bullying, whatever. The face and the mind definitely didn’t match in Kazunari’s case. Kame wasn’t masochistic enough to like that kind of attention, was he?
Jin added a few new glasses to his tray, thankfully from the ones Kame had already cleaned. “He’s good at his job.”
“What job is that? Sexual harassment professional?”
Jin laughed and headed for the door. “We’re all sexual harassment professionals around here.”
Kame looked back to the glassware needing his attention and sighed. Kimura sure had found an interesting person to train him.
--
He ended up spending the first two weeks in the kitchen away from the smoke and the noise. It was four days before Jin hinted that there was better soap in one of the other cupboards. It was six days before Kazunari let him put on his scrubbing gloves by himself, although Kame didn’t want to admit that he kind of missed the assertive way his senpai had done so.
As Kame came in at the start of the third week, he was carrying his jacket and ready to put on the gloves and stare at glassware for another night. Kazunari caught him before he could enter the kitchen. His voice was a whisper and unexpected warmth at Kame’s ear. “Where do you think you’re going, Little Kazu?”
He took a deep breath, feeling the heat of Nino’s fingers on his wrist. “The kitchen?”
“No no no,” Kazunari chided him, twining their fingers together. “I think you’ve paid your dues. And besides,” he said as one of the other hosts passed them by heading for the kitchen, “our special little flower Koki-kun dropped a bottle of rather expensive shochu all over a magazine editor’s nice kimono.”
Kame was only out of the kitchen because another host was below him on the totem pole now. It didn’t feel like that much of an advantage though. Kazunari wouldn’t let him go, sticking to him like glue as they welcomed guests for the evening alongside the other hosts.
A bachelorette party headed off with Jun and Masaki while a well-dressed woman, probably a lawyer or executive, departed for a more private room with Tomoya and Koichi. “We pair up a lot,” Kazunari said, hand under Kame’s jacket to rest on his back. “It aids in conversation and it’s two pretty guys instead of one to encourage them to keep drinking.”
Kame held in his sigh of relief when they were chosen by two normal-looking office ladies in their mid-thirties. They took a booth in the rear, low lit and cozy. He and Kazunari took the edges and kept their guests in the center, ostensibly so they wouldn’t want to get up.
Everything was calculated, Kame discovered as he watched Kazunari work. He listened to stories and jokes and talk of ex-husbands with a rather detached air, scratching his chin, scratching his nose. But when they were done, Kazunari would take their hands and say something so charming, so astute, so utterly perfect that Kame knew why Kimura felt there was no need for two Kazus in his club.
It went on for an hour, and finally Kazunari inclined his head and smiled. “But I haven’t properly introduced my newest friend,” and with the way the man had said it, ‘friend’ was definitely not the implication. “That’s Kazuya. We’re nearly name twins in a way.”
“You’re so cute,” one of the women said, giving him a nervous smile. “I mean, of course, you both are...”
“No, you’re absolutely right, Chieko-chan,” Kazunari replied. “Our newest Kazu is cute, isn’t he? But he’s got a special talent.” Kazunari took a sip of sake, and Kame knew he was being challenged. It was to see if he could think on his feet. “Don’t you, Kazuya? Something you do better than anyone else in this club?”
He took a sip of his own drink, as the two women tittered in excitement, wondering what this special talent was. Kazunari was watching just as intently, waiting for him to slip up or tell a lie. But he’d been bullying Kame long enough that it just wasn’t going to work this time.
“Baseball,” he said proudly, daring Kazunari to challenge him. “I was pretty good at baseball. I pitched, broke a few speed records for my school.”
Kazunari’s eyes changed, but his expression didn’t. That took talent. “Well, I’m getting an education here, too. Kazuya-chan, you never told me that.”
It was true. It was one of the things he could bring to this profession that wasn’t a lie or exaggeration. “Oh, you kept me so busy, Kazu-senpai, I never got a chance,” he shot back with a smile, taking another sip from his cup. Kazunari said nothing.
“How fast? Like professional fast?” Mariko-chan asked, already loosening the scarf around her neck as she and her friend went through the expensive bottle of wine that Kazunari had recommended for them.
“Professional fast. But I threw out my shoulder halfway through college,” he admitted, taking Mariko-chan’s hand and curling it into a fist. He held her fist, stroking it the same as he would a baseball. “It was really heartbreaking. Maybe if you’d been there to cheer me on, I would have done better.”
The two women weren’t even looking in Kazunari’s direction when they called for a second bottle of wine.
--
“You get home safely,” Kazunari said, waving to the two drunken ladies as they toddled off down the street. Kame went far enough to blow them a kiss, and they nearly fell over a curb as they giggled and headed for their train.
“Don’t envy the hangovers they’ll be nursing,” Kame said, feeling a pleasant enough buzz from the sake. The women had devolved into their own drinking and hadn’t seen much need to keep spoiling them. Kame preferred that anyway.
He’d talked on his own for almost an hour while Kazunari kept glasses full, almost like a subordinate. As though their positions had been reversed, but he’d done it without voicing a complaint. Kame had spoken at length about baseball, about troublesome teammates and being interviewed by the news. The women had been in the palm of his hand, asking about how he’d stretched before a game, how he’d cooled down his sore pitching arm with an icy shower.
But he didn’t get much chance to gloat on his victory because Kazunari was pulling him through the club to one of the private rooms as soon as the other hosts started leaving. Kame was maybe a little more buzzed than he thought since Kazunari locking the door made him laugh instead of freak out.
“Aww, Kazu-senpai, I didn’t show you up tonight, did I?” Kame asked, picking a piece of lint off of the man’s shoulder. It felt good to be talking down to the man after two weeks in the kitchen. “I’m awfully sorry.”
Kazunari grinned, moving them so Kame’s back was to the door, effectively trapped between him and the wood. “You sound really sorry, Kazuya-chan.”
“Why are you calling me that?” he protested weakly, suddenly aware of Kazunari’s hands worming their way inside his jacket to tug at his shirt and pull it free of his slacks. “We aren’t that close of friends.”
“You liked winning. You liked being the center of attention,” Kazunari said, fingers moving front to tap on Kame’s metal belt buckle. “And for someone who was into baseball for so many years, I’d have thought you understood the importance of teamwork.”
“What can I say?” he said, feeling a hum even though the club’s stereo system had already been shut off for the night. He stilled his senpai’s hand. “I had to carry the team tonight.”
Kazunari’s other hand moved so swiftly to grab his jaw that Kame inhaled sharply. It seemed that Big Kazu didn’t like losing to Little Kazu. He watched his senpai’s tongue dart out of his mouth to wet his lips. “You’ve got a mouth on you, Little Kazu. It’ll serve you well here.”
“That’s why Kimura-san hired me, I figured. For my mouth.”
“Mmm,” Kazunari responded, squeezing Kame’s jaw a little tighter. “Figure you’re right.”
But it was his senpai’s mouth who found him first, brushing his lips teasingly along the corner of his mouth before tilting Kame’s jaw roughly to the side to lick all the way to his ear and down his neck. He gasped at how instantly possessive his senpai was, nipping at his jaw and his neck with tiny, sharp bites. Then again, with the way Kazunari had been touching him at every opportunity since the day Kame started, it wasn’t all that surprising.
“Am I supposed to call your name?” Kame asked, barely holding onto control. He liked this attention, far more than he’d even imagined. More than the gratuitous groping, and the obvious eye fucking. “It would be awfully self-involved if I cried out for Kazu.”
“You won’t get the opportunity to do much crying out,” Kazunari said, kissing him hard and fast before pushing him down to the floor and onto his knees. “You did good tonight, Little Kazu, but I’ve always been a firm believer in adhering strictly to the whole senpai kohai arrangement.”
Kame stared up into his senior’s dark eyes, his shoe scraping against the door as he struggled to stay in the place Kazunari had shoved him. “I don’t think that’s entirely fair. I outperformed you tonight.”
“You have me wrong, kiddo,” Kazunari said, ruffling his hair as though Kame was merely his pet. “I wasn’t lying about teamwork. Senpai kohai business just means you have to go first. We’ll see who the best performer really is.” His fingers tightened in Kame’s locks, commanding. “Unzip.”
Kame smiled. His senpai wasn’t entirely selfish after all, was he?
--
Jin looked rather grouchy as Kame came in with a tray of glasses the next night. “What’d you do?” Kame asked sweetly, dumping the tray harshly enough to make suds splash out right onto the tip of Jin’s nose.
“Fuck off,” Jin grumbled, gesturing to some other glasses. “Take from the clean ones, and don’t be an asshole about it.”
Having put in his two weeks of kitchen duty, Kame helped himself to the clean ones as directed.
“Nice hickey,” Jin commented as Kame headed back through the swinging door. “Told you he was good at his job.”