Chapter Text
“I don’t know, guys,” muttered Yagami, stretching a feathered, brunette wig between his hands. “Aren’t I a bit old to be a host?”
“Nonsense,” grunted Kaito, arms crossed. “You’re gorgeous and you know it.”
Yagami felt his ears get warm and looked down at the wig. “Don’t you think somebody like Higashi would be better fit?”
“I’m not doing it,” snapped Higashi from his place at the computer.
“Aw. But you’d be so cute.”
“And besides, it says here that she favors the…older type,” continued Higashi, ignoring him. “Whatever that means.”
“DILF hunter, gotcha,” chuckled Sugiura, emboldened by the fact he was not going to be asked to do this.
“I do not want to know!” Barked Higashi.
“Wouldn’t Kaito-san be more appropriate, then?” Yagami smiled, not missing the flash of terror in Kaito’s eyes. “I’m not exactly…DILF material.” He glared at Sugiura and Hoshino, hiding a chuckle behind their laptops.
“Tabo, don’t worry.” Kaito planted his hands on his shoulders, pinning him in place. “You’ll be perfect. If Saori-chan could be Kamurocho’s number one hostess, then so will you. They’ll make you look like you just got hired at Stardust, right guys?”
“It’s Blue Lightning, not Stardust. That place has gotten freaky in the past few years. But fine.” He handed the wig to Hoshino, who was vibrating with excitement. “Make me Kamurocho’s number one host.”
***
The DILF hunter they were set on luring was none other than Michiru Kitagawa, a cabinet member who had secured herself a minor player spot in the dealings of post-3K Kamurocho, undoubtedly because of ties with the Omi Alliance.
However, in the wake of the sudden Omi dissolution, more than a few of her former associates had turned up floating in the sewers, and Yagami wanted to know why.
Ayabe hadn’t quite asked for help, but he had worked himself ragged in the past two years trying to keep Kaito, Higashi and the rest of the disbanded Matsugane family safe from both yakuza infighting and the police crackdowns. And now, at least five of his regular contacts had gone missing or had been found dead. He looked more haggard than usual, spent too much time chasing down his informants, slept way too often in Yagami’s office instead of his apartment, and they all worried he’d get caught in the crossfire sooner rather than later.
It wasn’t even that Yagami felt he owed him, even if the fake papers he’d gotten for Kaito had been a nice “glad you’re finally together you idiots” gift. Ayabe was one of them now, whether he wanted it or not. And during the past few years in this city that felt more and more alien and hostile, Yagami had gotten fiercely protective of the little ragtag gang he called his family.
***
He had to admit it, for as much as he’d tried to downplay his skill on men, Hoshino had done an incredible job, and had been informative enough Yagami was confident he could repeat the steps tomorrow night, and for how many nights it was going to take until he got his hooks into Kitagawa.
On the other hand, there were about a million steps, and so many products, and the blue contacts made his eyes ache. How did hosts do this every night?
But on the other, other hand, Kaito had gone quiet somewhere halfway through the entire process, and had been staring, in an increasingly unsubtle manner. Yagami let his hips roll loosely as he rounded up on him on the couch after locking the apartment door and Kaito followed every. Single. Sway.
“Like what you see, sir?” he said, his voice in that range all the hosts seemed to speak in, sultry and playful without being threatening. Like a princely character from an anime. It was harder than it looked, and Yagami secretly hoped Kitagawa liked bad boys.
Kaito leaned back into the backrest, knees spread wide for Yagami to stand between. “Maybe. But I think you might be out of my budget, Shinji-kun.”
Yagami daintily sat on Kaito’s thigh, fluttering his curled lashes and twirling a bleached lock of wig on his finger. “Well…I could make an exception...just for tonight…”
Kaito’s hand on his back was less about stabilizing him and more about getting to his ass. Which Yagami enabled by climbing onto his lap, straddling him as the old couch creaked indignantly under them.
“Shinji-kun, will I get in trouble with your club for this?” grinned Kaito, his hands palming at Yagami’s back and legs through his white, tacky suit.
“I haven’t been hired yet,” growled Yagami on his lips. “So just for tonight? You can go wild.”
“That’s good, because that’s what those blue contacts make me feel,” he said, and kissed him like a man starved.
Even to the most complex of undercover jobs there were upsides, Yagami supposed.
***
Being a host was exhausting. After a week, Yagami swore that he’d take the bar exam a dozen times over having to entertain another handsy office lady, especially since Kitagawa had not shown up at the club at all. He did get some valuable information from the other hosts, though— and even a few pleasant closing times of chatting and going for a drink.
Kaito may have complained about him stumbling in at sunrise but the Shinji getup still made him borderline feral, so he also quickly forgot about his grievances in favor of covering him in kisses, which made the long shifts a lot more bearable.
The top host of the club, a true prince type with perfect hair and deep, dark eyes by the name of Izumi-kun, seemed cold but pleasant. Probably a little annoyed by how popular Yagami was, both with customers and the younger hosts. But he was still politely forthcoming enough when asked about Kitagawa and her...preferences...for the older professionals. Didn’t seem suspicious, so he probably wasn’t associated with her in that way.
Yagami tried to ignore his vague hostility. He just needed to get to the lady herself one, maybe a couple of times, and he’d leave Izumi to rule his roost as much as he wanted. Besides, he was used to people being vaguely hostile at him with no real reason, and most of them weren’t nice enough to passive-aggressively offer to fix his hair midway through the night when his wig got snagged in a girl’s bangle.
Ironically, when Kitagawa finally showed up, she requested both of them, ever-greedy. And just as well, because without Izumi’s example on how to politely and handsomely deflect her frankly embarrassing advances, it would have been a nightmare. More of a nightmare than it already was. They spent so much time refilling her glass and trying not to get groped, Yagami had barely time to get a question in edgewise. She was very keen on mentioning how many powerful friends she had but also surprisingly careful not to name names, no matter how much (not top shelf, just expensive enough to look posh) booze Yagami tipped into her glass. And she extended their time. Twice.
It was almost three in the morning when she finally left, and Yagami felt wrung out like an old towel. Izumi even had a single lock of hair out of place, gently curling on his forehead.
“I’m going on break,” he croaked, stepping past him with an exhausted sigh.
Yagami followed. He figured, at worst he was going to get yelled at, and really, there were some things that just created a bond with other men. Like being groped by a drunk political cougar for two hours straight. Izumi was out back, crouched against the wall by the smoking spot, looking as exhausted as Yagami felt.
Yagami lit a cigarette, and quietly offered the pack to Izumi. After a beat, he reached out for one and let Yagami light it.
“Thanks,” he exhaled with a puff of smoke. It was almost like looking at a different person, the top host and consummate prince-for-hire Izumi was....deactivated, almost fully offline. All that remained was just a guy who really wanted to go home and take a hot bath.
“Long night, huh?”
Izumi took a long drag, and let it out slowly. “I’m almost kinda glad you were there tonight. She’s usually more insistent when I’m alone.”
“More insistent? Is that even possible?”
Izumi made a disgusted noise. “She’s been coming here since... I wanna say last year? Very rude to the younger hosts, always demanding to see some real men.” He snorted. “If she wants real men, she should get down to Stardust, is what I say.”
Yagami chuckled.
“She’s been trying to get me to agree to a private date for at least a year now. Keeps bragging about her famous and important friends, flashing the money in her wallet. Really crass.”
“And I assume you’ve always refused?”
“Of course! I am great at private dates, just so you know!”
“I’m sure.”
He sighed. “But...I know better than going on a date with her. I know her type. She’d try to drag me to a love hotel and then try to get me fired using her powerful friends or whatever once I refused.”
“Classy.”
Izumi crushed the cigarette on the concrete between his feet. “On more than one occasion she’s bragged about having ties to the Chief Commissioner and the Om—you know, the yakuza that took over in the past couple years?”
“Hmm. Heard of ‘em,” lied Yagami.
“Back in the day she’d tell anybody who’d listen, but recently she’s been naming names a lot less. I’m still not going to chance it.”
“The cops or the yakuza?”
“Either.”
They both laughed, and Izumi straightened on his feet, smoothing his shirt and tightening his tie. Online again. He delicately tucked the stray lock of hair back into formation with the back of his fingers. “Well. Back to it, yeah?”
Yagami waited until he was back inside before pulling out his phone and writing down everything, sending it to Sugiura before going back inside as well.
An ex-Tojo man turned up dead the next morning, somebody formerly associated with the Matsugane family, so Yagami felt it was safer not to go back to Blue Lightning that night. He was sure Izumi was happy to be the top of the pecking order again.
***
Yagami slid quietly behind a cafè sign, eyes trained on the neatly pinned hair of his target. Spotting Kitagawa out in Kamurocho was not something that happened every day, especially now.
Yagami left his hiding spot as she progressed down Park Avenue, ambling casually towards a restaurant to pretend to look at the menu outside.
Just as he moved away, already eyeing a hiding spot in his peripheral vision, something whistled past his ear, leaving a sharp sting across his cheek, startling him so much he lost track of Kitagawa.
Did somebody shoot him in broad daylight?
But it wasn’t a bullet. Embedded between the cobblestones of Hills Garden was a red rose.
What the actual fuck, he had time to think before a shrill voice from behind him called him a name it took him a moment to respond to.
“We meet again at last, Shinji-kun.”
He whipped around. “There has to be a mistake. I’m not—”
“Don’t even try to deny it. You’re Shinji, aren’t you?” Standing before him in expensive clothes, his hair flawless, was the absolute last person Yagami was expecting to run into today.
“Izumi-kun,” he said, hands out, trying to defuse the situation. He wasn’t sure if their target was still in earshot, and the last thing he needed was a blown cover. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You could say that, but I’m not really…” He glanced at the small gaggle of fashionable young girls that had finally joined Izumi, looking apprehensively at him as he bristled. “I’m not a host. I’m a detective.”
“You,” growled Izumi. “You make a mockery of our profession.”
“That’s not true, I’m just not…like that.”
But Izumi was not listening anymore, shrugging off his coat and handing it to one of the hostesses. “Hold this, Mami-chan. Wouldn’t want the Ralph Lauren to get traitor blood on it. It’s so dreadfully hard to get out of cashmere.”
Yagami groaned, lowering into a fight stance. Curse the day he’d let them convince to go undercover as a host.
“Aya-chan. The wine,” Izumi ordered. The blonde hostess on his left removed a full-size bottle of wine from her bag and handed it to him.
***
Izumi squinted at the bottle in his hands. The aged pinot noir he’d spent an entire week’s earnings on.
“Darling, I want the clobbering wine, not the drinking wine,” Izumi said, making sure Aya had a good grip on the bottle before letting go.
“Oh… right,” she stammered, swapping it out for the bottle of convenience store swill he kept just for times like these.
That’s right, Shinji-kun, you’re about to get showered in exactly what you deserve. He closed in on Shinji, raising the bottle to swing.
“I recommend this one, it pairs perfectly with your face!”
Shinji side-stepped his first attempt. He wasn’t so lucky the second time, stumbling over a sign advertising a café he spotted a split second too late. Izumi spun out of the way as the bottle connected with Shinji’s left shoulder. Red liquid stained Shinji’s white T-shirt and ran down his stupid leather jacket and skin. Izumi hoped a bit of it was blood. Shinji tumbled backward, landing on his back, but before Izumi could make another move, Shinji sprung up from the ground.
“Oh, so first you’re a host, then you’re a detective, and now you’re Jackie Chan?” Izumi hissed, pushing down the memories of lying on the gym floor, defeated by this one thing, forever doomed to have to sit up first.
Izumi dodged a spinning kick this wannabe Sherlock Holmes definitely shouldn’t have been able to pull off in jeans that tight. A gleam caught his eye before he had time to be annoyed at how shapely Shinji’s legs were. A wallet chain? Is he for fucking real right now?
“You wanna tell me what this is abou—” Izumi’s punch glanced off Shinji’s raised forearm “—before you throw more drinks on me?”
“And why should I do that?” Izumi retorted, attempting a feint attack to get through Shinji’s guard.
Shinji, always too clever, stopped him on both fronts. “I dunno, isn’t your face pretty important to your work? Wouldn’t want anything to happen to it, right?”
“Your idea of getting me to stop fighting you is patronizing me?” A lesser man might have spat. But Izumi was anything but a lesser man, and this was about honor, so Izumi went for a low, sweeping kick. Shinji regained his footing and did some kind of bullshit flip jump off the wall. Izumi jumped out of the way.
“Isn’t it obvious why I’m doing this?” Izumi shouted.
“No? It’s really not?”
“Aren’t you a detective?” Speaking of which. Izumi had some detective work of his own to do— he circled in closer to Shinji, squinting at his effortless, fluffy mop of hair. So what’s the truth, Shinji? This a wig too?
His thoughts of bald Shinji, fool of fools, made his next strike overconfident. Just missed. Leaving him open to a flurry of kicks from Shinji’s woefully creased sneakers in a largely incomprehensible move Izumi dubbed “Bitch Tornado.”
Aptly named, it hurt like a bitch. Izumi hit the pavement tailbone-first, groaning.
***
Yagami’s eyes darted around, looking for something, anything to get Izumi to reconsider talking. Blonde lady’s hot pink leather handbag. Bingo. Yagami swooped in, lifting it off her arm.
“Can I borrow this for a second? Thanks.”
“Hey, give that back!” she yelled.
Izumi was back on his feet again. The handbag tugged at Yagami’s hand. Just how much stuff was even in here? Yagami reached in, hand closing around glass and cork.
“Izumi, I got your fancy wine. Keep fighting me and who knows what could happen to it? I’ve gotten pretty good at Drunken Master style.”
Izumi huffed. “Oh, so now you’re stooping to extortion?”
“Legally speaking, this isn’t extortion, since—”
“Oh my god, are you a lawyer too?”
“Let’s not get into that. So, tell me. Why did you ambush me? The Sailor Scouts decide they have it out for me?”
“A lawyer and a comedian! What can’t Shinji-kun do?” Izumi paused his speech and his extravagant pacing for effect. “I’ll tell you! He can’t keep his word! The bonds we forged on the club floor, day in and day out on the honorable path of service, the brotherhood hosts share… It all means nothing to Shinji-kun.” He accented the name drop with a pointing gesture so dramatic Yagami wondered how this guy could be real.
“What?” Yagami managed, the actual meaning of Izumi’s words finally hitting him behind all the anime villain bluster. “Oh.”
“And what do you have to say for yourself, Shinji-kun?”
"I know how this looks. I know I was supposed to come in last Friday, and instead I disappeared with no trace. I’m sorry, genuinely.”
Izumi’s meticulously shaped brows remained knitted together.
“Easy for you to say. You left me high and dry with Kitagawa-san! She extended the session so many times, too. And the worst part was she kept asking about you!” Izumi’s voice shot up to falsetto. “Isn’t Shinji-kun working tonight? Where’s Shinji-kun?” He sighed. “I don’t even like the lady! Nor do I care what she thinks of me, but I can’t say it felt good.”
“Well, it might make you feel a little better to know the reason I didn’t show and the reason she kept asking for me are the same.”
“Huh?”
“So remember what I said about being a detective earlier? The only reason I applied at Blue Lightning was to go undercover and gather more information on Kitagawa. A lot of interesting things have been happening around her, recently, and it seemed like this was a viable way to get at her. Only, she caught on to me. So there was no way I could show my face in that club again.”
Izumi blinked. “So it was all a misunderstanding?” He fixed his already-perfect hair, staring at the broken glass on the ground. "… I'm the one who should be apologizing."
Yagami shrugged. "Actually, it would more than make it up to me if you could help me out and tell me anything you know about Kitagawa-san. You said she's been requesting you for a while, right?"
Izumi steepled his fingers together. "Yeah. I think I could help you. Although, in my opinion, she should be imprisoned first and foremost for those God-awful glasses."
Yagami chuckled. "You want your wine back? You've more than earned it."
Izumi accepted the bag, turning to hand it off to the blonde hostess.
Yagami presented him with a business card. "We can figure out when it would be a good time to meet and discuss this somewhere safer."
Izumi’s hand disappeared into his blazer with the card and reappeared again with a flick of his wrist. Between two manicured fingers he held out a glossy photo print of himself, dark eyes staring through the camera past the delicate pink lilies he held in front of his lips. “Izumi”, “Blue Lightning’s #1”, and a phone number were handwritten in neat silver Sharpie in an unobtrusive corner.
“You’ve got this down to an art, huh?”
Izumi nodded, pleased with himself. “Yeah. I do them in series where I take a bunch of different photos. Some of my customers have gotten obsessed with collecting all the different ones. Lucky you, the flower ones are pretty rare.”
Yagami grinned. “Noted. I’ll be in touch, then.”
He stopped mid-turn at Izumi’s voice. “Shinji— one more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you always dress like that, or is it another detective disguise?”
“Pretty much. Do you always throw flowers at people you’re attacking?”
Izumi smirked. “Only the cute ones.”
“Hah. And, by the way. It’s Yagami. Takayuki Yagami.”
“Until we meet again, Yagami.”
