By then, Chichiri was living in Nuriko's mansion, at least as much as Chichiri lived anywhere. He tended to disappear for weeks at a time, and then slip back in early one morning, acting like he'd never left. Like he did that morning, when Nuriko found the skinny DJ standing in one of the kitchens with henna stained feet, listening intently to a recording of wails and clicks from a language that Nuriko couldn't even begin to identify. Nuriko felt pleased and comforted, as he always did when he realized the fact of Chichiri's presence. And that particular morning, he also felt rather smug.
The violet haired rock star, somewhat less intimidating but no less attractive in a purple silk kimono and last night's eyeliner, slid up to Chichiri and pressed a magazine into his hands, distracting him from the recording.
"And what did these particular trees die for?" Chichiri asked, shutting off the CD player, and bending to let the other man peck him good morning on the cheek, as was Nuriko's custom.
"This is the Music News Daily review of our album." Nuriko said importantly.
Chichiri shrugged, unimpressed.
"Well, that's great and all, 'Riko, but you know I don't care what the media thinks of our work. What's important is the concept, the art, the process, the--"
"The bet." Nuriko said.
"What bet?"
"The one where you were all, oh, Music News Daily is so mainstream, they won't get my art, blah blah, and I was all, no way, you're great and I'm super-great and we're going to get six stars and the Black Orchid label is going to debut with a huge hit, and you were all, no way, it's too avante garde, and I was like, I'll bet you we get six stars and you were like, fine."
"Oh, that bet. I guess you win then." Chichiri squinted, trying to remember. "Did we bet money or what?"
"Not money." Nuriko looked, if possible, more smug.
"Um. Did we bet Skittles?"
"No, we didn't bet Skittles."
"Well, I guess that's for the best, because I don't have any Skittles. Wait, I don't have to be your sex slave now, do I?"
"No."
"Well, I'm stumped, Mr. Glam Rock, what do I have to do?"
******
It was a little unfair, Nuriko thought to himself. Chichiri hated these public appearances so very much. And the last several weeks of Nuriko's life had consisted mainly of tricking the spacey DJ into going to them. But it was necessary, Nuriko wanted their new private record label to be a success, and of course, that meant exposure. But, Nuriko thought, glancing at the way Chichiri was tapping a frantic beat on the limousine's seat and humming to himself like a crazed cockatiel, this will probably be the last party Nuriko would drag him to for awhile.
Not that Nuriko worried about Chichiri's behavior in public, people loved to finally meet the legendary Father Houjun in person, and they forgave him any sort of odd behavior, in fact, they expected it, they loved it. And Chichiri played up to that expectation, he was far more eccentric in public than he was around the house, just hanging out with Nuriko. Of course he was never as bizarre as he was when he was deeply involved in a project. During those times Nuriko kept three separate psychiatric professionals on speed dial, Chichiri sometimes worried him that much.
Nuriko was grateful that Chichiri had listened to his plea to dress up for this event. Chichiri'd opted for the black nehru collared jacket that he wore when he DJ'd, the outfit which had earned him the name Father Houjun in the first place. His mostly short cropped hair is sky blue, which wasn't unusual in L.A. at all, but Nuriko had never seen him dye it. Nor had he ever seen any evidence of Manic Panic or any other sort of dyeing mess in any of his many bathrooms or kitchens.
*****
As soon as he walked into the grand ballroom of the Starzi Hotel Nuriko spotted Hotohori. There were over a thousand glitterati in the massive ballroom, plus a phalanx of waitstaff, but Nuriko focused in on Hotohori with no trouble at all. As head of Emperor Records, Hotohori was technically Nuriko's old boss, and Hotohori's father had been the one who'd discovered Nuriko and made him a star. Nuriko remembered singing behind glass, watching Hotohori touring the recording rooms with his father, when the boy was just out of Oxford and learning the family business. He sang a lot of those early songs just for the dark haired boy on the glass window, but Hotohori rarely watched him back.
Dissappointingly, a crowd of people suddenly blocked Nuriko's view of the president of Emperor Records. Nuriko considered dispatching a couple of his bodyguards after them all, but decided that that would have been in bad taste. Besides, he glanced over at Chichiri, who was looking pretty squirrelly, if social gatherings made Chichiri nervous, violence and gunfire made him even more so.
But if Nuriko didn't have to be the center of attention at all times, he did have to at least stand somewhere near it. He gestured his entourage towards the Emperor side of the room, to see who all the fuss was about, and whether they were worthy.
Ah, thought Nuriko, Paperwulf. Of course, Nuriko was up on all the latest industry news, and he knew that Paperwulf was Emperor's newest acquisition. He quickly assessed their spokesman.
White leather suit, difficult to pull off, Nuriko looked the red head over from a distance, nodding. Only a teenage rock star with quite a bit of arrogance could pull that off. Dark red hair long enough to cover the boy's unnecessarily sunglassed eyes, while managing to reveal huge sparkling diamond earrings. A little trite, was Nuriko's final judgement, but good execution of a difficult fashion concept. And also, gorgeous. He and his guitarist were loudly holding court with several supermodels. Nuriko decided to allow himself to be introduced.
But he was afraid to leave Chichiri alone, as the latter looked as if all of the glitz and noise in the room was killing him, or like he hoped it would, and Nuriko wondered if it would be better or worse to pull the poor DJ towards the glitziest, loudest person in the room.
While Nuriko was pondering this, Genrou caught sight of the glam rock legend heading towards him and whipped off his sunglasses, momentarily forgetting to look cool. Nuriko was already legend at the tender age of twenty-four. The man had a stage presence and charisma that was envied by any performer, regardless of musical genre. Once he'd ascertained that it was indeed the Nuriko headed towards him, dragging someone else behind him, Genrou grabbed his best friend Kouji's arm and hissed violently, "DUDE!! Nuriko's headed this way!! The actual, living, breathing, fucking Nuriko!!."
"What?" Kouji looked away from the supermodel he was talking up, glanced where Genrou was pointing, and saw the Violet One. "Oh my god."
"Whaddawedo? Whaddawedo?!" Genrou was practically jumping up and down.
"Okay man, just play it cool, okay? No big deal all right? Just be cool." Kouji instructed him urgently.
"Right." Nodded Genrou, smoothing his leather jacket down. Then, as soon as Nuriko was within range, Genrou immediately ran up to the star and cried, "I love you!!!"
"Good, Genrou, really cool." Muttered Kouji, but he couldn't take his eyes off of Nuriko either, while his partner and Nuriko introduced themselves.
"I'm so happy to actually meet you and...and...this other guy." Genrou's voice faltered for a second as his gaze fell on the Chichiri. For a moment, to Genrou Tasuki, everything in the crowded room faded but an agitated looking young man with sky blue hair, who wasn't even looking at him. But the moment passed.
"Oh, this guy? This is Father Houjun, the DJ. He's my escort." Nuriko said, by way of introduction.
"You're Father Houjun? Really?" Tasuki, if possible, looked even more impressed and eager.
Chichiri shrugged.
Nuriko grabbed his hand and thrust it into Tasuki's.
"He's very pleased to meet you, Genrou." Chichiri sighed and took over the handshake, even managing a polite smile, until his eyes met Tasuki's. Something about the amber light of the boy's eyes disturbed him, and Chichiri quickly dropped his eyes again and stepped back.
Why won't he look at me? Thought Tasuki, a bit frustrated.
"So..this is your boyfriend?" Tasuki blurted out, forgetting himself. Kouji started choking on his champagne, one of the supermodels had to hit him on the back. But Nuriko just laughed, for his part, he was delighted by the lights of Tasuki's eyes.
"This one? Oh no, Chichiri's entirely asexual!"
"I am not." Chichiri protested mildly.
"You're not?" Tasuki asked too quickly, again involuntarily, turning all his brightness towards Chichiri, who once again shrank back a little and looked away.
"Uh, actually, yes. Yes, I am. Asexual. Nuriko, can we go now?"
"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I guess it has been a rough night for you, you little shut-in. Well, it was great meeting you, Genrou, I really mean that." And he really did, something about Tasuki made him feel comfortable and happy. "We should get together sometime, I'll have one of my people call one of yours."
"Okay!!" Genrou said happily, he already liked Nuriko immensely, even beyond being overwhelmed by the star. And he really was overjoyed to have met him. But for some reason his gaze lingered on Chichiri's retreating back.
Weird, Genrou thought. I don't even like techno.
Then he turned to his best friend.
"Koji, do we have 'people'?"
Koji shrugged.
****
A/N: Hi! I hope Adrianna's reading this. Anyway, I apologize profusely to people about the names in this thing! I mean, Genrou Tasuki? Terrible. But I can't call him anything but Tasuki or Genrou, I mean, what, am I gonna rename him George Taschen or something? (Which I totally considered) At least Nuriko and Chichiri are weird icons who can get away without last names. (And those two aren't getting last names. Ever.) Not to worry, I have everyone mostly worked out by chapter two, though feel free to offer opinions. Oh, and I've decided that it's fairly realistic for two recording companies in CA to be made up entirely of Asian-American, which is another excuse for not changing the names.
I'm going to have a lot of fun with this one, so I hope it's even a third as fun to for you guys to read!