Author's Note: Am I a terrible person? For sure, I certainly am. I haven't updated in FOREVER. And I apologize. But I am having the time of my life in Japan. That totally makes up for it and I do expect everyone to understand. And I also have no idea where I left off on review replies – so I apologize to anyone I didn't reply back to – your reviews are, as always, much appreciated and you're all lovely.
Everyone should go visit Tokyo/Japan. I wish I didn't have classes so I could do more stuff – because there's SO MUCH stuff to do here. And it's so diverse. I went from clubbing till 5 AM in a crazy underground 3-floor club on Saturday to meditating with a Buddhist monk in Kamakura on Wednesday. If you have the opportunity – GO. I'm done ranting about Japan. I did post my blog in my profile but SURPRISES OF ALL SURPRISES - I don't update it. :\ If people are interested in looking at my pictures though, fell free to check out my albums over on facebook. The link's http:// www. face book . com / profile . php ? ref=profile&id=1242150397 I put in spaces cause I don't know if links go through on this. Also – it may or may not be private. I tried to make it private but then facebook decided it was too cool and changed privacy settings so I have no idea if it is or is not anymore. Either way – feel free to add me!
Page long author's note OVER
Disclaimer: And I don't own anything.
Mello was sitting in a leather armchair, looking confused, glancing at a piece of paper.
Matt smiled a little as he watched through the webcam. Leave it to Mello to act completely insane and get in way over his head.
Stealing a quick glance around the room, Mello took out his phone and texted Matt.
"This is the weirdest application I have ever filled out."
"What were you expecting from an escort service?" Matt texted back.
"I don't know – normal questions? I've never even heard of this shit."
"Come on, Mel, you must have heard of some of it."
"I don't creep around the internet on creepy as fuck websites like you. But why the fuck are they asking me anyway?!"
"I don't creep around the internet. I just get bored. And they're asking you PROBABLY because you're applying to be a prostitute."
"Escort. I'm classier than that."
"Could've fooled me."
"Fuck you."
"Maybe. What are your rates?"
Mello read Matt's last message and rolled his eyes. He sent a glare towards the camera hiding in the purse next to him and dropped his phone back in as he was approached.
"Sorry," Mello smiled apologetically to the man approaching him with a questioning look. "I was double-checking with an old client about my experience level on some of these questions."
The man gave a small nod and waited for Mello to finish the paper. Growing impatient, Mello checked off a few random things and gave it to him. Judging by the man's nods as he flipped through it, he didn't fuck up too badly.
"Let me go enter some things into the main computer," the man said as he walked into a side room.
As soon as the door had been shut for a millisecond, Mello was across the room at the reception computer, calling Matt.
"Matt – I need you to erase anything I'm about to do from their security cameras."
"What –" Matt pouted. "Do I have to pay you to say hello to me now?"
"Matt!"
"They're already blacked out – calm down."
Mello hung up the phone quickly and started looking through the computer. Luckily, either someone hadn't logged out or they never password protected the computer. Mello opened up what looked like a directory of sorts – and what popped up looked like a sort of appointment sheet. Giving a sigh of defeat, Mello called Matt back.
"How the fuck do I find shit on something that's probably thirty names long with a bunch of other names filling up a spreadsheet?"
"Gee, I don't know – maybe if you were a little more vague I could help you."
"Matt!"
"What kind of system is it?"
"I have no fucking clue. It looks confusing as hell like the shit on your computer."
"Okay – are you in the folder you want to be in?"
"Yeah – it's a list of names."
"All right. Type in the name of that guy to check and see who he had an appointment with and that's your girl."
"I just type in his name?"
"Well, no – you have to use the find command."
"Matt."
"Type in 'find' and then do a front slash, and then type in his name and then type in the name of that document."
Mello followed the instructions and surprisingly came up with the appointment within the time frame the book would have been given.
". . . that was easy."
"Most things are when you know what you're doing."
Mello rolled his eyes, hung up on Matt again and then quickly wrote down the name of the girl who had come up with the appointment, thinking to himself what kind of prostitute would use such a cliché name such as 'Candy.' Shrugging, he jotted down her phone number and address, and closed out of the program, returning to his seat. He grabbed the bag he had brought with him, took a glance at the side room to make sure the door wasn't opening, and booked it out of the building.
When he judged he was far enough away that the man wouldn't come looking for him, Mello stopped and pulled out his phone again. He quickly dialed the number and waited for the girl to pick up.
Matt watched the webcam, sitting on the couch, thinking about how bored he was. Bored bored bored. Mello could have at least done something exciting. Like that time they had almost gotten killed. It was pretty exciting. They both could have been a little more badass in the situation, as Mello had looked like he was going to through up and Matt figured he was probably eight seconds away from crying at the time, but it was still pretty exciting. No one had to know they weren't badass. Just took some selective editing in storytelling. Looking back at the screen, Matt saw absolutely nothing. Just a black screen.
"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck," Matt muttered while he fiddled with a few things. Definitely wasn't his computer – that meant it was Mello. "Fuuuuuuuuuuuck."
Shit. And he was getting a Skype call. He hit answer quickly while he scanned through the last minute of footage he had from the webcam.
"Hello," said a monotone voice from the little corner of the screen Matt had pushed the Skype window to. Glancing quickly, he saw it was Near.
"Oh – hey Near. Totally not a good time," Matt said, his eyes fixed on the left part of the computer screen. Mello was talking on the phone, blah blah blah, asked the girl about the book, blah blah blah, said he was coming to her address, blaaaahhh, hung up, started walking, and then nothing. "Fuuuucckk!"
"When you are done swearing and looking panicked, I have something very important to tell you. Mello never called me, so I took the initiative and decided to call you."
"You couldn't have just told me the first time?" Matt said as he called Mello on his cell phone. Absolutely nothing.
"I feel like Mello would do more about it than you."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," He tried calling again. Still nothing.
"What is going on?"
"Nothing. Just . . . I lost Mello. And he looks like a hooker right now so it's probably not the best time for me to lose him in Vegas. He might get propositioned. Or kidnapped. Or killed! And he's not where he said he would be – because he left. So I have no idea where he is. Oh god. Ohgod ohgod."
"Mello doesn't usually look like a hooker?"
"These are special circumstances Near! I don't have time for this. I'll call you back later. Bye." Matt said as he closed his computer screen.
Near had looked like he was going to say something as Matt closed the computer, but that's really not what he was concerned with right now. Grabbing the sheet of paper Mello had given him earlier, he went out the door, leaving his phone on the table.
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Matt reached the building that Mello had previously been in. Noticing a sign on the side for the escort service, he went in and made his way to the fourth floor. The man who Matt had previously seen through the webcam was sitting at the front desk.
"May I help you?" The man asked, looking confused as they probably never had walk-ins, most people probably called for appointments.
"Um – hi. I'm looking for a friend of mine. Blonde, Russian, dressed in leather with crazy boots?'
"Oh yeah – she kind of just ran out about twenty minutes ago."
"Right – no idea where?"
"Uh. No. I was in the other office."
"Motherfucking . . . right – sorry. Bye." And with that, Matt was back outside again. "Fuck fuck fuckkkkk. This is bad. This is so bad."
Matt reached in his pocket to get his phone out to call Mello again, and realized he had left it at the hotel. Along with his cigarettes. And his goggles. Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell was he doing outside then? Pouting a little but realizing his search was somewhere near hopeless without having a single clue where Mello had gone, Matt decided to go back to the hotel to at least get his phone and see if the webcam was working again.
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When he finally reached the hotel again, about 15 minutes later, he saw Mello at the suite door, evidently just getting back as he was opening the door himself.
"Mello!" Matt called out happily, tackling him through the door.
"Matt . . ." Mello sighed, having landed leaning against the entryway wall, kicking the door shut with his boot. "What the hell?"
"I thought I lost you! And that someone was going to steal you! And that I'd never see you again!" Matt mumbled into Mello's neck, still clinging on to him.
"What the fuck are you talking about? I just tried calling you to tell you that I got the damn thing," Mello said, waving a small-ish book around with his free hand.
". . . you got it?! That was easy. What did you do?"
Mello looked very serious for a second. "I had to shoot her."
"WHAT?! YOU SHOT SOMEONE?! MELLO!"
"Chill outtt," Mello giggled. "I didn't really. I just had to pay her a shit ton of money, but she really had no use for it, and had a lot of use for money, so it worked out relatively easy."
Matt glared at him. "You're not allowed to make jokes. You never make jokes. Stop it."
"I can't be funny?"
"Not unless you're being bitchy and sarcastic. It just doesn't work otherwise."
Mello rolled his eyes. "Can you get the fuck off me now?"
"No," Matt mumbled and re-buried his face in Mello's neck.
"Okay then," Mello sighed, and stood up with a bit of effort, holding onto Matt, and dragged him over to the couch where he sat down and started flipping through the book.
"The webcam stopped working and I guess I freaked out a little."
"You guess?!"
"You told me to come get you if it went out! And it did! And then you didn't answer your phone!"
"I was talking to that girl! Anyway, I don't get what's so great about this book. I mean, sure, I guess it would be useful if you were in the corporate world, but I don't see what use it has to other people."
"What's in it?"
"Basically every illegal act with proof for some of the most major companies."
". . . that is so anti-climactic."
"Tell me about it," Mello sighed. "Matt. I'm starting to lose feeling in my left arm."
"Good," Matt replied, but let go of his death-grip on Mello anyway.
"I'm going to go to the store for celebratory chocolate," Mello decided, standing up.
"There's none in the kitchen?"
"I want GOOD chocolate. This calls for like, Godiva or something."
"You're leaving me again?"
"I'm going like, downstairs and next door! I'll bring my phone and actually answer it this time."
"Get me cigarettes?"
Mello rolled his eyes. "So it's okay for me to leave if it benefits you?"
"Yup! You're going to go out like that?"
Mello shrugged. "Whatever. I'll be back soon enough." And with that he was out the door.
Matt sighed and sat up a bit more on the couch, flipping the computer back open and throwing the book on the coffee table. He figured he might as well call Near back and e-mail L, but to hold off on the e-mails to the people who had given them money until Mello decided what the hell he wanted to do about that.
The door to the suite opened and Matt called out, "Did you forget something or did you get propositioned so fast that you decided to actually come back and change?"
When he got no response, Matt turned to look at the door, but instead was met with a very painful hit on the side of his head.
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"Matt. Matt! Matt – wake up."
Matt slowly opened his eyes, finding himself looking up at Mello.
"What . . . what happened? Why am I on the floor?"
"I don't know. I came back and the door was open and fuck – I think your head's bleeding but I can't tell cause of your fucking ridiculous hair color."
"My hair's perfect," Matt mumbled as he reached a hand up to try to touch his head, but Mello held it back.
"Don't touch it. Can you get up?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," Matt said, pushing Mello back a little and sitting up. "Maybe not so much fine . . ." he continued, grabbing Mello's shoulders to make the room stop spinning.
"It's okay," Mello said, guiding him back up to the couch. 'Sit there. I'll get a towel from the bathroom."
While Mello was off to the bathroom, Matt's eyes focused on the coffee table. When Mello came back, he sighed.
"Yeah, the book and your laptop are gone."
". . . what the fuck?" Matt started, but just then his phone started ringing.
"Hello?" He asked, picking it up while Mello was tending to pressing a washcloth to his head.
"Matt. It's Near."
"Oh, right. You wanted to tell me something. If it had anything to do with some bitches coming in here, taking my shit and giving me a mild concussion, I probably should have listened to you earlier."
"Yes – you should have."
". . . wait – it did have to do with that?"
"Some people contacted me a little while ago, asking me to find out where you and Mello were."
"What did you say?!"
"I told them I was not accepting any new cases at the moment. And then I attempted to contact you, but apparently playing prostitute dress-up is more important."
"Shiitttt," Matt mumbled as he hung up with Near.
"Near knew?" Mello asked softly.
"Yep. And he tried to tell us. Now what do we do?"
"You're going to bed. I'm going to find these fuckers and rip their fingernails off one by one and THEN shoot them."
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Owari desuuuu!
Please review. It would make me oh-so happy! You can talk about the story, your life, my life, things you want me to photograph in Japan - anything. Just reviewww! Oh! And I believe I am going to an international anime fair in three (maybe two) weekends - so if anyone wants me to take pictures of anything for them, just let me know and I'll be happy to keep an eye out. :)
I'll try to get another chapter written ASAP but as we all know - I will make no promises. I personally think this one was wicked rushed buuttt I felt bad and wanted to post something for you guys.