Disclaimer: I do not own Azumanga Daioh, or I would not bother writing a fanfic. I am in no way an expert on Japanese prostitution. I researched what I could, but if you type "Japanese prostitution" in to Google, you get a LOT of "Hundreds of beautiful Asian women ready to please YOU" ads. My knowledge for this story comes mostly from a Wikipedia article and what I know about American prostitution.

Hello, "fans"! This is LonelyArtist. I have grown up a bit since my first attempt at this story. I used to be a sixteen year-old girl, now I am a seventeen year-old woman! Ha ha, seriously though, I hope this edition is much better than the first. Please review, even if you don't like this story. Even if you get to the point where you're either too bored/disgusted/etc. (which hopefully won't happen, as I put a lot of effort in to this!) to read further, please review and tell me exactly WHERE you don't like it, so I can fix it! Oh, I should say that for the remainder of this story, beginning author's notes are "important" to the story, and ending notes are for readers who are interested in what was happening in my life to affect this story, and should usually have a summary of what I plan the next chapter to be. Both, however, are optional reading.

Did I Miss Something? 2.1

In which we learn of the children's reasons to enter the Life

By LonelyArtist

Masaaki Ohyama

"Masaaki-kun, come help me zip up my dress."

"Yes, Hikari-san."

"Masaaki, call me mother, please!"

He sighs. "Yes, mother."

"Thank you. So, how do I look? Oh, wonderful, I know. Well, I have business to attend to. I'll try to be back by midnight. Toodles!" Hikari leaves.

"Brother?"

"Jun-chan! Why aren't you in bed, little sister?"

"Where's Mommy going?"

"She's just going to work."

"Where does she work?"

"She works…she's a personal assistant. For men who need assistance."

"Oh. Is it a good job?"

"I guess it pays well…why?"

"Because I wanna be like Mommy."

"Jun, come here. Give me a hug, ok? Now. Promise me you will never do what Mommy does."

"Why?"

"Because…well because I'm the oldest. It's my job to take over the family business. You just have to find a different job."

She sniffles.

"Now, Jun, calm down. It's not very fun, anyway. It's rather boring, actually. So, Ms. Jun Wu, besides what Mommy does, what do you want to do when you grow up?"

"Um…I want to go to America."

He laughs. "America? A little Asian girl--half Chinese, half Japanese--in America? What would you do there? You'd need to learn English."

"I know that. I could teach Japanese. Or Chinese."

"You don't speak Chinese."

"Daddy could teach me."

"Now, Jun. You know Mommy hasn't seen Mr. Wu for a long time. You might not get to meet him."

"She hasn't seen Mr. Ohyama for a long time, either!"

"Jun-chan, I think it's time you went to bed."

Jun leaves.

"Hikari Inoue…what have you gotten your children into?"

Sakaki

"Uh…Sakaki-chan?"

"Yes, Father?"

"Something just came up. I have to leave the country."

"What? Why? Where?"

"Um…I guess you could call it business. I can't tell you where I'm going. Good luck."

"Daddy!"

He gets in his car and drives away.

There's a knock on the door.

"Hello? What can I do for you two gentleman?"

Badges are shown. "Is Kiyoshi Sakaki home?"

"No, officers. Why are you looking for him?"

"Where is he?"

"I don't know."

"Well. Don't bother telling him we called. We'll get in touch." They leave.

"Oh my goodness. Daddy is in trouble. What did he do? What do I do? I have no money. I have no job! Who knows how long he'll be gone? What do I do?" She sits and cries.

Tomo Takino

"Tomo-chan, may I talk to you?"

"Yeah, mom?"

"I think I'm going to have to send you and Riko-chan to your step-father's house."

"Kohaku Ueda-san's house? But he lives here."

"No, no. Nori Ito. Your sister's father."

"Oh. So. Is husband number three not shaping out to be what you expected?"

She sighs. "I kicked him out. The divorce is almost final. But I can't afford this house without two incomes. I need some time to find a smaller house for the three of us."

"But I don't want to go to Ito-san's house! Can't I go to my own father's?"

"Jurou is a worse man than Nori. I divorced Mr. Takino because he was a drunk. Mr. Ito had just lost his job. He has a good job now, and a new wife. No children, though, so you'll be welcome. I already cleared it up with him."

"But I don't want to go! And I don't want to leave this house! Kazuko-san, what if I get a job? Then we could afford this house, right?"

She laughs. "It would have to be a pretty good job, Tomo-chan! What could do?"

"If I can make enough money, can we keep the house?"

"I suppose."

Chiyo Mihama

"But I don't want to be a businesswoman! I don't want to do what you do!"

"Chiyo Mihama. You are our only child. You have to take over the family business."

"Shinobu-san, husband, please. We can talk about this later."

"Misaki, we have to talk about this now. It's time we sent Chiyo to a private school. She needs to learn the business trade. I've got a nice school all lined up. She'll learn all the core subjects, and it has the best economics and business classes in the country!"

"I'm not going to a new school!"

"Chiyo, you don't have a choice!"

"I do, too!" She storms out the door.

To be continued…

So that's it for the first chapter. The rest of this story should be in traditional format, but this chapter was written to be more of a collection of memories than a moving story. I hope it makes more sense than the first edition of this story. I tried to introduce all the family members, so I won't have to later. They shouldn't be terribly important to the story after this, though, so if you don't like original characters, that shouldn't be much of a problem. If this story seemed a bit absurd, it might be because I wrote this with a concussion. I slipped on the ice two days ago walking in to school, and hit my head pretty hard. I could sue the school, but I know they'd just cut the budget for things like band and speech (my activities).

Wishing all my readers the greatest luck,

L.A.