Jidai Fusion Paradise (1/5)
Title: Jidai Fusion Paradise
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Nino/Naka Riisa with Nino/Aiba, Nino/Sho, Jun/Sho, and Hattori Hanzo/Murasaki Shikibu. Yep.
Summary: This is the story of a reluctant catering company employee, his boss, his friends, and the Tortoise Costume of Destiny. Slice of life/work AU.
Notes/Warnings: Written for kitto_slutparty!! Liberal use of Wikipedia and Google Maps while writing - please forgive any historical/geographical errors that may arise.
LET'S FIESTA JAPAN! - NUMAZU BRANCH
5-5-10 OTEMACHI, NUMAZU, SHIZUOKA
PARTY CATERING SERVICES SPECIALIZING IN EVENTS OF FIVE TO FIFTY GUESTS
CHOOSE US FOR YOUR NEXT INTIMATE PARTY EXPERIENCE!
Our prompt and professional team provides courteous, thoughtful service for your family gathering, birthday party, or formal event. Leave the thinking to us as we serve delicious appetizers, main courses, and desserts from local establishments.
For more information contact Team Leader Sakurai Sho or visit our website noted below...
**
You can see Mount Fuji from the bathroom window, Aiba had informed him earlier when he was blowing up balloons. It was a lie, of course. A lie aimed at drawing Nino away from work, which was very un-Aibalike. If there was anything Nino had learned about Aiba Masaki in the years they'd been working together it was that Aiba was a decent employee.
But on most days they were able to contract out for cosplay. However, today their Tatsuo the Tortoise had canceled at the last minute with a dead great aunt, and thus Aiba was suffering on behalf of all of them. Little Hanemura Kosuke was turning eight years old today, and his wealthy parents had opened their home to what seemed like Kosuke-kun's entire grade at school. Even now the obnoxious boys and girls with their sticky fingers were racing throughout the house, their socks squeaking and sliding around the hardwood floors as Nino walked the room with a tray of miniature cupcakes for the long-suffering parents.
Content to let the kids run around until they crashed from their sugar highs, the Hanemuras and several other parents were camped out in the living room, lighting up cigarettes and downing beers with expressions on their faces wondering how they'd gotten to a point in their lives where they were responsible for eight year old monsters. Nino kept his own expression blank as the cupcakes vanished from his tray. Kids weren't so bad, Nino decided, until you had about 20 of them in a house. And then they were demons.
Cupcakes distributed, he found Ohno in the kitchen filling another cooler with ice and tossing in cans of Asahi Dry. "Already dessert," Nino said to his co-worker. "You think they'll go through that much beer?"
Ohno helped himself to a can, cracking the top with a smile. "Well, some of them are for me."
Nino set down the empty cupcake tray, returning Ohno's smile with a wry grin. "Better not let Sho-chan catch you sampling the merchandise."
Ohno gestured with the beer can to the back yard where even now the birthday boy and five of his chunkiest companions were chasing their boss around, intent on jamming their fingers in his butthole. "I think Sho-kun's occupied for now," Ohno said.
As someone who got his fill of humanity after a morning visit to the convenience store, Ninomiya Kazunari didn't seem like the type of person to work at a party catering company. But he'd come out of college with a useless degree and a friendship with Sakurai Sho and simply hadn't found a better occupation yet. Then again, Sho hadn't exactly gone to college with ambitions of running the Numazu branch office of Let's Fiesta Japan. Nino supposed that if Sho had gone into funeral home management or operated a Hokkaido tourism outfit instead, he'd probably be hanging out with corpses or potatoes respectfully right now. Nino didn't see much point in working someplace where Sho wasn't his boss.
"You see Aiba-chan?" he asked Ohno, who was setting out some more mini cupcakes in between happy slurps of Asahi.
"Tatsuo the Tortoise you mean?" Ohno teased, pointing at a bored little girl who'd parked herself in the hallway between the Hanemuras' kitchen and living room.
"They're eight, Oh-chan, they know it's a guy in a costume."
Ohno grinned, hoisting the cupcakes for his own run through the bored parents' hideaway. "He told me he was going to the bathroom. But that was about 20 minutes ago..."
Nino sighed, letting his co-worker head off while he walked in the opposite direction, taking the stairs in the back of the house up. The upstairs bathroom wasn't open to guests, but they'd let the Let's Fiesta crew use it to avoid the line of frosting-covered kids on the ground floor. As soon as Nino's foot hit the landing, he could hear the groan coming from the little room at the end of the hall.
"Masaki," Nino called. "You in there?"
"Oh Nino, thank god," he heard Aiba's scratchy voice return to him from the other side of the door.
Nino waited, leaving the door shut. "Where have you been? I think Sho's about to get an unwelcome surprise up his ass in a few minutes. The kids need Tatsuo to entertain them."
"You can come in," Aiba said.
Nino opened the door, finding Aiba looking forlorn, toilet seat up and patiently waiting for him to pay a visit. He raised an eyebrow, finding the Tatsuo Tortoise head resting in the sink and the tortoise hands in the bathtub. Aiba was tall and skinny with the long, lanky limbs of someone they'd show in a commercial set at the beach, some male idol running in slow motion as ocean spray glistened on his beautiful skin. Nino wasn't sure how someone like Aiba had gotten into catering either.
But the Tatsuo costume left skinny Aiba looking sumo-sized, the big brown shell on his back heavier than it looked and a stuffed yellow tummy on his front balancing out the shell's weight. Sweat was pouring down from his hairline, and Nino could only imagine the stink gathering inside the costume. He was suddenly happy all over again that he hadn't lost janken for the Tatsuo costume.
"I have been trying to pee for half an hour," Aiba informed him, leaning back against the window that afforded no view of Mount Fuji whatsoever. "Nino, I can't get to my dick. At all."
Nino quirked an eyebrow, approaching his co-worker and dropping into a crouch. It was obvious right away what the problem was. Beneath the bulbous belly, Nino saw the jammed zipper on the green tortoise pants. "You aren't...stuck to the zipper, are you?" Nino inquired.
Aiba shook his head.
"Alright."
Nino took hold of the zipper in his hand, and Aiba braced himself. He gave the zipper a tug and then another, hearing the rip as it went. But if it was between paying for a rental costume because it ripped or paying for a rental costume because you pissed inside it, Nino supposed a rip was less embarrassing to explain.
"Ohhhh," he heard Aiba groan from above him, feeling the pouchy belly of the costume deflate a bit onto his head before he backed away and got to his feet. Already Aiba was shimmying the costume down his body and undoing the fly on his boxer briefs.
Nino groaned in disgust, turning away as he heard the first splash in the toilet. "Jesus, Masaki...I'll be in the hall..."
He closed the bathroom door behind him, chuckling to himself. He heard the toilet flush and the sink turn on. He rapped his knuckles against the wood. "Need a zip-up?"
But then the faucet shut off, and there was silence.
"Masaki?"
He could hear the kids outside screaming, the dull murmured voices of the parents inside the house. He opened the door again, finding Aiba leaning against the sink with a come hither stare that might otherwise have been attractive if he didn't have a tortoise costume and shell kicked into the corner of the bathroom behind him.
"You're kidding," Nino said.
Aiba giggled, a sound that was even less erotic than him standing in the middle of a client's butterfly-wallpapered bathroom in his underwear and green tortoise foot covers. "Come on, let me thank you."
"You just did," Nino informed him, trying to ignore the reaction of his body even as his mind found the situation less than desirable.
It had been a while since Aiba had come on to him, and it usually took a few beers before he wanted to do more than make out. Aiba had always been more of a lady killer than an equal opportunity type, but when Aiba was overflowing with intense feelings of gratitude, Nino discovered that Aiba would usually decide between crying it out or fucking it out. Nino assumed that since only moments earlier he'd been crouching down in front of Aiba's crotch, even the urgent need to pee hadn't kept his friend's thoughts from straying south.
"Just tell me one thing," Nino said, shutting the door behind him. He thought of the non-Fuji view out the window, and Aiba's obvious frustration with having to dress as a tortoise instead of the Let's Fiesta tie, dress shirt, and black slacks. "You didn't get that zipper stuck on purpose, did you?"
"Well," Aiba admitted, taking hold of Nino by the shoulders to back him awkwardly against the bathroom sink. "Okay, so at first I really was just going to pee and come back downstairs, honest. But I thought about what would happen if it got stuck...and then it really got stuck. Seriously. But then again, Nino, you coming up here like a knight in shining armor just got me so hot..."
"You are an asshole," Nino chided his friend, even as Aiba laughed and slid down to his knees on the tile.
It had been a rough week for the Let's Fiesta Japan Numazu branch office - a wedding that had ended with the bride's father taken away on a stretcher after throwing out his back doing the limbo, another kid's party where some future serial killer popped all the balloons, and then a beach wedding that had left sand in places Nino hadn't even known he'd had. So maybe Aiba really was thankful and maybe Nino really did need to release some tension.
He shut his eyes and sighed when Aiba got his slacks unzipped, offering little preamble before grabbing hold of him and taking Nino deep inside his hot mouth. It was wrong, doing this here, because Aiba was a good employee and Nino was a good employee. But when things started to add up like beach weddings and tortoise costumes and the reality that they were in a job they didn't like all that much, maybe it was good to just say "fuck it" once in a while and have a little fun.
Aiba was already doing a stellar job thanking Nino for his assistance, his mouth being rather welcome accommodations. Nino's hands gripped the edge of the sink countertop, and he let his head loll back, settling in to the feeling of Aiba's tongue and the warmth of his mouth. There was no Mount Fuji as far as he could see - this window was probably facing the wrong way anyhow.
He groaned when Aiba took him so far down his throat that his nose brushed against the black fabric of Nino's slacks. He almost lost it then and there, reminding himself of the tortoise costume to keep himself in check. He fisted his hand in Aiba's short dyed brown hair, wanting to loosen his tie and stay a while. But of course he could still hear the kids outside, screaming about the cupcakes Ohno was probably plying them with, as if they needed more sugar.
And the cupcake clamor masked the sound of slippers on the stairs, so when Sho opened the door and let out a strangled little shriek, Nino jumped, sending Aiba's mouth off his cock with a swift little pop, leaving the guy sprawled on the bathroom tile in his underwear.
Sho had already slammed the door shut in his panic, apologizing profusely on the other side as Nino shoved himself back inside his boxers, zipping up his slacks in haste. Aiba started to laugh, still on the floor. "Oops," he said, like it was nothing for their boss to walk in on a blow job.
Which, well, it wasn't really the first time anyway, but then boner killer Sho was back inside the room and shutting the door.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Sho grumbled at both of them.
It was hard not to love Sakurai Sho. All three of them, even Ohno, doted on Sho like he was a newborn kitten. Of course, Sho was a grown man, 30 years old and the textbook definition of "responsible," but he was also sweet and awkward and easily scandalized by the sexual shenanigans of his employees. Because Sho took his position so seriously, he wouldn't sleep with them. Because Sho was a workaholic, he made little effort to get laid in his very limited down time. Because Sho was a great boss, he didn't complain about them fucking around with each other so long as the work didn't suffer. So Sakurai Sho was a strange combination of long-suffering, I've-seen-it-all-before and a blushing virgin.
He wasn't a virgin, of course, but Nino could count on one hand the number of times his boss and best friend had had sex since they'd been paired up as college roommates by the whims of university housing. Nino had even given Sho's hand a nickname, but he loved Sho too much to really rag on him about it.
"Let's just get to the point," Nino said, already missing Aiba's perfect lips in the perfect place as he got up off the tile and started to hurriedly put his costume back on. "There's a tear in the crotch of the tortoise costume. We'll have to pay for it."
"Well, that's just great," Sho said in exasperation, running his hand through his hair. "Look, Hanemura-san has a business trip come morning, so it's looking like things are going to wrap up. Nino, I need you downstairs for clean-up, and Aiba-chan, I need you to corral all the kids together so they can go home."
Aiba settled the Tatsuo Tortoise head on top of his shoulders once more. "Does my belly cover the hole in the pants?" he asked, voice muffled.
"Yes," Sho and Nino said in unison.
Nino dutifully left the Hanemuras' bathroom behind, following the costumed bulk that was Aiba back down the stairs, Sho at his heels. Ohno hurriedly shoved his empty beer can in the Hanemuras' aluminum recycling bin as they arrived. Sho seemed to ignore this, and he was probably still lost in the idea of what he'd walked in on.
The three of them set to work picking up the empty food trays, making a few trips back and forth to the Let's Fiesta van in the Hanemuras' driveway. As the tots wandered away with their take-home treats, half of them hugged Tatsuo while the other half punched him in the stomach. Nice kids. When the house was clear, they finished tidying up the family's kitchen, waiting patiently in the van for Sho to return after a few final words with the family.
Sho got into the van, slamming the door after him. Nino and Aiba were sitting side by side in the back seat, and Nino caught Sho's eyes in the rearview mirror. "You guys are so lucky it was me who walked in and not the kids."
With that, Ohno burst out laughing, and Aiba smacked him with the Tatsuo Tortoise head.
"Yeah, break the costume even more, it's coming out of your pay, you know," Sho scolded.
They took the van back through town, crossing the Kano River on their way to the office. The Let's Fiesta office occupied the second floor of a rather drab concrete building a stone's throw from the train station and a few kilometers from Suruga Bay. It was pretty good real estate, but the first beach wedding they'd catered for had soured Nino on the town's waterfront for good.
Ohno helped Sho get the costume off of Aiba, shoving it into the backseat of Sho's car, shell and all. The two of them drove off, leaving Aiba and Nino alone. Aiba clearly owed Nino an end result, but the sun was already setting, and it had been a long day.
He helped Aiba unload all the empty main course and dessert trays, packing them into the trunk of Aiba's car. He'd take them back to the restaurants that provided the catered meals, and from the look of cheer in Aiba's face, Nino knew his needs had mostly been forgotten. It was Becky at Shimura's Restaurant that Aiba really had eyes for. Which was fine, of course, but if it hadn't been for Sho's intervention at least Aiba could have finished what he'd started.
"Well, that's all for me today," Aiba announced, dressed in jeans and a v-neck tee and looking far better than he had all day. He waved goodbye as Aiba backed out of the parking lot, Nino stuck with the realization that's he'd been blown, correction, halfway blown by a guy in a tortoise costume. That left Nino to walk back home to his apartment building alone, shuddering.
Two blessed days of peace and quiet before their next party. That night, Nino dreamt of a tortoise with a cupcake shell.
**
"You never log on anymore," Sho complained, flagging down the waiter to get him another cup of coffee. It was Nino's day off, something he considered extremely sacred, but Sho had invited him out and Nino figured he owed it to him since he'd messed around on company time.
The place was Sho's ideal for a coffee date spot - tinny jazz piping through the speakers, stylish leather seats, and unobtrusive staff. Nino wasn't a coffee drinker, but Sho was, drinking it with one cream, two sugars, and holding up his pinky adorably while he did so. Something was clearly bothering Sho that morning, though, because by the time Nino had wandered into the shop, Sho was munching furiously on some pastries. Sho was always eating his feelings instead of talking about them.
"It's not that I don't log on," Nino protested, sipping his oolong tea, swirling the ice cubes around with his straw once he set it back down on the coaster. "It's that nobody's on when I'm on."
Sho frowned at him. "Well, that's because you keep strange hours. Like some kind of vampire. You always have."
Nino grinned. The two of them in the same dorm room had been kind of nuts - Sho waking early for his very full days of hitting the coffee, the books, and the gym, in that order. Nino staying up into the dead of night, wearing his headset while he crept around the Internet or bloody corridors in the latest shoot-em-up video game. Since they hadn't killed each other back then, it only made sense for them to become the best of friends.
"I swear, I logged on last week, and the place was a ghost town."
Sho sipped his coffee, unable to think of a protest just yet.
Sho had double majored in history and business administration at school, and Nino had opted for archaeology despite having little interest in spending the rest of his days breaking his back in the sun to dig up ancient garbage. Their mutual interest in the past had led them to a message board community on the Internet in their last year of undergrad.
Jidai Fusion Paradise was a real piece of work, attracting historical roleplayers from all over Japan as well as foreigners looking to practice their language skills. In the early days, most of the members of the community had played it straight - sticking to roleplaying with historical figures from their own time frame. Saigo Takamori hung around with Okubo Toshimichi and the other Meiji-era elites, Oda Nobunaga and Mori Ranmaru role-played sixteenth century samurai sex day in and day out.
Sho had always taken the community very seriously, and he had cast himself as some scholar from the Edo period, playing out lengthy scenes with his fellow nerds about how to best advise the shogun. He'd shown Nino a thread once that had taken fourteen days to complete, but had resulted in an in-depth set of laws governing currency circulation. Needless to say that Nino usually left Sho to his own devices on the boards.
Nino had watched Sho's obsession develop over the last few years as he ended up taking the job in Numazu that he hadn't really wanted, Nino following him to Shizuoka Prefecture from their homes in Tokyo. Sho was the perfect employee, running his branch office properly, but the disappointment his friend felt in not becoming some high-ranking civil servant weighed on him heavily. Thus developing currency circulation legalese in his free time. Again, it explained a lot about why Sho didn't get laid too often.
Nino had bounced around the boards before finally settling on Murasaki Shikibu. Since most people on the boards back then had been like Sho and heavily into Tokugawa shogunate-era bureaucratic snoozefests, Nino didn't post much. Roleplaying as a woman was the challenge Nino preferred. Females on the message boards tended to ignore the boys' club to portray females who were not historically likely to write up currency laws or spend a month negotiating with emissaries from the Joseon dynasty (who were actually Korean roleplayers trolling their board on purpose). Instead they typed out court intrigue and drama, emotion and depth of character, like a soap opera they constructed themselves.
He'd done his fair share of reading up on Murasaki, her life at court, the time she'd spent writing out the Tale of Genji. She appealed to Nino in a way that all the samurai and their honor codes never had. A difficult, intelligent woman isolated at court, jotting down her thoughts and observations. Nino was no psychology student, but he'd always been more of a reactive than active personality anyway. He and Murasaki just clicked.
Over time, though, Jidai Fusion Paradise had started to die off. Many of Sho's cohort left for other games or lost interest. The eras started to mix, historical accuracy flew out the window, and before Sho and Nino knew it, Prince Shotoku was leaping out of the 7th century to chat up some geisha in 18th century Kyoto. It mostly turned into a hook-up board, and Sho was always trying to get Nino to participate, if only to have a sounding board for his latest government reforms instead of someone trying to proposition him.
"I'm sick to death of Sakamoto Ryoma," Sho complained, setting down his coffee cup. "Bakumatsu bastard."
Nino held in a chuckle at Sho's outrage. An obvious troll had set up an account as Sakamoto Ryoma, leaving nasty "DOWN WITH THE SHOGUNATE!" threats across a bunch of Sho's threads, even threads he'd played out five years earlier.
"Maybe you should take a break. Or try a new era. Japan has a long and illustrious history, you know."
Sho glared at him, shoving the remainder of a brownie in his mouth.
"Or don't," Nino said, not wanting to rock the boat. The man was damn stubborn when it came to his shogunate fanboying. "Alright, tell me what's really wrong with you. This isn't about Jidai Fusion and you know it."
"There's nothing wrong with me," Sho said with a roll of his eyes, wiping chocolate from his mouth.
"I saw you close your office door the other day," Nino pointed out. "You can't hide from me, Sakurai."
Sho looked like he was going to vomit up the truth any moment, but he kept his mouth shut, munching on his pity snacks. As a rule of thumb, Sho always kept his office door open. Since he was rarely in it. There were only the four of them after all, since Numazu wasn't exactly a swinging place. Comparatively, Nino knew that the Tokyo office in Akasaka employed 500 people. They kept office hours when there weren't parties to work, which mainly involved Nino and Aiba wasting office supplies by covering an always tolerant Ohno head to toe with post-it notes while Sho made calls to customers to follow up on past and future events.
But a call had come in the other day, and Sho had closed his door. Either he'd been in there having phone sex (unlikely because it was Sakurai Sho) or something serious was going on. Nino didn't like Sho keeping secrets from him, so he kept picking at the scab.
"Did a customer cancel?"
Sho looked ready to strangle him. "No."
"Did the costume rental place yell at you about Tatsuo? Aiba didn't come inside the suit did he?"
"No," Sho said with a disgusted wrinkle of his nose.
Nino scratched his chin. "Was it your mom?"
"Nino..."
"So it was your mom!"
"It was not my mom. Don't talk about my mom."
"She's a wonderful woman. Appreciate her more, especially since you haven't given her any grandchildren yet."
Sho waved his hand desperately for the waiter again. "I didn't invite you out to talk about my mom. Or about my phone calls. I'm your boss, I don't have to tell you everything."
Nino smiled. He loved seeing Sho get flustered. The guy already had a round, adorable face, and when he was frustrated it seemed like he'd use those puffed out cheeks to huff, puff, and blow someone's house down. In the early days of their friendship, Nino had told Sho he'd be better off huffing, puffing, and blowing someone as a way of letting off steam, but Sho rarely accepted any advice Nino had to offer.
"Then why are we here?"
Sho sighed. "Because I'm supposed to reprimand you and make a note of it in your file. I'm meeting Aiba-kun for dinner tonight to officially reprimand him."
"Oh, he'll like that, Masaki will. He's a total M, if you didn't know," Nino said with a leer, and Sho flung his napkin at him.
"I'm supposed to reprimand you," Sho repeated, "for what you did at the party. I let you guys dick around, I always have, and honestly, I don't know why I keep letting you take advantage of me."
He was serious, Nino realized. Most of the time Sho's disciplinary measures involved Nino having to pay for Sho's car wash or Ohno having to pick up Sho's dry cleaning. Sho never wrote them up for anything. Nino sat up a little straighter in his chair as the waiter arrived with Sho's fortieth coffee of the day.
"Sho-chan," Nino said. "We were just caught up in things. I'm really sorry. Those kids were little beasts, and we didn't think..."
"That's the problem. You never think with anything but what's between your legs, Nino. The company rule book says you aren't even allowed to fraternize with co-workers outside of work functions, much less during one." Fraternize was one of the words Sho liked to use in place of 'fuck' because he was in management. "But I let you because I know this job sucks. I know it does. I don't care what you or Satoshi-kun or Aiba-kun do when we're not working an event. But this honestly cannot happen again, are we clear?"
"We're clear, Sho-chan," Nino said, wondering just what that phone call had been. How had anyone even found out? Or had Sho been questioned by the head office? He hated seeing Sho upset for legitimate reasons - message board shenanigans were hilarious, but Sho being in genuine distress was another thing entirely. "We're clear, I'm sorry."
"Thank you," Sho replied, downing his coffee despite the steam rising off it, if only to have something to occupy the next few seconds with instead of having to yell at Nino.
They sat in silence for a few moments, Nino stirring the rapidly melting ice cubes around simply to drown out the boring jazz music for a bit.
"Sho-chan..."
"What?"
"I'll sign on. For Jidai Fusion. I'll sign on tonight, okay? At normal hours. I'm here if you need me."
Sho looked down at his lap, a smile quirking at the corner of his lips. Now that he'd gotten out all his unpleasantness, his blood pressure was probably returning to normal. "That wouldn't be historically accurate."
"Well, fuck you then," Nino said, throwing his straw at him in mock anger. They finished up their drinks, Nino accepting the bill as penance for his on the job blowjob (even though it hadn't been seen through to its conclusion, and even now Nino was full of disappointment). They had another kid's party the following day. Maybe if he and Aiba just had a quick go before the party got started, things would clear up for the best.
**
While a Giants game made some pleasant noise in the background, Nino logged on to Jidai Fusion Paradise. To be completely fair, he'd lied to Sho when he said he'd logged on the week before. He hadn't been on the boards in at least three months, and he'd only logged on to empty out his message box - nothing but invites to cybersex. Nino had been tempted initially by these things - it was harmless fun, but then Nino remembered that he was roleplaying a woman and would have a hard time masturbating and typing out to his partner about his clit simultaneously. Kind of a disconnect.
So there were 63 messages in his box, and he deleted them en masse before cracking open a beer and getting himself comfortable. He had his laptop propped open on his table, the TV in easy view behind it. It had been ages since he'd started a post of his own. The last thread he'd been a part of was some high school bullying alternate universe thread where Sei Shonagon was the lead bully and the other Heian court ladies were her high school classmates. Murasaki had, of course, been the target of the bullying, and Nino hadn't had to stretch himself mentally for that one - he'd been bullied like crazy in school.
But the "Sei Shonagon is a real bitch" fest was long over, and he scrolled through the board, seeing what players were up to. He was creeped out by the "Samurai Sex Dungeon" post, an obvious orgy thread spanning the eras. He found Sho's latest threads, and they were mostly him talking to himself, adding in original characters to create his own story about a day in the park planning a banquet in the shogun's honor. Nino noted that User:sakamoto_ryoma was the last comment in the post, and he couldn't hold back a chuckle.
Finally, near the bottom of the first page of results, he found a post from a name he hadn't seen in a while. Then he noticed the number - it was a new one. The old one had left the community ages ago.
User:hattori_hanzo2
Subject:Looking 4 sum ninja friends
Nino smiled. Sho would probably cry at the sight of the great samurai Hattori Hanzo, savior of Tokugawa Ieyasu, looking for "sum ninja friends," and that gave Nino all the more reason to click on the post.
Subject:Looking 4 sum ninja friends
looking 2 transport a vip thru iga territory. r u man enuf to help me?
Of course, it would be impossible for Murasaki to not only leap forward in time five or six centuries, but she was a woman and the furthest from a ninja as one could get. And Sho would be pissed off to see Nino's user name in a post like that, breaking character and time frame. But Jidai Fusion Paradise was a dead zone. Nino figured he could always pop in on Sho's threads as the Ghost of Murasaki Shikibu, hunting down Sakamoto Ryoma for having bad taste in literature. From the looks of the main message board, lots of people were going alternate universe lately.
He clicked on the reply box, channeling Murasaki as best he could after three months. It mostly just came out as babble, but so did most of Sho's threads and he usually had a dozen history reference books opened around the room when he posted.
User:murasaki_shikibu
Good day, fair Master Hattori. Were I a man and possessed of such fighting skills as required, I should be thrilled and gladdened to participate in your adventure. Alas, I shall remain hidden here, cheering on your travails from afar. Perchance one day I shall recount your valor for all at court to hear. Good fortune to you in this endeavor. May you transport your charge with the utmost courage.
Looking back, he wasn't sure who the hell he sounded like, but because it looked like the Giants' pitcher was on his way to a no-hitter, Nino didn't much care about accuracy. He posted his reply and shut the lid on his laptop. After all, nobody could roleplay as horribly as Aiba had during the one week Sho had begged him to give it a try. User:commodore_perry had been booed out of the game because Aiba had simply gone to English language websites and copied out paragraphs of nonsense to post.
The game did end in a no-hitter, and Nino got up for a beer, checking the board once more. To his surprise, he already had a reply from Hattori Hanzo.
User:hattori_hanzo2
4get shining prince genji. im going to be shining prince hanzo. fufufufu. hey murasaki im sure i can swing down 2 kyoto and pick u up. nowhere in japan is out of the way 4 hattori hanzo.
Nino stared at the message, covering his mouth to hide his laughter. Historically accurate, no. Entertaining, quite possibly yes. He decided to play along. Any distraction from the party tomorrow would be helpful.
User:murasaki_shikibu
What a tempting offer, Master Hattori. Would that I could escape these inner palace walls, for the whispers and secrets of women hold little interest for me after these long years of service. A change of scenery, perhaps, would provide even more inspiration for writing...?
And then Hanzo was on him like Sho on a brownie, replying in less than a minute.
User:hattori_hanzo2
sounds great. lemme just skip 4ward a bit here fufu. so blah blah with the help of the iga clan i got my buddy tokugawa 2 safety. so now im on the road, hoping and praying ill reach u soon. got my spear so nobody gonna hold me back fufu.
User:murasaki_shikibu
I wrote for an extended period today, blessed as I was with several hours' peace and tranquility. That Master Hattori might soon be here in Heian-kyo is unthinkable. For many long years I have passed through life with these walls around me, all things in their ordered places. Yet the spontaneity promised me by Master Hattori has my heart beating strongly. I am eager to make his acquaintance.
And on it went, Nino laughing as he typed back and forth with the person who'd send the real Hattori Hanzo into fits in the afterlife. He hadn't had this much fun on Jidai Fusion in years, pining away in loneliness and isolation as Murasaki while Hattori spent his journey to Kyoto "poking at shit" with his "awesome spear."
Before he knew it, it was 4:30 in the morning, and he had to be awake in two hours' time. The party was way off in Komagane, a joint effort with the Nagoya branch office, and they had to leave early to drive around the mountains.
"Damn it," he said, blinking at his computer screen. He logged out and dragged himself onto the couch, hoping for at least some rest before he spent the remainder of the day handing out jello to screaming children.
PART TWO
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Nino/Naka Riisa with Nino/Aiba, Nino/Sho, Jun/Sho, and Hattori Hanzo/Murasaki Shikibu. Yep.
Summary: This is the story of a reluctant catering company employee, his boss, his friends, and the Tortoise Costume of Destiny. Slice of life/work AU.
Notes/Warnings: Written for kitto_slutparty!! Liberal use of Wikipedia and Google Maps while writing - please forgive any historical/geographical errors that may arise.
LET'S FIESTA JAPAN! - NUMAZU BRANCH
5-5-10 OTEMACHI, NUMAZU, SHIZUOKA
PARTY CATERING SERVICES SPECIALIZING IN EVENTS OF FIVE TO FIFTY GUESTS
CHOOSE US FOR YOUR NEXT INTIMATE PARTY EXPERIENCE!
Our prompt and professional team provides courteous, thoughtful service for your family gathering, birthday party, or formal event. Leave the thinking to us as we serve delicious appetizers, main courses, and desserts from local establishments.
For more information contact Team Leader Sakurai Sho or visit our website noted below...
**
You can see Mount Fuji from the bathroom window, Aiba had informed him earlier when he was blowing up balloons. It was a lie, of course. A lie aimed at drawing Nino away from work, which was very un-Aibalike. If there was anything Nino had learned about Aiba Masaki in the years they'd been working together it was that Aiba was a decent employee.
But on most days they were able to contract out for cosplay. However, today their Tatsuo the Tortoise had canceled at the last minute with a dead great aunt, and thus Aiba was suffering on behalf of all of them. Little Hanemura Kosuke was turning eight years old today, and his wealthy parents had opened their home to what seemed like Kosuke-kun's entire grade at school. Even now the obnoxious boys and girls with their sticky fingers were racing throughout the house, their socks squeaking and sliding around the hardwood floors as Nino walked the room with a tray of miniature cupcakes for the long-suffering parents.
Content to let the kids run around until they crashed from their sugar highs, the Hanemuras and several other parents were camped out in the living room, lighting up cigarettes and downing beers with expressions on their faces wondering how they'd gotten to a point in their lives where they were responsible for eight year old monsters. Nino kept his own expression blank as the cupcakes vanished from his tray. Kids weren't so bad, Nino decided, until you had about 20 of them in a house. And then they were demons.
Cupcakes distributed, he found Ohno in the kitchen filling another cooler with ice and tossing in cans of Asahi Dry. "Already dessert," Nino said to his co-worker. "You think they'll go through that much beer?"
Ohno helped himself to a can, cracking the top with a smile. "Well, some of them are for me."
Nino set down the empty cupcake tray, returning Ohno's smile with a wry grin. "Better not let Sho-chan catch you sampling the merchandise."
Ohno gestured with the beer can to the back yard where even now the birthday boy and five of his chunkiest companions were chasing their boss around, intent on jamming their fingers in his butthole. "I think Sho-kun's occupied for now," Ohno said.
As someone who got his fill of humanity after a morning visit to the convenience store, Ninomiya Kazunari didn't seem like the type of person to work at a party catering company. But he'd come out of college with a useless degree and a friendship with Sakurai Sho and simply hadn't found a better occupation yet. Then again, Sho hadn't exactly gone to college with ambitions of running the Numazu branch office of Let's Fiesta Japan. Nino supposed that if Sho had gone into funeral home management or operated a Hokkaido tourism outfit instead, he'd probably be hanging out with corpses or potatoes respectfully right now. Nino didn't see much point in working someplace where Sho wasn't his boss.
"You see Aiba-chan?" he asked Ohno, who was setting out some more mini cupcakes in between happy slurps of Asahi.
"Tatsuo the Tortoise you mean?" Ohno teased, pointing at a bored little girl who'd parked herself in the hallway between the Hanemuras' kitchen and living room.
"They're eight, Oh-chan, they know it's a guy in a costume."
Ohno grinned, hoisting the cupcakes for his own run through the bored parents' hideaway. "He told me he was going to the bathroom. But that was about 20 minutes ago..."
Nino sighed, letting his co-worker head off while he walked in the opposite direction, taking the stairs in the back of the house up. The upstairs bathroom wasn't open to guests, but they'd let the Let's Fiesta crew use it to avoid the line of frosting-covered kids on the ground floor. As soon as Nino's foot hit the landing, he could hear the groan coming from the little room at the end of the hall.
"Masaki," Nino called. "You in there?"
"Oh Nino, thank god," he heard Aiba's scratchy voice return to him from the other side of the door.
Nino waited, leaving the door shut. "Where have you been? I think Sho's about to get an unwelcome surprise up his ass in a few minutes. The kids need Tatsuo to entertain them."
"You can come in," Aiba said.
Nino opened the door, finding Aiba looking forlorn, toilet seat up and patiently waiting for him to pay a visit. He raised an eyebrow, finding the Tatsuo Tortoise head resting in the sink and the tortoise hands in the bathtub. Aiba was tall and skinny with the long, lanky limbs of someone they'd show in a commercial set at the beach, some male idol running in slow motion as ocean spray glistened on his beautiful skin. Nino wasn't sure how someone like Aiba had gotten into catering either.
But the Tatsuo costume left skinny Aiba looking sumo-sized, the big brown shell on his back heavier than it looked and a stuffed yellow tummy on his front balancing out the shell's weight. Sweat was pouring down from his hairline, and Nino could only imagine the stink gathering inside the costume. He was suddenly happy all over again that he hadn't lost janken for the Tatsuo costume.
"I have been trying to pee for half an hour," Aiba informed him, leaning back against the window that afforded no view of Mount Fuji whatsoever. "Nino, I can't get to my dick. At all."
Nino quirked an eyebrow, approaching his co-worker and dropping into a crouch. It was obvious right away what the problem was. Beneath the bulbous belly, Nino saw the jammed zipper on the green tortoise pants. "You aren't...stuck to the zipper, are you?" Nino inquired.
Aiba shook his head.
"Alright."
Nino took hold of the zipper in his hand, and Aiba braced himself. He gave the zipper a tug and then another, hearing the rip as it went. But if it was between paying for a rental costume because it ripped or paying for a rental costume because you pissed inside it, Nino supposed a rip was less embarrassing to explain.
"Ohhhh," he heard Aiba groan from above him, feeling the pouchy belly of the costume deflate a bit onto his head before he backed away and got to his feet. Already Aiba was shimmying the costume down his body and undoing the fly on his boxer briefs.
Nino groaned in disgust, turning away as he heard the first splash in the toilet. "Jesus, Masaki...I'll be in the hall..."
He closed the bathroom door behind him, chuckling to himself. He heard the toilet flush and the sink turn on. He rapped his knuckles against the wood. "Need a zip-up?"
But then the faucet shut off, and there was silence.
"Masaki?"
He could hear the kids outside screaming, the dull murmured voices of the parents inside the house. He opened the door again, finding Aiba leaning against the sink with a come hither stare that might otherwise have been attractive if he didn't have a tortoise costume and shell kicked into the corner of the bathroom behind him.
"You're kidding," Nino said.
Aiba giggled, a sound that was even less erotic than him standing in the middle of a client's butterfly-wallpapered bathroom in his underwear and green tortoise foot covers. "Come on, let me thank you."
"You just did," Nino informed him, trying to ignore the reaction of his body even as his mind found the situation less than desirable.
It had been a while since Aiba had come on to him, and it usually took a few beers before he wanted to do more than make out. Aiba had always been more of a lady killer than an equal opportunity type, but when Aiba was overflowing with intense feelings of gratitude, Nino discovered that Aiba would usually decide between crying it out or fucking it out. Nino assumed that since only moments earlier he'd been crouching down in front of Aiba's crotch, even the urgent need to pee hadn't kept his friend's thoughts from straying south.
"Just tell me one thing," Nino said, shutting the door behind him. He thought of the non-Fuji view out the window, and Aiba's obvious frustration with having to dress as a tortoise instead of the Let's Fiesta tie, dress shirt, and black slacks. "You didn't get that zipper stuck on purpose, did you?"
"Well," Aiba admitted, taking hold of Nino by the shoulders to back him awkwardly against the bathroom sink. "Okay, so at first I really was just going to pee and come back downstairs, honest. But I thought about what would happen if it got stuck...and then it really got stuck. Seriously. But then again, Nino, you coming up here like a knight in shining armor just got me so hot..."
"You are an asshole," Nino chided his friend, even as Aiba laughed and slid down to his knees on the tile.
It had been a rough week for the Let's Fiesta Japan Numazu branch office - a wedding that had ended with the bride's father taken away on a stretcher after throwing out his back doing the limbo, another kid's party where some future serial killer popped all the balloons, and then a beach wedding that had left sand in places Nino hadn't even known he'd had. So maybe Aiba really was thankful and maybe Nino really did need to release some tension.
He shut his eyes and sighed when Aiba got his slacks unzipped, offering little preamble before grabbing hold of him and taking Nino deep inside his hot mouth. It was wrong, doing this here, because Aiba was a good employee and Nino was a good employee. But when things started to add up like beach weddings and tortoise costumes and the reality that they were in a job they didn't like all that much, maybe it was good to just say "fuck it" once in a while and have a little fun.
Aiba was already doing a stellar job thanking Nino for his assistance, his mouth being rather welcome accommodations. Nino's hands gripped the edge of the sink countertop, and he let his head loll back, settling in to the feeling of Aiba's tongue and the warmth of his mouth. There was no Mount Fuji as far as he could see - this window was probably facing the wrong way anyhow.
He groaned when Aiba took him so far down his throat that his nose brushed against the black fabric of Nino's slacks. He almost lost it then and there, reminding himself of the tortoise costume to keep himself in check. He fisted his hand in Aiba's short dyed brown hair, wanting to loosen his tie and stay a while. But of course he could still hear the kids outside, screaming about the cupcakes Ohno was probably plying them with, as if they needed more sugar.
And the cupcake clamor masked the sound of slippers on the stairs, so when Sho opened the door and let out a strangled little shriek, Nino jumped, sending Aiba's mouth off his cock with a swift little pop, leaving the guy sprawled on the bathroom tile in his underwear.
Sho had already slammed the door shut in his panic, apologizing profusely on the other side as Nino shoved himself back inside his boxers, zipping up his slacks in haste. Aiba started to laugh, still on the floor. "Oops," he said, like it was nothing for their boss to walk in on a blow job.
Which, well, it wasn't really the first time anyway, but then boner killer Sho was back inside the room and shutting the door.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Sho grumbled at both of them.
It was hard not to love Sakurai Sho. All three of them, even Ohno, doted on Sho like he was a newborn kitten. Of course, Sho was a grown man, 30 years old and the textbook definition of "responsible," but he was also sweet and awkward and easily scandalized by the sexual shenanigans of his employees. Because Sho took his position so seriously, he wouldn't sleep with them. Because Sho was a workaholic, he made little effort to get laid in his very limited down time. Because Sho was a great boss, he didn't complain about them fucking around with each other so long as the work didn't suffer. So Sakurai Sho was a strange combination of long-suffering, I've-seen-it-all-before and a blushing virgin.
He wasn't a virgin, of course, but Nino could count on one hand the number of times his boss and best friend had had sex since they'd been paired up as college roommates by the whims of university housing. Nino had even given Sho's hand a nickname, but he loved Sho too much to really rag on him about it.
"Let's just get to the point," Nino said, already missing Aiba's perfect lips in the perfect place as he got up off the tile and started to hurriedly put his costume back on. "There's a tear in the crotch of the tortoise costume. We'll have to pay for it."
"Well, that's just great," Sho said in exasperation, running his hand through his hair. "Look, Hanemura-san has a business trip come morning, so it's looking like things are going to wrap up. Nino, I need you downstairs for clean-up, and Aiba-chan, I need you to corral all the kids together so they can go home."
Aiba settled the Tatsuo Tortoise head on top of his shoulders once more. "Does my belly cover the hole in the pants?" he asked, voice muffled.
"Yes," Sho and Nino said in unison.
Nino dutifully left the Hanemuras' bathroom behind, following the costumed bulk that was Aiba back down the stairs, Sho at his heels. Ohno hurriedly shoved his empty beer can in the Hanemuras' aluminum recycling bin as they arrived. Sho seemed to ignore this, and he was probably still lost in the idea of what he'd walked in on.
The three of them set to work picking up the empty food trays, making a few trips back and forth to the Let's Fiesta van in the Hanemuras' driveway. As the tots wandered away with their take-home treats, half of them hugged Tatsuo while the other half punched him in the stomach. Nice kids. When the house was clear, they finished tidying up the family's kitchen, waiting patiently in the van for Sho to return after a few final words with the family.
Sho got into the van, slamming the door after him. Nino and Aiba were sitting side by side in the back seat, and Nino caught Sho's eyes in the rearview mirror. "You guys are so lucky it was me who walked in and not the kids."
With that, Ohno burst out laughing, and Aiba smacked him with the Tatsuo Tortoise head.
"Yeah, break the costume even more, it's coming out of your pay, you know," Sho scolded.
They took the van back through town, crossing the Kano River on their way to the office. The Let's Fiesta office occupied the second floor of a rather drab concrete building a stone's throw from the train station and a few kilometers from Suruga Bay. It was pretty good real estate, but the first beach wedding they'd catered for had soured Nino on the town's waterfront for good.
Ohno helped Sho get the costume off of Aiba, shoving it into the backseat of Sho's car, shell and all. The two of them drove off, leaving Aiba and Nino alone. Aiba clearly owed Nino an end result, but the sun was already setting, and it had been a long day.
He helped Aiba unload all the empty main course and dessert trays, packing them into the trunk of Aiba's car. He'd take them back to the restaurants that provided the catered meals, and from the look of cheer in Aiba's face, Nino knew his needs had mostly been forgotten. It was Becky at Shimura's Restaurant that Aiba really had eyes for. Which was fine, of course, but if it hadn't been for Sho's intervention at least Aiba could have finished what he'd started.
"Well, that's all for me today," Aiba announced, dressed in jeans and a v-neck tee and looking far better than he had all day. He waved goodbye as Aiba backed out of the parking lot, Nino stuck with the realization that's he'd been blown, correction, halfway blown by a guy in a tortoise costume. That left Nino to walk back home to his apartment building alone, shuddering.
Two blessed days of peace and quiet before their next party. That night, Nino dreamt of a tortoise with a cupcake shell.
**
"You never log on anymore," Sho complained, flagging down the waiter to get him another cup of coffee. It was Nino's day off, something he considered extremely sacred, but Sho had invited him out and Nino figured he owed it to him since he'd messed around on company time.
The place was Sho's ideal for a coffee date spot - tinny jazz piping through the speakers, stylish leather seats, and unobtrusive staff. Nino wasn't a coffee drinker, but Sho was, drinking it with one cream, two sugars, and holding up his pinky adorably while he did so. Something was clearly bothering Sho that morning, though, because by the time Nino had wandered into the shop, Sho was munching furiously on some pastries. Sho was always eating his feelings instead of talking about them.
"It's not that I don't log on," Nino protested, sipping his oolong tea, swirling the ice cubes around with his straw once he set it back down on the coaster. "It's that nobody's on when I'm on."
Sho frowned at him. "Well, that's because you keep strange hours. Like some kind of vampire. You always have."
Nino grinned. The two of them in the same dorm room had been kind of nuts - Sho waking early for his very full days of hitting the coffee, the books, and the gym, in that order. Nino staying up into the dead of night, wearing his headset while he crept around the Internet or bloody corridors in the latest shoot-em-up video game. Since they hadn't killed each other back then, it only made sense for them to become the best of friends.
"I swear, I logged on last week, and the place was a ghost town."
Sho sipped his coffee, unable to think of a protest just yet.
Sho had double majored in history and business administration at school, and Nino had opted for archaeology despite having little interest in spending the rest of his days breaking his back in the sun to dig up ancient garbage. Their mutual interest in the past had led them to a message board community on the Internet in their last year of undergrad.
Jidai Fusion Paradise was a real piece of work, attracting historical roleplayers from all over Japan as well as foreigners looking to practice their language skills. In the early days, most of the members of the community had played it straight - sticking to roleplaying with historical figures from their own time frame. Saigo Takamori hung around with Okubo Toshimichi and the other Meiji-era elites, Oda Nobunaga and Mori Ranmaru role-played sixteenth century samurai sex day in and day out.
Sho had always taken the community very seriously, and he had cast himself as some scholar from the Edo period, playing out lengthy scenes with his fellow nerds about how to best advise the shogun. He'd shown Nino a thread once that had taken fourteen days to complete, but had resulted in an in-depth set of laws governing currency circulation. Needless to say that Nino usually left Sho to his own devices on the boards.
Nino had watched Sho's obsession develop over the last few years as he ended up taking the job in Numazu that he hadn't really wanted, Nino following him to Shizuoka Prefecture from their homes in Tokyo. Sho was the perfect employee, running his branch office properly, but the disappointment his friend felt in not becoming some high-ranking civil servant weighed on him heavily. Thus developing currency circulation legalese in his free time. Again, it explained a lot about why Sho didn't get laid too often.
Nino had bounced around the boards before finally settling on Murasaki Shikibu. Since most people on the boards back then had been like Sho and heavily into Tokugawa shogunate-era bureaucratic snoozefests, Nino didn't post much. Roleplaying as a woman was the challenge Nino preferred. Females on the message boards tended to ignore the boys' club to portray females who were not historically likely to write up currency laws or spend a month negotiating with emissaries from the Joseon dynasty (who were actually Korean roleplayers trolling their board on purpose). Instead they typed out court intrigue and drama, emotion and depth of character, like a soap opera they constructed themselves.
He'd done his fair share of reading up on Murasaki, her life at court, the time she'd spent writing out the Tale of Genji. She appealed to Nino in a way that all the samurai and their honor codes never had. A difficult, intelligent woman isolated at court, jotting down her thoughts and observations. Nino was no psychology student, but he'd always been more of a reactive than active personality anyway. He and Murasaki just clicked.
Over time, though, Jidai Fusion Paradise had started to die off. Many of Sho's cohort left for other games or lost interest. The eras started to mix, historical accuracy flew out the window, and before Sho and Nino knew it, Prince Shotoku was leaping out of the 7th century to chat up some geisha in 18th century Kyoto. It mostly turned into a hook-up board, and Sho was always trying to get Nino to participate, if only to have a sounding board for his latest government reforms instead of someone trying to proposition him.
"I'm sick to death of Sakamoto Ryoma," Sho complained, setting down his coffee cup. "Bakumatsu bastard."
Nino held in a chuckle at Sho's outrage. An obvious troll had set up an account as Sakamoto Ryoma, leaving nasty "DOWN WITH THE SHOGUNATE!" threats across a bunch of Sho's threads, even threads he'd played out five years earlier.
"Maybe you should take a break. Or try a new era. Japan has a long and illustrious history, you know."
Sho glared at him, shoving the remainder of a brownie in his mouth.
"Or don't," Nino said, not wanting to rock the boat. The man was damn stubborn when it came to his shogunate fanboying. "Alright, tell me what's really wrong with you. This isn't about Jidai Fusion and you know it."
"There's nothing wrong with me," Sho said with a roll of his eyes, wiping chocolate from his mouth.
"I saw you close your office door the other day," Nino pointed out. "You can't hide from me, Sakurai."
Sho looked like he was going to vomit up the truth any moment, but he kept his mouth shut, munching on his pity snacks. As a rule of thumb, Sho always kept his office door open. Since he was rarely in it. There were only the four of them after all, since Numazu wasn't exactly a swinging place. Comparatively, Nino knew that the Tokyo office in Akasaka employed 500 people. They kept office hours when there weren't parties to work, which mainly involved Nino and Aiba wasting office supplies by covering an always tolerant Ohno head to toe with post-it notes while Sho made calls to customers to follow up on past and future events.
But a call had come in the other day, and Sho had closed his door. Either he'd been in there having phone sex (unlikely because it was Sakurai Sho) or something serious was going on. Nino didn't like Sho keeping secrets from him, so he kept picking at the scab.
"Did a customer cancel?"
Sho looked ready to strangle him. "No."
"Did the costume rental place yell at you about Tatsuo? Aiba didn't come inside the suit did he?"
"No," Sho said with a disgusted wrinkle of his nose.
Nino scratched his chin. "Was it your mom?"
"Nino..."
"So it was your mom!"
"It was not my mom. Don't talk about my mom."
"She's a wonderful woman. Appreciate her more, especially since you haven't given her any grandchildren yet."
Sho waved his hand desperately for the waiter again. "I didn't invite you out to talk about my mom. Or about my phone calls. I'm your boss, I don't have to tell you everything."
Nino smiled. He loved seeing Sho get flustered. The guy already had a round, adorable face, and when he was frustrated it seemed like he'd use those puffed out cheeks to huff, puff, and blow someone's house down. In the early days of their friendship, Nino had told Sho he'd be better off huffing, puffing, and blowing someone as a way of letting off steam, but Sho rarely accepted any advice Nino had to offer.
"Then why are we here?"
Sho sighed. "Because I'm supposed to reprimand you and make a note of it in your file. I'm meeting Aiba-kun for dinner tonight to officially reprimand him."
"Oh, he'll like that, Masaki will. He's a total M, if you didn't know," Nino said with a leer, and Sho flung his napkin at him.
"I'm supposed to reprimand you," Sho repeated, "for what you did at the party. I let you guys dick around, I always have, and honestly, I don't know why I keep letting you take advantage of me."
He was serious, Nino realized. Most of the time Sho's disciplinary measures involved Nino having to pay for Sho's car wash or Ohno having to pick up Sho's dry cleaning. Sho never wrote them up for anything. Nino sat up a little straighter in his chair as the waiter arrived with Sho's fortieth coffee of the day.
"Sho-chan," Nino said. "We were just caught up in things. I'm really sorry. Those kids were little beasts, and we didn't think..."
"That's the problem. You never think with anything but what's between your legs, Nino. The company rule book says you aren't even allowed to fraternize with co-workers outside of work functions, much less during one." Fraternize was one of the words Sho liked to use in place of 'fuck' because he was in management. "But I let you because I know this job sucks. I know it does. I don't care what you or Satoshi-kun or Aiba-kun do when we're not working an event. But this honestly cannot happen again, are we clear?"
"We're clear, Sho-chan," Nino said, wondering just what that phone call had been. How had anyone even found out? Or had Sho been questioned by the head office? He hated seeing Sho upset for legitimate reasons - message board shenanigans were hilarious, but Sho being in genuine distress was another thing entirely. "We're clear, I'm sorry."
"Thank you," Sho replied, downing his coffee despite the steam rising off it, if only to have something to occupy the next few seconds with instead of having to yell at Nino.
They sat in silence for a few moments, Nino stirring the rapidly melting ice cubes around simply to drown out the boring jazz music for a bit.
"Sho-chan..."
"What?"
"I'll sign on. For Jidai Fusion. I'll sign on tonight, okay? At normal hours. I'm here if you need me."
Sho looked down at his lap, a smile quirking at the corner of his lips. Now that he'd gotten out all his unpleasantness, his blood pressure was probably returning to normal. "That wouldn't be historically accurate."
"Well, fuck you then," Nino said, throwing his straw at him in mock anger. They finished up their drinks, Nino accepting the bill as penance for his on the job blowjob (even though it hadn't been seen through to its conclusion, and even now Nino was full of disappointment). They had another kid's party the following day. Maybe if he and Aiba just had a quick go before the party got started, things would clear up for the best.
**
While a Giants game made some pleasant noise in the background, Nino logged on to Jidai Fusion Paradise. To be completely fair, he'd lied to Sho when he said he'd logged on the week before. He hadn't been on the boards in at least three months, and he'd only logged on to empty out his message box - nothing but invites to cybersex. Nino had been tempted initially by these things - it was harmless fun, but then Nino remembered that he was roleplaying a woman and would have a hard time masturbating and typing out to his partner about his clit simultaneously. Kind of a disconnect.
So there were 63 messages in his box, and he deleted them en masse before cracking open a beer and getting himself comfortable. He had his laptop propped open on his table, the TV in easy view behind it. It had been ages since he'd started a post of his own. The last thread he'd been a part of was some high school bullying alternate universe thread where Sei Shonagon was the lead bully and the other Heian court ladies were her high school classmates. Murasaki had, of course, been the target of the bullying, and Nino hadn't had to stretch himself mentally for that one - he'd been bullied like crazy in school.
But the "Sei Shonagon is a real bitch" fest was long over, and he scrolled through the board, seeing what players were up to. He was creeped out by the "Samurai Sex Dungeon" post, an obvious orgy thread spanning the eras. He found Sho's latest threads, and they were mostly him talking to himself, adding in original characters to create his own story about a day in the park planning a banquet in the shogun's honor. Nino noted that User:sakamoto_ryoma was the last comment in the post, and he couldn't hold back a chuckle.
Finally, near the bottom of the first page of results, he found a post from a name he hadn't seen in a while. Then he noticed the number - it was a new one. The old one had left the community ages ago.
User:hattori_hanzo2
Subject:Looking 4 sum ninja friends
Nino smiled. Sho would probably cry at the sight of the great samurai Hattori Hanzo, savior of Tokugawa Ieyasu, looking for "sum ninja friends," and that gave Nino all the more reason to click on the post.
Subject:Looking 4 sum ninja friends
looking 2 transport a vip thru iga territory. r u man enuf to help me?
Of course, it would be impossible for Murasaki to not only leap forward in time five or six centuries, but she was a woman and the furthest from a ninja as one could get. And Sho would be pissed off to see Nino's user name in a post like that, breaking character and time frame. But Jidai Fusion Paradise was a dead zone. Nino figured he could always pop in on Sho's threads as the Ghost of Murasaki Shikibu, hunting down Sakamoto Ryoma for having bad taste in literature. From the looks of the main message board, lots of people were going alternate universe lately.
He clicked on the reply box, channeling Murasaki as best he could after three months. It mostly just came out as babble, but so did most of Sho's threads and he usually had a dozen history reference books opened around the room when he posted.
User:murasaki_shikibu
Good day, fair Master Hattori. Were I a man and possessed of such fighting skills as required, I should be thrilled and gladdened to participate in your adventure. Alas, I shall remain hidden here, cheering on your travails from afar. Perchance one day I shall recount your valor for all at court to hear. Good fortune to you in this endeavor. May you transport your charge with the utmost courage.
Looking back, he wasn't sure who the hell he sounded like, but because it looked like the Giants' pitcher was on his way to a no-hitter, Nino didn't much care about accuracy. He posted his reply and shut the lid on his laptop. After all, nobody could roleplay as horribly as Aiba had during the one week Sho had begged him to give it a try. User:commodore_perry had been booed out of the game because Aiba had simply gone to English language websites and copied out paragraphs of nonsense to post.
The game did end in a no-hitter, and Nino got up for a beer, checking the board once more. To his surprise, he already had a reply from Hattori Hanzo.
User:hattori_hanzo2
4get shining prince genji. im going to be shining prince hanzo. fufufufu. hey murasaki im sure i can swing down 2 kyoto and pick u up. nowhere in japan is out of the way 4 hattori hanzo.
Nino stared at the message, covering his mouth to hide his laughter. Historically accurate, no. Entertaining, quite possibly yes. He decided to play along. Any distraction from the party tomorrow would be helpful.
User:murasaki_shikibu
What a tempting offer, Master Hattori. Would that I could escape these inner palace walls, for the whispers and secrets of women hold little interest for me after these long years of service. A change of scenery, perhaps, would provide even more inspiration for writing...?
And then Hanzo was on him like Sho on a brownie, replying in less than a minute.
User:hattori_hanzo2
sounds great. lemme just skip 4ward a bit here fufu. so blah blah with the help of the iga clan i got my buddy tokugawa 2 safety. so now im on the road, hoping and praying ill reach u soon. got my spear so nobody gonna hold me back fufu.
User:murasaki_shikibu
I wrote for an extended period today, blessed as I was with several hours' peace and tranquility. That Master Hattori might soon be here in Heian-kyo is unthinkable. For many long years I have passed through life with these walls around me, all things in their ordered places. Yet the spontaneity promised me by Master Hattori has my heart beating strongly. I am eager to make his acquaintance.
And on it went, Nino laughing as he typed back and forth with the person who'd send the real Hattori Hanzo into fits in the afterlife. He hadn't had this much fun on Jidai Fusion in years, pining away in loneliness and isolation as Murasaki while Hattori spent his journey to Kyoto "poking at shit" with his "awesome spear."
Before he knew it, it was 4:30 in the morning, and he had to be awake in two hours' time. The party was way off in Komagane, a joint effort with the Nagoya branch office, and they had to leave early to drive around the mountains.
"Damn it," he said, blinking at his computer screen. He logged out and dragged himself onto the couch, hoping for at least some rest before he spent the remainder of the day handing out jello to screaming children.
PART TWO