I was feelin' the host club tonight.

More character developement is happening, some pairings ensuing as well.

It's 3:30 am and I don't feel like explaining much more, and i also apologize for any grammar mistakes!

R&R loves!

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Ch. 3

The following afternoon, the fighters all gathered to serve their lovely ladies. The similar crowd of women showed up that day along with a few new faces, one that had shocking most of the fighters.

"Ryo!" a girl with a long brown hair braided down her back squealed. "This is that "extra training" you've been telling father about! Hah hah hah! This is too funny! I never thought you'd be caught dead in a suite like that. Boy, I've got to tell the---" she was cut off by the spiky blond brother.

"Yuri, shut up! Give me that!" he snapped, taking away her phone and tossing it to Robert, who nearly let it slip and smash into the bamboo flooring.

"Hey! My phone! I'll complain and make you look bad!" Yuri screamed at her brother.

The two continued to fight, drawing customers away from Ryo and Robert. The atmosphere of the entire room became tense. The only calm figure in the room approached the siblings and rested his hands on their shoulders. Ryo and Yuri felt a electric shock and jumped. The two twisted their heads to see Benimaru hovering over them, his blond locks standing straight up on end, he's brow twitching.

"Sakazaki Yuri-chan. I must ask you to refrain for acting so vulgar in front of our customers. If you can't find yourself to control your behavior, I will have you escorted out of the building," Benimaru said coolly, his expression saying otherwise.

The feuding siblings ceased their arguing. Yuri slowly walked to Robert and yanked her phone from his hands, and quietly finished her text message. She quickly shut her phone and gave Ryo a sly smile and grabbed onto Robert's arm and dragged him to a table and sat him down, forcefully making him her host. He seemed to rather run away and never return, but to contract, he waited the situation out.

Ryo tried to politely retake his customers back, but they were already occupied with Bao's cute personality and cuddly habits. Ryo found himself seated in the corner, sulking and sipping on a cup of tea. He let his dark aura surround him for the next couple of minutes.

Just as the host club's activated seemed to head back into the right direction, a group of young women poured through the doorway, the dark aura spreading to each and every host fighter in the room. The hall became deathly silent. Even Benimaru found himself struggling to say a few words.

In the entrance of the great wooden doors stood the female fighters of the King of Fighters tournament. Each of them looking sinister and devious. The men's stomach's twisted.

Benimaru, choking on his vocal chords, managed to spit out a few words. "W-w-welcome...valued…customers…" bowing his head in greeting and shame.

A busty figure stepped forward and grinned happily. Her hair was tied up in a high ponytail and she wore a tight red dress and heels. She had the aura of a stripper than a classy woman.

"I'm looking for an individual… Oh… An American, let's say…" she said, her gaze completely focused on Andy Bogard. He felt his heart beating into his head, his nervous system about to explode.

Mai Shiranui from the Shiranui school of Martial Arts had been obsessed with the younger Bogard since childhood. He's been desperately avoiding her at every tournament, but Terry, being the nice guy as he is, always helped her find the ware bouts of his brother, causing Andy the most aggravation. He never found a days rest from Mai.

Benimaru slowly inched his way to Andy and his customers, Mai following behind him. After bowing and giving her to Andy, Mai scowled. Andy wasn't ready for what was about to happen.

"What the hell is this? Who are all these unclassy skanks around my Andy! Get away!" She roared at his customers. Andy felt his temperature rising.

Joe, stepping in the middle, said, "Yo, Mai, your ruining the mood! Why did you have to come here?" He'd regret that statement later. For now, Mai's attention was fully on Andy.

"Mai, c'mon…" Andy said quietly, trying to calm her down. She crossed her arms and pouted.

"Why would you go running off with all these crazy women, when you have always had me?" her began to sob. Andy tried comforting her, knowing she was faking it but didn't want to appear rude in front of the other women. His customers watched in awe, not knowing themselves what to do.

Just then, a short girl with navy blue hair patted Mai on the shoulder. Her bangs were long and pushed off to the sides of her face, her large almond blue eyes staring up into Mai's big brown irises.

"Mai, don't get worked up. You're not dating him, and we came here to have a little fun. Let's not ruin it for everyone else," she said calmly, causing Mai's attitude to cease. The girl continued quietly, "In the end, you may have your chance, don't break that hope."

"Oh, I suppose our right, Kasumi. Let's go find someone else, because in the end, I will have Andy," she replied smiling and winking to Andy. He sighed and fell into his seat. His crowd all comforted him and promised his happiness for the rest of the night.

They girls rejoined their companions, King, the blond bartender from France, Kula Diamond, a young cheerful girl, and Athena Asamiya, the mega pop star that seemed to have Sie Kensou drooling over and ignored his customers.

The mood of the hall was still tense for most of the afternoon, the female fighters tending to scare away the other women. The female fighters ended up crowding around Bao, who was the only host happy enough to serve the girls and chat with. That became a huge relief to the men.

Around the time for dinner, Benimaru served the customers full meals at the tables with their designated hosts. All the woman had managed to interfere with each other, the female fighters dispersing and finding their own group of women to tag along with. The women fighters seemed to amuse the customers as much as the male fighters. Benimaru's fears of losing customers had ceased, since his normal customers seemed to be enjoying themselves in such a strange mixed company. What started as a crazy afternoon, turned into a pleasant evening.

King managed to cheer up Ryo, who had finally joined with Robert's crowd and Yuri, which the siblings had gotten along for the rest of the day. King wore a satin purple shirtdress, resembling a vintage style. Ryo had paid most of his attention into serving her and her wants.

"How's the food? Do you need anything? How about more tea?" He kept questioning her, making her giggle.

"Everything's perfect. Just chat with me, It's been sometime since the tournament that we've been about to talk," she replied back sweetly. He's heart paced a bit quicker as he smiled from the corner of his lips.

"It has been a long time. It's just been the dojo and organizing this…club? I don't know. It's starting off so strangely. Yet, I find myself really happy here. Maybe it's the wonderful attention I'm constantly getting…" he said to her, swooning. She laughed at him again, making him look at her questionably.

"The only attention for the past few hours you've received have been from I only, Sakazaki Ryo," King said, taking a sip of her tea. Ryo blushed. "Is this my host talking, or the Ryo I know? I'll let you ponder over that later," she finished. She set her tea down and excused herself from the empty table. She paid Benimaru for her time at the host club and left out the door, only to sneak a peak back to Ryo, who had never taken his eyes off her.

"Don't forget, Ryo, we've got other women to tend to. Rules are, you can't infatuate yourself with a single customer," Robert whispered behind him, only leaving his group for a short moment. Ryo sighed and nodded, returning to Robert's table and tried to converse with the other customers. But he still found himself thinking of her.

On the other end of the room, Athena seemed to be getting plenty attention from both men and woman. She signed some autographs and sang some of her hit songs in acapella. Half the room was singing in karaoke, Athena leading the crowd. It irritated Iori to no end, who abandoned his customers for a smoking break. A very long smoking break.

K' was opening up slowly to his customers, mostly due to the overwhelming questions they came up with. His nature of ignoring his customers and remaining quiet translated into utter shyness, which kept the girls coming for more. His nature around them drew them in. He was the host club's unsolved mystery, at least in the girl's eyes. He decided to make this interesting for himself and started a game.

"Who wants to play?" he asked shyly, playing off his made up role. Everyone of his customers raised their hands excitedly. He smirked, allowing two girls sighed heavily.

"The rules are quiet simple. I pick a subject. Just one for everyday. And you all must guess what it is I like," he explained. The truth was, K' liked nothing. He had zero opinions on controversial issues, he hates physical exercise, and he find himself disliking more things then liking them. This was really going to be an amusing game.

A young customer of his spoke up, shyly. "K'-sama, what is today's topic then?" She blushed slightly for distinguishing herself from the group.

K' lowered his head in close to hers and pushed her chin up with his hands, causing her to blush even darker. He said, "Today's topic…is food."

One girl giggled and shouted, "Well, that's easy! It's beef jerky!" All the rest of his customers giggled as well. He's tanned skin managed to become somewhat paler as he stroked his white, disheveled locks.

How the hell did they guess so fast! He contemplated lying, but in the end, it was the only thing he kind thought fondly of. He decided to answer. "Well, you did it! Great job! How'd you know?" he talked to his girls as if they were only five years old.

Another girl spoke up, "Well, it's the only thing you've eaten since we've met you! You won't touch the cakes or pastries offered!" K' admitted defeat and promised them a harder topic the following day.

The singing at last stopped and Athena redirected the attention back to the hosts. Shingo was sitting happily, joking and playing with all his customers. The girls all found him highly amusing. He mostly spoke of his failures during the King of Fighters tournaments and all the funny mishaps during the rounds. The customers liked this insight on the 'behind the scenes' look at the tournaments.

Shingo's main downfall seemed to be his over praising of Kyo, who's numbers seemed to have grown over the past few hours of Shingo's story tellings. Shingo seemed to be having fanboy problems related to Kyo and praised a bit highly of his teammate, which in turn, made much of the women curious about him.

It was the end of another successful host club. Benimaru handed out each daily total payment to each of the fighters. The most popular host of the night was Kyo, all thanks to Shingo's stories, while Bao came in second with K' again.

"Really, K' I enjoyed your game. You're fitting in so well. Oh, and I think we'll refrain from family visits. How embarrassing, I'm sorry Ryo, Yuri really offset the mood today. Oh, anyone seen Yagami? He came in last, make that a lesson. Don't leave your customers! That's host club suicide! Well, au voir gang!" Benimaru said, wrapping up the session with his end of night speech.

Some of the girls still hung around, pleading with Benimaru if they could walk outside with their favorite hosts. Most of the female fighters had left, save for Kasumi, who managed to fit in right with all the other normal customers with her overall decent composure. She excited with Benimaru, chatting away about normal things.

"At the end of the night, I'm really glad to not have a rampage of estrogen around me," Benimaru joked with her. Kasumi giggled and agreed.

"This was a lot of fun. You have a tough job though, how do you manage?" she asked him curiously.

"Well, years of experience dear, you get used to it. Now, my question is, how did you not fall under my spell yet?" Benimaru asked with confidence in his tone.

Kasumi laughed. She replied, "To be honest, Benimaru-san, you're just not my type!" Benimaru seemed shocked, but then his expression changed.

He smiled and patted her head. "Well, my dear, I guess I have a lot of work I must get to then, if I want to woo every woman I set my eyes upon." Kasumi rolled her eyes.

"As if I'm that type of girl fall for those cheesy tricks," she retorted back. Kasumi dropped the attitude and laughed with Benimaru. In the end, she found him fun to talk to.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Iori standing outside the plaza. She decided to say her goodbyes to Benimaru and head in the direction of the red-haired fighter.

Popping up to him, she asked, "So, this is where you've been hiding all night?" She smiled but received none in return.

"Do you need something?" he asked rudely. Slightly taken aback, Kasumi's smiled turned upside down.

"Just a question. What's our deal, anyway? Are you always rude to your customers or is it this 'rockstar' aura you're trying to give off?" she spat back.

The two of them glared at each other for a minute until Iori spoke up. "Let's just say I just didn't give a shit tonight. Maybe tomorrow will be the same. Who knows," He's tone was mostly empty but some sarcasm escaped.

"Well, that's one way to keep the customers coming in. Let's see who you are tomorrow, then," she responded, turning her back and walking away into the night.

Iori flicked his last cigarette to the ground and stomped the ashes out. "I guess we'll have to see then," was the last thing he said before walking home for the night. He was unsure of what he wanted to do. Whether or not if she came back would be that deciding factor.

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Characters (c) SNK