Yuuto, Pretty boy, Motoki, and Rinji all sat around a table playing monopoly. Pretty boy was winning while Yuuto was in the last place almost out of money.
“Hey, did you hear that there have been a few problems with one of the top-ranking hosts lately?” Rinji questioned the group drawing their attention away from the game.
“No. What happened?” asked Yuuto.
“It seems clients have been reporting their dissatisfaction with #3 Norihide. It seems he has been bad talking and getting rough with them over the last few days. The club hasn’t been able to catch him in the act, so they had to let him off with just a warning,” replied Rinji.
“Anyone of you work on the same day as him?” asked Motoki.
“Both Yuuto and I will probably be working the same day as him tomorrow,” said Pretty boy.
“Why do you ask?” asked Yuuto.
“If he causes problems for the club and it negatively affects the club. Then it will also affect us,” replied Rinji.
“Ah, I see what you’re getting at. So you want us to keep a watch on him?” asked Pretty boy.
“If you could that would help everyone out. We’ll also keep an eye out if we work with him,” Rinji assured Pretty boy and Yuuto.
“I guess if we have to. It would be troublesome if I couldn’t pay off my debt,” said Yuuto.
***
The next few days, they kept an eye on #3 Norihide but they didn’t see him doing anything that could be seen as detrimental to the club.
Yuuto was taking a short break from working and as he was walking back from the bathroom he heard a female’s voice down the hall near the female’s restroom door.
“Let go of me! You’re hurting my arm!” shouted a female client with a pained look on her face.
“Come on why don’t you come with me to a special room so that we can be by our lonesome selves,” said Norihide with an evil smile on his face.
“No, what’s gotten into you? You weren’t rude like this before,” she asked with a frightened voice.
Yuuto sent a quick text to Pretty boy and then walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.
“I’m busy. What is it?” Norihide asked annoyed that he was interrupted while still holding onto his client’s arm tightly.
Yuuto slugged him in the gut, causing him to fall and let go of the female client’s arm.
“I’m sorry for his rude treatment. I will let management know of his actions,” Yuuto apologized while giving a short bow to her.
“Thank you,” said the woman before she hurriedly escaped to the main room.
Norihide stood up and glared at Yuuto.
“What are you doing attacking me?” he asked, taking a fighting stance.
“Back at you. What are you doing attacking your clients? You do know you’re causing problems for the club and by doing so you’re causing everyone else trouble right?” Yuuto countered his question.
Pretty boy walked up behind Norihide and announced his presence by asking him a question.
“Why are you causing us problems?”
“I’ve done nothing wrong,” said Norihide and with that, he pushed past Pretty boy, who didn’t stop him and let him go.
“He’s definitely up to something,” said Yuuto.
“I guess we should keep a closer watch on him,” Pretty boy replied.
There weren’t any more disturbances for the rest of the night. The next people scheduled to work with him were both Motoki and Rinji.
While working and keeping an eye on him, Rinji overheard Norihide having a heated conversation talking on a cell phone to someone about a job.
He secretly recorded the conversation with his cell phone and sent the video to Yuuto, Motoki, and Pretty boy.
***
Yuuto and the 3 stooges had finished watching the video multiple times and were now quietly thinking about what it all meant.
It was hard to figure out what was being talked about as they could only hear one side of the conversation.
“Well, we now know something is going on with everyone being able to catch him doing some questionable things. All we can do is keep up the surveillance and make sure he doesn’t cause any further damage,” said Rinji breaking the silence.
“This surveillance is a pain. Why is he causing us so many problems,” complained Pretty boy.
“If I remember correctly, I’m on the next shift with him. Hopefully, his current behavior will calm down and we can get back to business as usual,” said Yuuto.
On the next shift, Yuuto kept an eye on Norihide. Fortunately, there weren’t any incidents during work.
As he was passing the employee’s smoke room to go to his room Yuuto stopped when he heard loud and angry shouting from inside.
Cautiously, he walked to the edge of the door and listened to the conversation coming out of the room. Whether Norihide meant to be loud or not, it was easy to hear his side of the conversation.
“You said you would pay me for causing problems yet I am still waiting for the payment that you keep saying was delayed. Stop saying you will pay me and do it. Better yet if you won’t come here and give me the money then I can come to you and get it directly from you,” Norihide angrily shouted.
After a few seconds of silence, he spoke again.
“Oh, so you’re okay if I come over and get the money myself. Then I’ll pay you a visit tomorrow evening,” he said in a lower voice which seemed satisfied with the results of the conversation.
Yuuto heard Norihide’s footsteps start to move towards the door and decided now was the time to run away with this new bombshell of information that he was just bursting to be let loose.
Luckily they all had a day off tomorrow, so when Yuuto relayed what he had learned, they all agreed to tail him and see who was behind all the problems.
They would then confront him with the evidence and have him confess in front of the boss.
***
The next night.
They followed Norihide who had decided to walk to the unknown destination. Yuuto and the three stooges were all wearing dark clothing and sunglasses to blend in and not be noticed.
The people that they walked passed kept giving them odd looks when passing by each other so Yuuto wasn’t too sure if it was working.
After a half-hour of walking, Norihide stopped in front of a rival host club. Two muscular men were guarding the front door. He said something that Yuuto and the group couldn’t hear.
One of the guards entered the building and a few minutes later, he returned with a smile and nodded to Norihide. He pointed to the side alley and led him down it with the second guard following behind them.
Yuuto and the others followed quietly peering from the corner of another building next to the ally. It was dark except for the light coming from above a door at the end of the alleyway. They were able to see Norihide and the two club guards as they stopped in front of the door which had a large sign that said employee entrance only.
The door opened and a group of five men walked out surrounding Norihide. The last man of the five to exit the building stood in the doorway. He said something Yuuto couldn’t hear with a smirk on his face.
“What is this!? I caused problems for club Winter Night like you told me to so that it would be easier for you to get the clients that left. Why are you threatening me instead of paying up?” shouted Norihide who had gotten angry at the man who had just spoken to him.
The other man said something to the men surrounding Norihide and then walked back into the building the door closing behind him.
The six muscular men that were surrounding Norihide started laughing as they pulled out blunt weapons from their hiding places.
“Hey you guys, I’m sure we can work out something, so you don’t have to attack me. How about this, I don’t need any money, you can just let me go and you won’t need to pay me. Sounds fair right?” shouted the panicked Norihide.
The muscular men all closed in surrounding him and started to hit him all over from head to toe.
Norihide fell to the ground in a fetal position trying to protect his head with his arms and hands.
The beating ended as quickly as it had started. A few gave their final kicks directed at Norihide’s head and stomach before leaving the immobile Norihide on the ground and walking to the employee only door.
The two original door guards turned around and started walking to the front of the building. Yuuto and the rest of the group quickly moved away from the corner but they were too late as one of the guards saw them and let out a shout to the other five men.
“A group of people was watching us! Come on everyone, let’s go and take care of them as well.”
“Oh crap! Run!” Motoki shouted out to the others.
They spent the next five minutes running as hard as they could weaving in and out of the groups of people on the crowded night sidewalks.
They only stopped when they entered a crowded cafe only after looking around to make sure they had lost their pursuers.
After ordering a coffee, they quietly sat at their table for a few minutes resting to catch their breath.
Yuuto saw a payphone on the cafe’s wall and walked over it. He pulled out enough change from his pocket and called the nearest hospital, giving them information about a person being beaten up and that he was unmoving. He quickly gave them the address where Norihide was and then hung up without giving his name or a number they could contact him with.
Yuuto walked back over to the group who were still silent staring at their coffee or out the window.
“I called for an ambulance to pick him up. Do you guys want to go visit him in the hospital and see if he’ll talk?” asked Yuuto.
“Eh, I doubt he’s in any shape to talk to us,” replied Rinji.
“Even if he was able to talk, he wouldn’t tell us anything useful,” said Pretty boy.
“Well I’ll just go, just in case I can learn something and check up on him. They really did a number on him,” said Yuuto.
After they finished their coffee and paid the bill, Yuuto split up from the three stooges and walked to the hospital.
He was forced to wait in line for several minutes before he could even talk to the nurse at the front desk.
When he reached the front desk the nurse informed him that visiting hours were almost over and he would only be able to see Norihide for a short ten minutes at most before giving him the room number.
Yuuto walked into the room and found Norihide was in a full-body cast laying down on a bed.
He walked over to the bed and called out Norihide’s name a few times, but there was no response.
He heard footsteps coming from behind him and turned to see an older male doctor with graying hair entering the room.
“Ah, someone visiting one of my new patients. Are you by chance a family member?” asked the doctor.
“No, I am just a co-worker. I heard he got in trouble so I came to check in on him. I wanted to ask him how he was doing and when he would be able to return to work,” replied Yuuto.
“Oh, where do you both work?” questioned the doctor.
“The host club Winter Night,” Yuuto replied.
“Well, unfortunately, he won’t be able to work for quite some time and it’s doubtful if he will be able to regain the mobility he had before. His spine and legs were damaged pretty severely. Then there’s his face, it was really bad. The facial reconstruction doctors might have to do additional surgery to help fix it,” said the doctor as he looked at his notes on his clipboard.
“I see. Well, I have to go. I was just stopping by for a quick visit before visiting hours ended,” said Yuuto as he gave a short bow to the doctor and left the room.
On his way down the hallway, he noticed two familiar faces of the female and male inspectors that had come to the club before as they passed him with two police officers following behind them.
Yuuto looked behind him and saw that they had entered the room he had just come from.
‘Wow I picked a good time to leave or I probably would have been stuck there being interrogated about who he is and if I knew what had happened to him,’ thought Yuuto as he hurried up his pace and exited the hospital.
When he got back to the club, he informed the others about what he had heard from the doctor. He also told them about the police and club inspectors that had gone into the room after he had left.
They decided to stay quiet about what they had seen unless they were targeted by the rival club.
