A/N: Back to another chapter story, ladies and gents. It'll be shortish–ten chapters at most–but I'm still hesitating about the update basis. Two weeks? Three? I guess it'll depend on how fast my researches are on that other chaptered ShinRan mystery story I've got in store.
So yeah. AU, again (I'm doing a lot of these lately, ain't I?). Spacetime location–San Francisco (I like the sound, is all)–The early Twenties. I like this era. Twenties slang is hilarious. Speaking of which, English not being my first language, I'm not quite certain whether or not some of these expressions are still used nowadays–and there are some that are vintage Twenties. I'll make a footnote of most of them.
Chappie dedicated to ami-chan, for her wonderful, kick-ass review in Faint Glimmerings. I believe I've never seen such a long review. –glomps– and loads of thanks and cookies to all the wonderful people who reviewed Lawyer's Problem (so long) and Faint Glimmerings. Waking up to you on Christmas morning was a treat.
Disclaimer–The DC/MK cast is all Gosho Aoyama's. I own nothin'.
-o-
One For Sorrow
-o-
One, two, three, four.
The partners move, shifts and changes, legs and arms sweeping, quickening pace. The Charleston.
The music hasn't started yet.
The partners change, closed position, hand clasped to hand, palm to palm, shoulder to shoulder. The movements are slow and breezy, a promise of stealth with them. Eight times, a pause, a stop. Change partners. Eight times, a pause, a stop.
The partners change–again–hand on back, shoulderblade, shoulder, biceps, chest. Left foot back, right foot up–one, two–left foot up, right foot back–three, four. Right foot up, left foot back–five, six–right foot back, left foot up–seven, eight.
The partners change, stand up, repeat the basic steps–one and two and three and four–hand clasped to hand, palm to palm, five and six, seven and eight. One step up, one step back, shifting weight, one step back, one step up.
The basic step repeats, a slow-building motion as the partners move, deft and skilled. One, two. Skip. Three, four. Turn. Five, six. Change. Seven, eight.
Two open their eyes, blue to blue, black to black, full-blowing grin to suspicious stare. Full stop.
-o-
January 1stOnce inside, down the short, lightless flight of steps, the place feels like polish wax and Charleston and jazz, the scent of cheap, illegal liquor. Workmen. A few couples. It is not crowded, the sound of voices agreeably hushed down to a nearly-whisper by the playing band on the estrada, lights subdued just so subtly, ever so innocuously.
It has been a good day. The bar has sold properly from as early as six o'clock. Lunchtime has brought in a fair portion of the hands who started hammering on the clock tower two blocks down, and a few late New Year partygoers have started reiterating last night's festivities all over again in a well-provided corner. This is not the lush, richly-furnished, alcohol-permitted downtown clubs, but it certainly isn't a speakeasy, either, and it's decent enough for two girls to come alone and order drinks and avoid any disturbance.
"Alright," Aoko says, and takes off her wintercoat, tugging on her knee-length skirt's rim to sit after a beaming, old gentleman has shown them to a slim, brown-wooded table. "Tell me the worst. You're pregnant."
"What? No." Akako huffs and lights a cigarette, but doesn't lift it to her red-painted lips.
"You're going up the middle aisle without telling me. Or making me a bridesmaid. Or even a witness. Akako-chan, I'm shocked."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Should I be?" Aoko asks mildly, and is answered to by a toss of Akako's elegantly bobbed hair. This time she does raise her cigarette, the butt of which reddening to match her lipstick and nails. Aoko grins slyly at her.
"You drag me out of my lodgings and all the way to here, which by the way is so obviously not one of your usual places, and sulk all through the tram trip, and it's just supposed to be a drinking outing between friends on New Year's day."
Akako glares at her. "So?"
"Well, I don't drink, Holmes."
She crosses her arms, fingers holding the cigarette waving it in a semblance of flappery flippancy. "It doesn't matter. Never mind. He's not even here–" and Aoko directly inches closer, teeth baring delightedly, rather in the manner of cats.
"He. You brought me here for a guy?" She ignores Akako's indignant spluttering and continues steadily on– "Well. Well, well, well–Nakamichi is not going to be pleased–what kind of sheik could have caught your eye?"
"He's a sap," Akako exhales as she speaks, but even through the thin veil of grey smoke Aoko sees her turned cheek tinged with faint red.
She ignores that, too, and props her chin atop her hands, grinning. "When did you meet him?"
"On Christmas Eve, if you must know," Akako snaps, glaring some more. "He gave the card of this place, said he worked there, asked if I'd come. Dumb. Of course I had other business to care about than to–"
"–come here hardly a week after he's asked you in," Aoko completes sententiously.
"–he's not even here anyway," Akako goes on unheedingly, "oh gods yes he is." She takes in a deep, nicotine-flavoured breath and very pointedly does not look at the bar. Aoko peers at it interestedly.
"There're two of them," she observes. "One dark one blond. Which?"
"Blond," Akako hisses through her teeth.
An interesting little inspection-filled pause ensues. "… you could have chosen worse," is the final verdict. "He's cute. Ish. In a Brit kind of way. He's watching you, you know." He is, very much so, and his dark-haired friend is laughing his head off.
Akako shrugs, stubs out her cigarette, and lights another. Aoko scowls at her. "You shouldn't smoke so mu–"
The kind, beaming old gentleman sweeps back, forwards, and asks if they like to order anything. Akako demands a brandy and salad.
"Fruit juice for me," Aoko says, and waits for the inevitable laughter and teasing, but the old waiter simply smiles a little wryly and says, Yes, of course; What kind of juice should the young lady want? "Uh. Grape?"
With a comical little bow he writes it seriously down and sweeps briskly away, back in the general direction of the bar and its two bartenders, one fair one dark.
Akako is silent and smoking. The bar is filing. The band is playing more enthusiastically now, fine, rough jazz bouncing on the underground walls and filling the room with gold-touched notes, the trumpet and the saxophone. A few couples have begun to dance, a frantic fox-trot all sweeping hands and legs and quickening pace.
Aoko watches, idly, the blond bartender. He is cute in his own peculiar way, and it's really no surprise Akako should be interested–he's just her type if anything. He looks like a darb, though. Too serious. Akako is the early flapper, bobbed hair and shirt skirt and lots of make-up–even though she's long past nineteen now she certainly isn't looking into matrimony. She has hinted, once or twice, that it might be nice finding some wealthy old bird to rely upon, but an out-of-money bartender can scarcely fit the picture.
The dark-haired bartender disentangles himself from the crowd and saunters close–he's looked lanky from afar, but he's lean and tall really, in those black clothes–his eyes, as he stops by, are blue and amused.
"'Evening!" is his bright greeting. "I've got a, let me see, brandy and salad for one of you–" his eyes flick to Akako, who limply exhales a thin plume of smoke and inclines her head in a Red Queen fashion, "–there's a note from that friend of mine under the glass if you care to read it. Grape juice?"
There is laughter in his voice and laughter lines at the corner of his mouth.
"I don't drink alcohol," Aoko says testily, while he sets the glass down. She takes the straw he hands her and pinches at the paper to tear it. In front of her, Akako is doing a great job of staring thin-lipped at the neatly-folded note, as though wondering whether or not she should burn a hole into it with her cigarette end.
"Good for you," the bartender remarks. "Much as could be expected from a bull's daughter."
Aoko blinks. "You–"
He just smiles.
-o-
From there the conversation naturally escalates from Aoko's father to Aoko's father's work to Aoko's father's troubles with said work and said daughter.
"You see," Aoko explains, blowing listlessly in her straw, "I perfectly understands that he needs to boss around to Force to catch those bootleggers, but that doesn't mean he has to boss everybody else around, too. Doesn't mean he has to boss me around, too."
"The proper woman talk again?" says Akako dispassionately as she picks her way through her salad.
"Yeah. He's frustrated because he can't do anything about the bootleg system, and so he comes homes and decides to take it out on me. He knows what my position about this all is, but he just. Won't. Listen. He paces the room to and fro and makes disobliging remarks about my manner of living and my code of dress–"
"My dear girl, that's what dappers are for," Akako shoots in. "He should be glad you don't smoke. Or drink."
"Or go to nightclubs," Aoko says drily. "Yes, he should be, shouldn't he? He's seeing too many flappers while he's touring the juice joints, and he thinks I'm becoming one of them. He hates 'em. Thinks they're all molls."
"Yeah? He hasn't managed to do anything about the bootleg circuit, then?"
"No… he's arresting minor slip-ups, but he can't get through to the head. The thing is, when one of their dispensers is getting too closely spied upon by the police, they sever all ties, and there always are more ready to do the job. It's a spider's work. Threads, threads, threads."
"I always thought Prohibition was getting a tad bit too far."
"It's not that. My dad's simply obsessed with work. He won't get any rest 'till he catches them all, and I doubt they'll ever allow him to. You should be more careful, by the way. The Nakimichi crowd–Dad says they're on the fire line now."
"I'm not a gangster's girl," Akako observes direly.
"I know you're not. You're a bartender's girl. What did the note say?"
(Akako has finally read it, flushed, and tucked it away without a word.) "Nothing of importance. He says he hopes I'll find the food to my convenience. I just asked for a salad, and look–since when are there chicken bits in simple bars' salads?"
"He likes you."
"Well, I do not and that's flat." She furiously impales two lettuce leaves.
The blond bartender, eventually, gathers his guts and comes forwards to ask her to dance. Akako needs little convincing–an under-table kick in the shins does the trick pretty well–and lets herself be led away onto the middle of the floor.
The trumpet chooses that moment to strike one single, silver note. Aoko laughs.
"Cuties, aren't they?" the dark-haired bartender asks behind her, as he comes up with a tray. "Done with your drink?"
Aoko wordlessly hands him her glass.
"He's gone completely soft about her, you know," he prattles on, piling up plates from adjacent tables. "He came back a week ago saying he'd found the love of his live at the other of a dead soldier. I thought he was lit. He wasn't, though. Looks like she asked him for a drink."
"She's keen on him, too," Aoko says. "Usually she's completely shameless about guys, but here she won't even admit she likes him. That usually means she's serious."
"Happened often before?"
"It did once. We were fifteen."
"Looks like Hakuba's chances are high."
She eyes him warily. "And how you reached that conclusion I don't want to know." She takes him in, vague eyes, vague grin, vague poise of the hands at the back of Akako's empty chair. "You're jazzed, aren't you?"
"What? Oh, yes. Absolutely spifflicated. Every night in my life." He grins, and warmth spreads through her chest. The grin is–looks–genuine, lopsided in a happy-go-lucky way. The blue eyes are half-lidded–with amusement or alcohol, she doesn't know, but she doesn't quite like it.
"I'll have another grape juice, thanks," she says pointedly. "And no cherry liquor misleading its way past my glass, if possible."
"Sure," he says, but doesn't move right away. He stands where he is with his hands on the back of the chair, watches Akako and Hakuba dance the fox-trot, and listens to the jazz.
-o-
When Akako comes back she looks flustered and red, and insists they go home immediately. Aoko is surprised. The evening hasn't even begun. She hasn't danced yet. Surely that Hakuba person would want to dance with Akako-chan again. And she hasn't finished her fruit juice–
"Screw the fruit juice," Akako says, with more emphasis than usual in her curse. "I'm leaving anyway." She sweeps up her coat and strides briskly away, while Aoko rolls her eyes and gets out coins from her purse before she follows her.
"You owe me a brandy and salad's worth," she reminds her, catching up.
"I'll get you a present for Christmas."
"That was a week ago."
"I don't care. Aoko, let's just get out of here," and Aoko laughs and links her arm through her friend's, and says, Let's. "Goodnight, goodnight," she calls, as they pass the counter and the old gentleman, and the dark-haired bartender.
"It's started snowing," he calls after them, just as they push the door open and start up the steps. "You should take an umbrella."
The wind outside is icy and sweeping, carrying snowflakes that catch in Aoko's hair. "Ah, thank you," she replies, turning back. The young man stands in a rectangle of gold, cutting through the greyish dark of the stairs. "Are you sure this is okay?"
"It's a loan," he says, with another wry smile and a half-hearted shrug. "You'll have to come again to give it back." His fingers, when he passes her the umbrella, are warm and lingering.
San Francisco is snowing and cold. They run all the way up to the tramway station.
-o-
The basic step repeats, a slow-building motion as the partners move, deft and skilled. One, two. Skip. Three, four. Turn. Five, six. Change. Seven, eight.
Two open their eyes, blue to blue, black to black, full-blowing grin to suspicious stare. Full stop.
Then the dance starts again, hand clasped to hand, palm to palm, shoulder to shoulder.
They don't know each other's name just yet.
-o-
Going up the middle aisle–Getting married.
Sheik–A man with sex appeal (from the Valentino movies). Feminine equivalent is sheba.
Sap–Idiot.
Flapper–The prototype of a flapper (the new twenties girl, who cut her hair, wore knee-length skirts, smoke and drank alcohol) was said to be nineteen-years-old. Akako and Aoko are twenty-three in here.
Bull–law-enforcement officer or FBI agent.
Bootleg–Illegal liquor. Includes Giggle Water/Juice, Hair of the Dog, Hooch, Moonshine, Coffin Varnish, among others.
Juice joint–illicit bar selling bootleg. Also speakeasy, or gin mill.
Prohibition–in 1920, the manufacture, sale, import and export of alcohol is prohibited in the USA, except for some nightclubs which get special licenses. Speakeasies then pop up everywhere, and the police generally turns a blind eye on them in exchange of money.
Moll–Gangster's girl.
Dead soldier–Empty bottle.
Lit–also spifflicated, canned, corked, tanked, primed, embalmed, owled, scrooched, jazzed, zozzled, plastered, potted, ossified, fried to the hat–drunk.
(All this lexical comes from The Internet Guide to Jazz Age Slang.)
-o-
I think all the chapters will be about this length. More should come up in two or three weeks–if I'm not overworked. Hopefully I should not, the finals being done and over with, but you never know… stay tuned? x3 –hands over cookies–
A Very Happy New Year to you all. Hopefully 2009 will see loads of wonderful fics.
