Chapter Two

For Ten Thousand Yen

Sometimes you have to do things that you don't like. Kairi knew this all too well. Of course, that didn't make her like it.

The library lights were too bright that morning as Kairi sat at a table with her books propped up in front of her, her eyes were on the pages, scanning back and forth furiously, her mind absorbing a word every paragraph or so. It was frustrating. There was something distracting her. Or rather, someone.

Selphie sat across from her. A grin was spread across her tiny features as she spoke, on and on and on. Even though Kairi had an exam the following day, she did not have the heart to tell her friend to be quiet when she was speaking so passionately. Then again, Selphie had a strange tendency to be passionate about everything.

"So, you pretty much know the story up until there, I think. You know, I was telling him about my new desk chair and he just whispered in my ear I have a new chair at home. I'd love to show it to you. Oh Kairi, I just couldn't turn him down. Of course, I always knew that there was the possibility of more…" Selphie paused for a second and Kairi took the time to interject.

"Well you seemed pretty sure of more last Friday night, when you abandoned me." She didn't look up, her eyes now examining a graph on the left page of her book, wondering at the same time about the graph-maker's color choices and her friend's life choices.

"Abandoned? It's not like you were on the moon, Kairi. Honestly, you can be so self-centered sometimes. Not in a bad way, though, it's endearing. But back to my night, I know you really want to know the details,"

"Uh."

"So, we got into his car. He has a car, Kairi! Imagine that. And we drove to his place. It was just so nice. He was such a gentleman, just his same old self, you know? I was, like, worried that he would change once we got out of the club and I wasn't… you know… paying him or anything. But he was exactly the same. It was so refreshing! I just felt then and there that I'd picked a winner. He's the most genuine host at Club Midori, I just know it,"

"You know, he was about to get lucky, so you can't say that for sure…" Kairi was cut off.

"Oh Kairi, don't be naïve," Kairi stared pointedly at her friend for a moment, Selphie didn't seem to notice, "A woman can always tell when a man is being honest. You know, they say that the Hosts are all putting on personas, but I know that Tidus isn't. I just know." Kairi did not say anything to this and resisted the urge to shake her head. Selphie didn't notice this internal battle and continued.

"So we got to his apartment, it was so nice Kairi!" Selphie then launched into a description of lamps, carpets, color schemes, and, of course, chairs. Kairi nodded every now and then. She didn't really care to hear about the life of splendor lived by deceptive men like Tidus, who, as far as she could see, had used her friend for sex and money. It was a win-win scenario. But what had Selphie gained? Kairi didn't know.

"Anyway, the chair was nice, it was bright red. It was really bold, you know. And I told him that… so anyway, one thing led to another; do you know what I mean? Anyway before I knew it, we were on the chair and I was straddling him and he was unzipping my dress and…"

"Selphie, you don't have to tell me everything, really," Kairi said quickly. Selphie just laughed.

"Oh Kairi! Someday it will be your turn, really," Selphie said, and Kairi stared at her, open mouthed, for a moment.

"Selphie, do you really think it was a good idea to, well, sleep with him. You don't know where he's been, or with whom," Kairi said, she closed her textbook now. It was a lost cause at this point anyway. Selphie looked at her strangely, like she was an alien that had just crawled out of a space ship that had crash-landed in the library. As if Kairi's words had been the outlandish ones. As if sanity was not quite within Kairi's reach.

"Well, you weren't there, so…"

"No, I wasn't in his apartment with you. I certainly hope I wasn't."

"Just the way he looked at me Kairi, the way he talks to me. The way he touched me. It was like I was the only woman on earth. Or the only one that mattered. He was just so… good and so… attentive…" Selphie trailed off, words escaping her.

"So are you going to… you know. meet up again sometime?" Kairi asked.

"I'm going back to the club next weekend!" Selphie said. Kairi had hoped she would say they would meet outside of the club. An impossible dream.

"Well, I'm glad you had a nice night. I really am…" Kairi said honestly, because she was, after all, Selphie's friend and Selphie wasn't just beaming, her happiness was rolling off of her in waves. Like a child who had been given that special toy that they'd seen in the shop windows, the one they really wanted. "But, I don't think I'm ever going back to that club" This statement was lost on Selphie.

"Thank you, Kairi! I knew you'd support us. You know what, I think we're really going to make it." Kairi had nothing to say to this. In fact she couldn't quite form the words to debunk her friend's statement. She could think of plenty, but they wouldn't leave her mouth. Something in Selphie's smile stopped them. "How was your night?"

"My night?" Kairi laughed, and then lied, mostly, "Uneventful. That Riku guy spoke to me though, the so-called silent one" Now it was Selphie's turn to laugh, and laugh she did, tilting her head back in her chair.

"Oh Kairi! You're so naive! Of course he didn't!"

"Good job tonight overall. Axel, tone down the bad boy attitude a bit. Just because girls like it when you smash things doesn't mean that they're going to pay for it. I guess that's it. I'll see you all here at ten o'clock tonight" Cloud finished speaking and stared at the crowd around him. The hosts of Club Midori were all cramped together into the red break room. Some sitting, some standing, some sprawled on the floor, and most in a variable stage of intoxication. Commissions did not come easily, of course.

"I guess that's achievable," said Axel. He was a host with bright red hair, a permanent smirk, and long legs. He was sitting on one end of the couch, his head leaned back, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Next to him was a blond host, who was holding on to his hand casually.

"I mean it, Axel. And when you're lighting their cigarettes, just light their cigarettes, not the table cloth or the menu or…"

"But you've got to admit those girls went wild for it!" The blond host spoke up, and the redhead, Axel, looked over at him with an affectionate smirk.

"That they do, but it's not good for profits and there are lines that we draw when we're with our clients," Cloud stated, then nodded to the group, all slumped around the room and ready to pass out, "Alright, that's it. Have a good morning." As soon as Cloud was out of the room, Riku, who had been silent the entire night, decided to speak up.

"Speaking of lines, I heard that you crossed a few last Friday night, Tidus," He smirked to Tidus who was leaning against the red wall with a practiced nonchalance.

"Don't get me started on that disaster," He said and shook his head woefully.

"There you have it ladies and gentlemen, the only man to ever get laid and complain about it!" Axel said, then tilted his head back and laughed at his own joke.

"Maybe he wasn't doing it right?" Roxas chimed in.

"Come one guys! Give me a break, okay. She was really clingy and… lovey-dovey. Which is great when we're here. Or it would be if she would actually order some expensive drinks… the sex itself wasn't bad. But she tried to get a love confession out of me right before…" Tidus trialed off and sighed.

"And did you do it?" Sora asked from the corner, where he sat on the floor with a textbook open in his lap.

"Have you been paying attention? Of course we did it," Tidus retorted.

"I mean did you confess your undying love, idiot," Sora shook his head and looked back down at his textbook.

"Of course not! I'm not that pathetic!"

In All Honesty

"Do you love me Tidus?"

They were in his bed now, the room was dark but for the lights from the street that shone through the window. He had carried her there. She was lighter than he expected.

"Mmmm, I love that your legs are wrapped around me. And I love that you're here…" He trailed off. His mind was a haze, it was difficult to form coherent thoughts. She looked at him funny, her head tilted to the side.

"But, do you love me, Tidus?" He looked down at her, felt all those spots where their skin was touching, and reached into the void of his mind to remember exactly what love was and what it had to do with his situation. Then the words came out of his mouth.

"Sure. Sure."

The apartment was small but it seemed large on this day. Sora stepped through the doorway and kicked off his shoes haphazardly. He stepped up onto the wooden floors in his socks and trotted across the living room. He ignored the dishes in the sink and stack of letters on the coffee table, or tried to.

He reached his bedroom and closed the door quietly behind him. His bag fell to the floor and he took the three steps over to his bed and fell on it dramatically, face down. There he remained for a blissful ten minutes, and then he dragged himself up and out of bed.

His shower was quick, but thorough. He stared at the blue walls of the bathroom in a haze. The world was still funny, and a little unreal. The price of earning commissions. They order drinks, you get commissions. But when they order, you have to drink with them. That was how it worked. This night had not been too bad, consumption wise. He'd made it to the bathroom a few times, purged himself, so to speak, to keep up with the new ladies coming in. No fun, but necessary to avoid alcohol poisoning.

He got out of the shower, and rubbed the fog off the mirror before taking a moment to marvel at the difference a little water made to the spikyness of his hair. It was considerably droopier, some of it was falling into his eyes.

He got dressed, putting on some jeans, a tee shirt, and his glasses. Then he brushed his teeth and shaved. It was strange. When he looked in the mirror now, he was oddly normal. No hair products, no fancy clothes, glasses instead of contacts. Just his usual self.

In his life, his normal life, he had been recognized as a host outside of club Midori just twice. He'd denied it both times. And it had worked. It was the glasses, he thought.

Looking at his watch, he realized that he was already running late, as usual. Which meant he would have to skip breakfast, as usual. He sighed to himself and as he grabbed his bag again, walked out of his room, across the living room, put on his shoes, and exited.

"I'm off..."

Sora was hungry. So hungry. The professor droned on. String theory was interesting. Fascinating even. But not when taught by Professor Ansem. This professor, Sora decided, could be talking about unicorns coming out of his ass, and make it excruciatingly dull. Some people just couldn't tell a story.

Physics was a story. It was more than a story, even. It was an art. The methods, the theories, the words, the Greek equations. Even more than that, it was the study of the crazy universe he lived in. The universe was a mysterious place. Physics told the story of its complexities, simply and elegantly. He loved it. He was in love with it.

There was no story when this Professor Ansem spoke. There were only dry and dull facts. Nothing more than experiments and results. Physics could be so much more.

Of course, Sora wasn't thinking quite so deeply on the subject on this particular day. He was mostly trying to stay awake and pay attention, which were both incredibly difficult things to do considering he had been working the night before, he was starving, and was beginning to feel the nagging effects of a hangover.

But this was a typical day in his life. His job came with a price, as all jobs do.

It had been an odd few days at work, admittedly. Cloud, the head of the host club and an ex-host himself did not exactly approve of hosts sleeping with their clients, for fun or for money. It had a tendency to complicate things. Of course, this didn't stop it from happening every once in a while. Tidus had crossed that lovely little line. Not that Sora was particularly concerned with the ins and outs of Tidus's sex life, but it was something nice and trivial to think about. Sometimes he just needed to think about the trivial. It kept him sane.

His head was leaning slowly towards the desk. Slowly, slowly, slowly drifting nearer and nearer. His eyes were open, but they weren't seeing much. They didn't see Professor Ansem approaching.

"Hm," There was a knock on the desk, and professor Ansem was standing right above him, in all of his boring glory. His expression was rather cross, "You'll see me after class."

Sora was too tired and hungry to be humiliated. Though, he knew in the back of his mind that, had he been a little more awake or a little more nourished, he would have felt mortified.

"Yes, sir," He gritted his teeth and nodded his head, sitting back up and picking up his pencil. Rapid and detailed note taking was one method of staying awake, and that's what he did for the remainder of the class.

Class was over after an eternity. Sora shook out his hand, which was now thoroughly cramped. He had gripped the pencil too tight. It happened sometimes. He stood up and gathered his things slowly, waiting for all of the other students to leave before he approached his professor. The last thing he wanted was to be reprimanded in front of them. They took their time of course. He spent a few awkward seconds fumbling with the buttons on his bag. Then they were gone, chatting on their way out, and he walked up to his professor.

"Professor?" Sora asked. Of course, he knew why he had been called up. Feigning ignorance, somehow, felt better than a groveling preemptive apology. He was too tired for ass kissing.

"Mr. Yamada, are you aware that this is the third time that you have fallen asleep in my class this semester?" Professor Ansem's face was grave and severe. The kind of look that people wear at a funeral. In the briefest of moments Sora wondered if this was his funeral, then wondered at his own sanity, and finally settled on the idea that that was just the way that professor Ansem looked all the time.

"Erm, I suppose. I'm very sorry, professor. It won't happen again, it really won't," Sora said, and bowed his head down in apology. His professor was not very impressed.

"Are you serious about this class, Mr. Yamada, because I don't think that you are," Professor Ansem said. His expression had not changed.

"I am. Really. Really. I'm very serious about this class, it's a graduation requirement and I really would love to work in this field some da…."

"You should know that if you fall asleep in here again, you're going to be dropped from the class," Professor Ansem said.

"Yes, sir." The conversation was over before it started. What excuse could he have made, anyway?

The school library was quiet, but for the occasional student conversation. Sora wasn't paying much attention to it. He was concentrating on the bag in his hand, labeled with the logo of his university's café. In it were several salmon flavored rice balls, a pre-packaged cake, and a bottle of green tea. He needed to find a quiet place in the library to sit, alone, where he wouldn't be caught eating. The café had been full and loud.

Loud was not something that he particularly needed at this moment and he had had long since filled his people quota for the day. Misanthropic as it may be.

He was in the political science section now. His destination: classics. The place he was sure he could be alone. Who majored in classics, anyway? Just one more corner now, he knew.

The distance between Sora and aforementioned corner disappeared, and he rounded it, his stomach churning with hunger and a hint of nausea. He felt relief with the knowledge that he would be able to eat in a few seconds, that he would find the small table situated in the middle of the classics section blissfully empty.

His relief was cut off abruptly. There had been someone taking the same corner as him in the opposite direction. They had run right in to each other, needless to say.

"Sorry! Sorry!" She said, rather flustered, her books had tumbled to the ground, all a mess. He stumbled back and got a good look at her. She was pretty. Strikingly so, with red hair. Bright, auburn, red. It was so familiar in those bright library lights. He wondered at it for a millisecond and then remembered.

It was her. It came to him in a moment of panic. The one he had ridden in the cab with. He wasn't perfectly sure why he had been in that cab. Or, he should say, why she had been in that cab. Riku playing a joke on him, perhaps?

She had reacted as most women would when they are alone with the second most popular host in the city's second most popular host club. She tried to sleep with him, if he remembered correctly. And he knew that he did remember correctly. He was glad that she had enough sense to leave when he told her to.

And now, here she was, in the classics section of his university. There was no way she was a classics major. Nobody was a classics major. She was stalking him; there was no other answer. But why? And how? He had had a few chance meetings with his clients outside of work. And those had always blown over pretty quickly…

One Such Example

"Hey… hey! Wait a minute! You know who you look like?" She was tall with bleached blond hair and she purred the words, high pitched to Sora when she passed him in the train station.

"Uhm me?"

"Yeah, you! Do you know who you look like?"

"Myself?"

"No silly! You look like this one host, Sora, from club Midori. You know the one, right? Hey… you're not him are you?" Her jaw opened just a bit.

"Me? A host?" He laughed, coolly, he knew he would fool her, and held up the physics book that he just so happened to be holding, "I'm a physics student. But if you'd like, I can give you my autograph for ten thousand yen."

She walked away without another word. No one wanted a physics student's autograph. Mission accomplished.

He decided that he would try the same method, it had worked before and perhaps she would be discouraged from stalking him any further if she believed that he wasn't who he actually was.

She had been looking down at her books, which had been spread across the floor between the two shelves. He still hadn't said a word to her apology. She looked up at him, now, to see who she had run in to and her polite smile fell off her teeth.

"It's you!" She spoke suddenly.

"Me?" He laughed, "Usually I am me, I think."

"You're the host that Riku guy stuck in my cab," She said, and she was frowning now.

"Me," He laughed again, "No, no, no," He pulled out his physics book from the bag that was dangled over his shoulder and flashed quite close to her face. She swatted it away.

"Why are you doing that?" She huffed angrily. He was a bit taken aback, but stuck to the plan nonetheless.

"Me? A host? In your cab? Hah! I'm just a physics student. But… if you'd like I'll sell you my autograph for ten thousan…"

"Nice try. I recognize your bag… and your face," she said, "It's hard to forget the look of someone who almost puked on you."

"Almost puked? I didn't almost puke on you! I've never puked on anyone,"

"But almost. So you are that guy… hmmm Sora, was it? Sora the cab stealing, lying…"

"Woah! I never, ever said I would sleep with you." He said defensively.

"Sleep with me? I never wanted to sleep with you." She huffed, "I meant the whole physics thing. You know, it's really low to try to trap girls into the whole host club thing at a university. I might just tell the administration…"

"I'm really a physics student," he said. And she stared at him for a moment, frown still etched across her lips, "I've got the notebooks and everything." He reached into his bag, pulled out the aforementioned notebooks and shoved them in her face like he had the textbook.

"Fine. You're a physics student." She said bitingly and bent down to pick up her fallen books. Sora glanced at them, they were mostly political science journals. Political Science was right next to the classics section.

"Do you go here?" He asked now. Perhaps he had been wrong. Probably not though.

"Why else would I be here?"

"Just wondering if you were… following me." If he could have taken a picture of the look on her face at that moment, it would have fit perfectly in the dictionary right next to the word enraged. Stalkers, Sora decided, especially love sick stalkers, didn't get that angry at their object of affection. He felt relief at her anger, "Nevermind."

She stormed away, just as she had done on Friday night in the hallway of his apartment. He didn't care much though. He was too hungry.

a/n Hope you liked it! Feel free to leave a review. I love constructive criticism.