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Nightclub at Daytime Chapter 21
Writer: Tacuma
Pairing: Perfect Pair
Chapter: 21/40 (probably)
Genre: AU, romance, angst, crime
Word count: 2515 words
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis
Previous Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20
Chapter 21
The day after the party, everybody was still enthusiastic. They had enjoyed themselves immensely and they wished for other evenings like that. In the living room they were talking about the night before.
'That party was seriously the best thing that happened in months,' laughed Gakuto. It was like he had enjoyed it the most of all.
'You should sing more often, Fuji,' said Nioh. 'You managed to get everybody in the mood to dance.'
Oishi had heard about the party as well and he disapproved. He had heard the loud music, the cheering and when he had come to watch what was happening he had noticed the party.
'We're not some kind of strip club or something, so you shouldn't act like we're such a club. You should behave.'
'Someone stripped?' asked Fuji. 'Too bad I missed that. Who of you was it? Let me, guess! That must have been Nioh?'
A few of the guys laughed while Nioh took a sexy pose, showing off his body.
'Who else could it be?' he asked. 'Am I not the most sexy of you all?'
More laughing. Others started to protest, saying they were much better looking than Nioh. Gakuto said that he preferred to see Fuji naked than Nioh, and some of the boys agreed.
'I'm sure Sengoku would like to see that!' laughed Eiji. 'He really fancies you! Did you see how badly he tried to dance with you last night?'
'Fuji, I won't let you be taken from me,' acted Nioh. He looked serious, but they all knew he was joking.
Fuji almost threw himself in the grey-haired man's arms. 'You know I would never leave you! You are my only one, Nioh! Forever.'
'That is enough!' said Oishi angrily. 'Stop this right now. This is giving a wrong impression to Ohtori. He thinks it is like this all the time. You should have shown what you really do, what your real job is!'
Everybody was a bit shocked by Oishi's sudden outburst. Fuji turned around and faced the other man. 'Aren't we allowed to have some fun once in a while? We're still young. We can never go to a normal club. If we didn't live here and didn't have to work, we would all have gone to a club to dance for at least once a week. You should be glad that once every few months is enough for us. And what does it matter that we had such a party? We enjoyed us, but the guests enjoyed themselves even more. I, and I know some others, got a lot of compliments about the dancing and people told me they loved the party.'
'People went home drunk!' said Oishi. 'That is not acceptable. It is dangerous. And the people who did not enjoy themselves will never come back.'
'Nobody left halfway, they all stayed, even when the party got a little wilder,' said Nioh. 'So I don't think there were people who didn't like it. The fact that they are rich business men doesn't mean they are stiff and serious people. They might like to act crazy once in a while as well. What is a better place than our club then? The only people whose see them here are the other guests who were acting insane as well. None of them will spoil it to the press, because the press will wonder how they know about it.'
'If we weren't allowed to have a party once in a while, would Tezuka have accepted it?' asked Fuji. 'Tezuka, the stoic, expressionless man? He doesn't look like a person who likes to party like we did yesterday. But he did allow it. Talk to him if you don't like it that we partied. He is the only one who could have stopped it.'
'I allowed it indeed,' answered Tezuka who entered the living room. Fuji wondered how much the man had heard. Had he heard the he called him expressionless? Fuji hoped he didn't.
'I only allowed it because the guests last night were people who seemed to like a little party as well. Inui-san and Yanagi-san might not look like they enjoyed it, but they only care about data and it seemed they got some interesting data last night. This is not something we will repeat every week or even every month. If you want a party you can have one on Monday. Ohtori, you can come to take another look tonight. Then you will see what an evening at the club really is about. Fuji, Nioh, I want you to show more respect to Oishi. He is your superior.'
'If he is our superior, shouldn't he keep us happy?' asked Fuji. 'For me he really spoiled the happy mood.'
'Fuji,' said Tezuka with a warning tone in his voice.
'Alright, alright,' said Fuji. 'I will! Can't even say what I think in this place.'
He walked out of the living room and went outside. He hated being restricted in any way.
'Now you know why he is a freelance photographer,' said Nioh with a smirk. 'He can't work for a boss. He wants to be free. He will learn, he will have to learn, but I think you guys should understand he gets more and more trouble with being here. He flew around the world before he ended up here. Now he hasn't been out of Tokyo for months. He isn't used to that.'
'Fuji wants people to listen to him,' said Eiji. 'He is smart and he comes up with good ideas. Even if someone is superior, Fuji thinks people should still listen to each other.'
They heard the door slammed shut. Fuji had left the house and walked into the park. Tezuka could see him walk from where he stood.
'He will have to get used to it. He will be here for a few more years if he doesn't find another way to pay his debt.'
Tezuka left the room and went back to work. The others left as well, not interested in talking about last night anymore. They all went their own way and did whatever they wanted to do. Oishi tried to explain Ohtori how the club normally worked and said it would all become much clearer tonight when they would have a normal evening at the club.
When it was almost three everybody gathered for lunch. Momoshiro was hungry and impatiently he waited for the others to arrive. One by one they entered the dining room, while Kaidoh finished the last things of the lunch. Within a few minutes everybody had arrived, except for Fuji.
'Has anybody seen him?' asked Oishi.
'Not after your fight,' answered Nioh. Most of them had went to their own room and hadn't seen Fuji anymore.
'Can't we eat without him?' asked Momoshiro. He didn't like waiting any longer.
'No, we wait a little longer,' said Oishi.
Kaidoh served the food, but everybody waited, not allowed to eat yet. They didn't dare to disobey Oishi after Tezuka's words about respecting superiors. Oishi might not be so scary, but Tezuka was.
When they had waited five more minutes Momoshiro started complaining again. He almost begged if he could finally eat and managed to convince Oishi. He allowed them to start eating and the spiky-haired young man attacked the food. The others started eating as well. They were also hungry and they didn't feel like waiting. Everybody, except Oishi. He thought it was his fault that Fuji wasn't here. It scared him. Fuji had tried to run away before. He might be gone, with no intention to return. Oishi left the dining room. He couldn't eat. He went upstairs and knocked on the door of Tezuka's office.
'Tezuka, Fuji hasn't come back,' he said worried. 'He didn't show up at lunch and nobody has seen him since he left.'
Tezuka sighed and stood up. He had his lunch earlier than the others, so he was already done. He had a lot to do, but he was the only one who could look for Fuji right now.
'You go back to lunch, eat something,' ordered Tezuka. 'I'll go outside and see if I can find him. There will be so much trouble waiting for him if he tried to run away again.'
Oishi went back to the dining room and Tezuka left the house. He first went to the park. Fuji was only allowed to go to that place on his own. Maybe, just maybe he would still be there and had he forgotten about the time. Tezuka sure hoped so. He didn't like to punish the employees.
He walked through the small park. It took only a few minutes to walk from one side to the other and he could search every crook and canny in only ten minutes. So he started in one corner and slowly walked to the other side. Somewhere halfway he found Fuji sitting against a tree. He was hugging his knees and laid his head on top of it. Tezuka sighed again. He didn't really know how to react when the employees were like that. They never really had those troubles. Normally he would send Oishi, but at the moment it might be better to keep the worrywart away from Fuji. Tezuka walked closer.
'Fuji,' he said. When the honey-brown haired man didn't look up he spoke again. 'Fuji, are you alright?' he asked. He kneeled down next to him. Fuji looked up at him. Tezuka was glad there weren't tears in his eyes, but he did look like he was sad.
'Are you angry about what I said?'
Fuji shook his head.
'About what Oishi said?'
Again a shake of the head.
'Then what?' asked Tezuka, not really knowing why else Fuji could be angry. To his surprise Fuji sat up straight. Tezuka sat down next to him, leaning against the tree as well, so they didn't have to look each other in the eyes the whole time.
'It's this entire situation,' answered Fuji. 'This whole freaking situation! I wish I could go home, but there is no home to return to.'
'What do you hate so much about the situation?' asked Tezuka. 'Is there anything we can do to make it better?' He remembered that Eiji had said Fuji wanted people to listen, no matter if they were superior or not.
'I don't think you can do anything about it,' spoke Fuji. 'This situation is just completely different from the way I lived before the yakuza took me. Nioh said that I'm a freelance photographer for a reason, right? He is right. I told him about my job when he asked about it a while ago. I used to work for some popular magazines and they paid me well for those photos. I hardly had to pay any rent, so I had a lot of money to do things I liked. I used to go to places all around the world to make pictures there. I've been in Australia, America and Europe. I've seen so many things. I made plenty of photos when I was there and sold them to the magazines when I returned. I got paid more for such photos, which gave me enough money to fly to another country.'
For a second Fuji looked at Tezuka and he sighed.
'I was almost more often away from home than that I was here in Tokyo,' he continued. 'When I was in Japan, it was in the beautiful places of Hokkaido or on the islands in the South, like Okinawa. I have photographed most of the big cities in Japan. I travelled past them by train, staying only for a day before travelling to the next. I knew one day I wouldn't be able to go on a journey whenever I wanted, but I hadn't imagined it would be this way. Being able to travel through Tokyo might be a lot of freedom for some of the guys here, after what they have been through, but for me it feels like prison. It's hard not to be able to go wherever you want to go whenever you want to. So unless you want to pay me a ticket to Hawaii, I don't think there is anything you can do for me.'
Fuji laughed softly about his own joke, but Tezuka thought he only laughed to hide his misery. Compared to what others went through restricted freedom didn't seem so bad, but for a free soul like Fuji it was probably more punishment than entertaining people at the club.
'There is indeed not much I can do,' answered Tezuka. 'You can save the money you earn with your photos and use it to pay off your debt. That way you can leave here earlier.'
'I can do that,' said Fuji. 'I could pay you with the money on my bank account if I could find a way to get access to it, but that isn't the only problem. I still would have no place to go. I would first have to find myself another cheap apartment and get contact the travel agencies and magazines that buy my photos again. It still wouldn't be the same.'
Tezuka expected that there was more than just the travelling, but that Fuji didn't want to talk about it. A cheap apartment was hard to find indeed, especially in Tokyo, but Fuji would be able to find it. There were other problems.
'Can I offer you something else then?' asked Tezuka. 'It might look small compared to travelling to Europe, but what about going to Osaka for a day?'
'To meet Yukimura?' asked Fuji surprised. He didn't think Tezuka would know about it. When Tezuka nodded, Fuji smiled. 'That would be fun. It's been a while since we've seen him. Wait… can all of us go or just me?'
'All of you,' answered Tezuka. 'If I let you go I will get a lot of complaints from others who want to go see Yukimura as well.'
Fuji laughed. 'Then you just say you like me best and that I'm the only one who deserves going, because I'm such a good entertainer.'
Tezuka smiled. It seemed like Fuji already felt better. His laughs and smiles were real again and not the fake ones he had showed before.
'I'm not sure if they will all agree with that, so we should just invite them as well. I'll arrange everything and hopefully we can go Monday next week.'
'You have Yukimura's contact information?' asked Fuji.
'I have it, somewhere,' answered Tezuka. 'I'll make sure you can all meet him, alright? Now, let's go back inside. You must be hungry.'
'Not really,' answered Fuji. 'If I was I wouldn't have skipped lunch. I'm sure Momoshiro already ate my part now.'
Laughing they walked back to the house. The others were surprised to see the two of them so happy. They asked Fuji all kinds of questions about what happened, but Fuji didn't say a word about their little trip next week.
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You made my day! :)))
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