Sunset | By : thewriterwhocameinfromthecold Category: +G to L > Love Hina Views: 6177 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Love Hina or its characters. I am receiving no monetary compensation for this work. |
1999, several months before Keitaro’s arrival.
Kitsune removed the tube of lipstick from her purse. The crimson red had been a favourite of hers ever since junior high. She applied the lipstick, and gave the girl in the mirror a sulky pout followed by a sassy smirk – both weapons that she put to regular use. The right expression in the right place could be enough to rescue an evening. Satisfied with her makeup, Kitsune checked her outfit – a blue dress with shoulder straps, a plunging neckline, and a hem that ended a couple inches above the knee to showcase her long toned legs – and gave a little twirl. Perfect. She grabbed her black clutch bag and prepared to leave.When she reached the stairs, she looked out the window behind her. It was a warm summer evening, with the sun still high in the sky. No need for a jacket. As she passed through the living room, she met her best friend Naru, just returned from her cram school. As ever, the university hopeful had her nose buried in a textbook and was taking notes, a mug tea just within reach.
“Hi, Naru,” Kitsune called. “How was cram school?”
Naru gave a distracted wave and looked up slowly, reluctant to leave her studies even for a second.
“Hey, Kitsune. Not bad, I was worried about the history portion, but I think I’m starting to – Whoa!” Naru looked her friend over, and whistled appreciatively.
Kitsune smiled in appreciation. “Going out, Naru. Don’t wait up.”
“Got a date?” Naru asked, cradling her pencil in the top of her ear.
“Something like that,” Kitsune replied with a Mona Lisa smile, and launched into her chosen cover story, “A friend of mine has a brother they want me to meet.” Kitsune gave a shrug. “I owe her one, so what can you do?”
Naru raised her mug in salute. “Just don’t let Motoko see you,” she replied, taking a sip.
Kitsune laughed. “No kidding.”
She gave her friend one last wave, as she slipped on a pair of black pumps, and headed out the door and along the front garden path towards the street.
Actually, the question of Motoko was often on Kitsune’s mind at times like this. The proper, conservative, and - most importantly of all – man-hating Motoko Aoyama could barely comprehend the idea of dating, never mind what Kitsune was about to do. As such, whenever Kitsune left for an appointment like this, she made sure that Motoko was always out of the house or training on the roof. Anything to avoid lectures about the animal desires of men – not that Motoko had any first hand knowledge of desire, animal or otherwise – and the fates of the women who fell prey to them.
In the same vein, Kitsune gave thanks, as she walked towards the train station, for so open and honest a friend as Naru. Aside from the usual benefits, it made it easy for Kitsune to feed the girl lies about what she did at night. Kitsune shook her head. No, indeed, the other girls did not need to know that it was business rather than pleasure that made Kitsune doll up and traipse off into the evening air.
The shopkeepers were just closing up for the night as Kitsune turned onto Hinata’s main street. The smells of fried squid and oden hung in the air as the restaurants prepared for the dinner rush. Kitsune inhaled the night air hungrily. As ever, there was something magical to the night life of Hinata, some enchantment that teased passersby walking among the wooden buildings that had been standing since the Meiji restoration, or longer. It was a touch stone, a place of constancy for a girl that had had precious little of it. A place she’d do anything to keep.
The train station was full of commuters coming home by the time Kitsune reached it. She darted nimbly – very nimbly for someone on high heels – through the crowd and managed to board her train to Tokyo just before the doors shut. The train to Tokyo was virtually empty at this time of day. So Kitsune happily took a window seat and watched the world fly by. She dug the slip of paper from her clutch and rechecked the meeting stop. She nodded to herself; still plenty of time to left to meet the client. He was new, and from the way he’d stammered his way through the arrangements, she was pretty sure that he was completely new. That suited Kitsune just fine. The nervous guys were easier to deal with than the assholes who acted like they owned her.
A year ago, Kitsune had been an ordinary high school senior, living at the Hinata Dorm. The year had been a joyful, raucous whirlwind of parties; but all good things had to come to an end. Her mock exam scores were pathetic, her chances of getting into university near nil, and her parents’ paying her room and board was contingent on her graduating and moving onto the next level. Kitsune wasn’t a bookworm. College held no interest for her. The only thing that she really felt passionate about was her writing, which she knew wasn’t ready to pay the bills. She’d searched for a part time job, but despaired of finding one that pair well enough with her skill set (or lack thereof).
Then the solution came to her quite by accident. A girl by the name of Yuri Tsukamoto had become the talk of the school ever since she showed up one day carrying a designer handbag. Since Yuri had complained at length about her father’s tight purse strings, all the girls were clamouring to know what the secret was. Yuri was only too happy to tell.
“I went on a few pay dates,” she told the group of girls gathered around her in the locker room after gym class.
At the sound of the word ‘pay’, Kitsune paused untying her gym sneakers.
“What do you mean?” asked one confused girl as she buttoned up her uniform shirt.
Yuri shrugged as if it were obvious. “I registered with a phone intro service and met a few guys.” She paused to adjust her skirt. “They pay me for the night and we go on dates.”
Kitsune shuffled along the locker room bench, closer to the crowd.
“Men pay you to go out with them?” Yuri’s friend asked.
Yuri nodded and removed her book bag from her locker. “We get dinner, go dancing, I laugh at their jokes, and I leave with the money.”
Yuri’s friend shut her locker and looked at the girl as if afraid to ask the next question.
“What?” Yuri asked.
Her friend looked at her shoes. “You don’t like…you know?”
Yuri recoiled in disgust, swinging her book bag at her friend. “What? Eww! What kind of girl do you think I am? I just go out with them!”
“Hey,” called another girl. “Don’t blame her. You’re the one running around with pervs with a thing for school girls.”
Yuri stuck out her tongue. “You’re just jealous because I had the guts to do it and you didn’t.”
“For how much?” Kitsune asked, trying to sound as if this were no more than locker room gossip to her.
Yuri beamed. “Twenty thousand yen for the evening! How do you like that?”
Kitsune liked that very much. A plan was already forming in her mind.
“Twenty thousand, really?” She kept her tone airy, almost mocking.
“You think I’m joking?” Yuri demanded.
Kitsune shrugged her shoulders and baited the hook. “It’s just that twenty thousand seems like a lot of money for a guy to spend on a girl he’s never met before. How do I know you’re not just bragging?”
“Are you kidding?” Yuri held up the handbag. “If I were lying why would I have this?”
Kitsune moved in for the kill. “Then what’s the telephone number?”
* * *
That night she found a phone booth and made the call. She received a mailbox number and keyed in a password; but by the time the automated voice told her to record an introduction, her courage deserted her and she slammed down the receiver. Afterwards, she wandered through the streets for half an hour, wrestling with herself. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, after all. It was just a few dates. The butterflies in her stomach did not agree.
Later, she calmed them down with some green tea at a local café while she wrote out her introduction on a napkin. Afterwards she crossed the street to a nearby phone booth and dialled the number. She keyed in her PIN number, and looked around self-consciously unable to shake the feeling that passersby could sense her intent. Then the tone indicating she should started, and she smiled into the receiver as she read off the napkin:
“Hello, boys,” she had purred. “I’m Kitsune, your sexy, sassy schoolgirl from Osaka.”
She hoped that there’d be someone out there looking for something other than just another girl from Tokyo. She’d decided to use her own nickname so she wouldn’t have to remember to respond to another name. Besides, it was just a nickname. She couldn’t be the only girl in Japan that used it.
“I’m eighteen,” she lied, “and I’m looking for a generous, handsome gentleman to take me out and show me my new city.” Yuri had mentioned that the word ‘generous’ was a sign for guys looking for pay dates.
Kitsune took a deep breath. Time to start selling. “I’m 5’3 with long” – she drew out the word long – “legs and I look great in my school uniform. Especially since my chest started filling out.” She forced herself to giggle in a way that she hoped sounded genuine. She took on a lost little girl voice. “I’m really lonely in this great big city all by myself. I hope there are some boys out there who want to have a good time.” Yuri had told everyone that being suggestive without being specific was the way to go. Kitsune perked her voice up as she prepared for the finale. “So if you think that you can handle me, give me a call!”
Then she hung up.
* * *
The train came to a stop, and Kitsune disembarked, shuffling past the vast groups of people towards the stairs. Coming from Hinata to the crowds of Tokyo was always disorienting. She had a few minutes to meet the client in the square outside. Over the phone, he’d given his name as Shirai, and he’d sounded so nervous and out of his element that Kitsune was tempted to believe that it was his real name. He’d sounded young on the phone, around her age maybe. Definitely different from the salarymen and college guys she was used to dealing with.
Oh, well. Variety was the spice of life, and it would be nice to meet with someone off their game with no expectations. For once there would be no doubt about who was in control; and if there was one thing Kitsune liked, it was being in control. She mounted the last of the stairs. Whoever this Shirai was, he was about to have an evening he’d never forget.
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