"You've been doing very well."
Izaya beamed and blushed to a pretty shade of pink that made him look like a little boy all dressed up in fancy clothes. Shiki thought that it was cute in a way. He led Izaya to a comfortable if sparsely furnished office that looked much larger by being surrounded by walls of glass that gave a panoramic view of the entire club. Izaya guessed that it was one that kind of window that is only transparent on one side and he was right. He identified a frieze of mirror surface running the top of the club as being precisely this. It was his first time in the room and he was rather excited.
"I must thank you for letting me work here."
"I'm the one who should thank you. You're about the most profitable asset in the entire club."
Izaya's smile was stellar and without artifice.
"You were very right, this was the perfect occupation given how things are. A host isn't expected to have a past and one can learn so much about people! So many different clients, all of them are unique in their own ways and all of them tell me everything I want to know."
The smile grew sharper and almost wicked. Shiki liked it. A lot.
"You have a way with them. But are they really that interesting?"
As far as Shiki could tell costumers were sources of money to be explored and a good host was who knew how to best worm his way into fat purses. Shiki knew that to do this one needed some qualifications as far as looks went and while he did not recruit hosts himself he had seen enough of them to be something of an expert in male beauty. And Izaya ticked all the boxes in that regard.
Izaya was now giggling.
"Absolutely. One has ideas about the kind of girls that go to these places. Rather lonely women locked in loveless marriages and in need of some entertainment. One may feel sorry for them for they do come across as pathetic. Except it is not quite like that and in some cases not at all. Michiru-san, for example, is the one who picks the stocks in which her husband invests. Oh, she's not lying about it either. She let it slip almost as an afterthought so she did not mean to boast. And she's not the only one. Plenty of these women wield a lot of power. Quite a few are attractive, too. Their social progression tells so much about our society. Accents tailored to muffle the original ones are telltale clues and give me much to work with. Rags to riches stories, hidden motives, all served for my pleasure. I love this job."
Shiki produced a Cuban cigar and wondered at Izaya's glee. Izaya was so unmasked about it that Shiki thought about how he was known to skip about when very happy. Perhaps he was about to do so now. Shiki had never seen it first hand. In fact, Shiki was realizing just how guarded Izaya usually was around him. And without the memory loss Shiki would never have a chance of seeing Izaya so open. More interesting perhaps, so vulnerable.
"You seem a natural at it."
"It's like a confessional, a host club is."
Shiki cocked an eyebrow and used a rather Medieval looking instrument to cut off the end of his cigar. Izaya watched in fascination and shuddered.
"How so?"
"Do you use that to chop off people's fingers? Sorry, that was a silly question."
It amused Shiki greatly.
"You were saying? About confessionals? Can't say I see the connection."
Izaya switched from childish curiosity to honed intelligence in motion.
"At first glance a host club seems the exact opposite of a confessional. After all, host clubs are all about glamour, sex and attraction while confessionals are drabs affairs about guilt and mortification with spiritual trappings. But at heart they are exactly the same. In both cases people are free to talk, to unburden themselves of their deepest secrets, with no consequences in the real world. The priest and the host do not count as actual human beings and so they liberate the penitent and the costumers respectively of shame. More, a host club and a confessional by their very nature are disconnected from the real world. They are fantasy places and whatever happens there will stay there."
Shiki smoked thoughtfully.
"You have a point there."
Izaya leant forward and joined the tips of his fingers together.