During the next day’s pre-work meeting, the old man informed them that he had some important news to tell them.
“Takaji has proven he has what it takes to work as a host for the most part. He will be promoted from being a probationary host and join the ranks of a regular host.
We also have two new probationary hosts, Motoki and Rinji. I hope everyone will get along with them.
Yuuto, you will help them if they have any questions about the duties of a probationary host. That’s it for the special news. You are dismissed.”
Yuuto had not noticed his former roommates were in the room until it was mentioned. The four former roommates all met in the hallway.
Motoki had slimmed down a bit and Rinji had put some muscles on his former slim stick figure.
“Look at you guys, Dr. Doi must have run you ragged to get you in shape,” said Yuuto.
“You don’t know the half of it, plus I had to go on a strict diet. I’m still supposed to watch what I eat and work out but at least it’s not as hellish as morning training was,” said Motoki.
“Well, I had it slightly easier, no diet needed. Just getting fit,” said Rinji.
“Oh yeah, before we start work and forget, congrats Takaji on being promoted,” said Yuuto while he slapped him on the back a few times.
“Thanks, but I have a feeling the hard part starts now. Guess we need to get to work on cleaning up. I’ll leave the bathroom cleaning to you rookies,” said Pretty boy.
Yuuto groaned and said, “Stop rubbing it in our faces.”
Pretty boy left them and joined the other hosts that were headed towards the club room.
Yuuto led Motoki and Rinji to the supply closet where they gathered the tools and protective gear needed to start cleaning the bathrooms.
When entering the first bathroom, their reactions were just like Yuuto’s when he had first started.
When they were finished cleaning the bathrooms, they helped clean up in the club room and then changed and ate a quick dinner.
Yuuto gave them a few tips on how to get customers to go to the host club. Of course, they were just the tips he had learned from Pretty boy.
After spitting up, Yuuto walked down one of the many busy streets inviting females to Club winter night.
An hour later, while walking he heard his name called out from the direction of the crowded sidewalk in front of him.
Looking to where the voice had come from, he noticed a female waving at him.
She looked to be in her late teens or early 20’s. Compared to the people around her, she stood out from the crowd with her medium length hair dyed blue, a slender body, and medium height.
Yuuto was shocked to see someone he knew calling out to him, Yuuto waved back casually.
The person’s name was Kana Sakata, she was the older sister of one of his friends from school. Kana was just two years older than Yuuto and Shogo her younger brother.
Yuuto had spent a large amount of time with Kana when hanging out with her younger brother at the manga cafe their family ran.
When he was at their house, they would often get into heated discussions of anime, manga, and eroge.
Kana was like the nice older sister he never had at his own house. She was always a very athletic person and you could say she was a tomboy while growing up.
She ran up to him. “Yuuto what are you doing out here on the streets of Shinjuku dressed up like that?”
“Work,” said Yuuto since he could not think of anything else to say.
“Oh really? What do you do?”
Yuuto mumbled, “I work as a host at club Winter Night.”
“What! A host club? I didn’t think that was the sort of job you were interested in.”
“Some crazy things happened after I was kicked out of my parents’ home. I moved here for a different job and it ended up causing me to owe a large debt to many people. Now I’m working to pay it off.”
“Wow, that sounds bad. My little brother told me that you had moved, but he didn’t tell me you got kicked out.”
“I didn’t tell him about it. I was trying to get everything sorted out. You’re the only one who knows I work as a host.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone about it if you want to keep it a secret. So… What is it like being a host?” asked Kana.
“I’m still a probationary host. So far it’s not all that great of an experience. It’s a lot harder then people would think. Enough about me, what about you and Shogo?” asked Yuuto.
“My life is fine and Shogo is doing okay, we’re both still working at the family manga cafe. All this talk about your new job has gotten me interested in club Winter Night. Will you take me there?”
“Now who’s the one acting strange? Are you sure you want to go?”
“Yes. It will help you get paid right?”
“Well okay, I’ll take you if you insist,” said Yuuto. He then held out his arm offering it to her. Her small hand clasped his hand lightly.
“Let’s go!” she exclaimed cheerfully.
“I forgot to tell you my name is Yasuo while working. You can’t use my real name.”
Kana only gave a hearty laugh at the name as she linked her arms with his.
Yuuto escorted her to the building and up to club Winter Night’s main room on the 3rd floor.
He returned to the first floor after wishing her well and hoping she had a happy stay.
Yuuto received his payment from the front desk supervisor and went back out onto the streets. He was successful in escorting one more customer to the host club during the night.
Overall it was his best night making 10,000 yen. Bringing his total to 15,000 yen going towards paying off his debt.
On the leader board, both Motoki and Rinji had a 0 written next to their names.
After the post-work meeting was over, all four of the former roommates went to get something to eat.
While Yuuto was eating, he saw Motoki and Rinji looking down and dejected, so he decided to try to cheer them up.
“Hey don’t be so sad guys. It will take some time for you to learn how to be as good as me.”
“If that’s your way of trying to cheer us up, you suck at it,” said Motoki.
“I just want to sleep,” said Rinji.
The four of them finished eating and silently walked to their rooms.
To Yuuto’s surprise, he found out that Motoki and Rinji were living in room 24 right across the hallway from the room Pretty boy and Yuuto lived in. After bidding each other good night, they all went to sleep.
***
Yuuto let out a loud sigh, he had been chosen to help in the kitchen again under the strict head cook.
After cleaning the bathrooms with Motoki and Rinji, he headed to the kitchen.
It was already getting busy inside preparing for when customers would start to come.
He picked up a tray of food and brought it over to the small table in the corner while inspecting what leftovers tonight’s dinner was.
It was a tasty bean soup with fried fish on the side along with steamed white rice.
As he placed his tray onto the table and sat down, he looked up and was surprised to see someone else was sitting at the table across from him.
Yuuto had been too busy inspecting his food to notice that a female was sitting at the table.
He guessed she was a hostess helping in the kitchen like he was.
She wasn’t paying him any attention as she ate her bean soup.
He only looked at her face for a second before it caused him to become agitated.
“YOU!” shouted Yuuto as he pointed his finger at her.
She looked up annoyed that she was being bothered.
“Wha…YOU?!” she was quite shocked when she noticed who it was that was now sitting across from her.
“You scammer! What are you doing here?” asked Yuuto with his finger still pointing at her.
“Just my luck to run into you at a place like this. Don’t you know it’s rude to point? It’s also none of your business why I’m here. If you must know something, I’ll just say I started to work as a hostess on the 5th floor,” said the girl in front of Yuuto.
“You had me fooled, I thought you were a nice and beautiful person after talking with you over dinner. But you went and did something like taking me to that ripoff restaurant. I thought you were the ideal Yamato Nadeshiko with your nice silky long black hair and your light smooth skin. Miss scammer.”
“It’s not like I’m happy that you praised me for being beautiful, but thanks. It wasn’t my fault that you got scammed. I also didn’t target you for any particular reason, you just happened to be the one who showed up. You naively accepted my offer to go to the restaurant. I was just doing an odd job to help lessen my parent’s debt.”
“How rude of you to say I’m naive, and you’re welcome for the compliment.”
“Hey, you two. Stop flapping your jaws and finish eating so you can help with preparations,” shouted the head cook.
Now that Yuuto’s food had cooled off and wasn’t able to burn his mouth, he was able to scarf it down with gusto.
Scammer girl looked at him with distaste as there was soup and other bits of food getting flung onto the table from his high speed of eating.
Yuuto placed the tray with the bowls and silverware into the dirty dishwater bin. He then went and washed his hands and put on a hairnet, gloves, and an apron. He was now ready to work.
Scammer girl had also finished eating, geared up, and waited with Yuuto for the head cook to give them instructions. They were both ordered to help start preparing food for the main appetizers that were ordered the most often.
While walking through the kitchen getting items and delivering them, they kept bumping into each other and stepping on each other’s feet.
Yuuto gave a yelp of pain as the Scammer girl stepped on his foot with the back of her heel, making him nearly fall to one knee in pain. So the next time she walked by, he had his foot slightly stuck out making her nearly trip.
“Will you kids knock it off! Am I going to have to hit your heads together to make you stop squabbling? Stop messing around while in the kitchen and get to work. What your doing is not only childish but dangerous as well,” the head cook roared at the two troublemakers.
There were no other mishaps for the rest of the business hours. Just plenty of cold stares and glares back at each other.
“I’m leaving the cleaning and the rest of the dishes to both of you. Don’t screw around, do the job right,” said the head cook.
Yuuto started to wash the dishes that had piled up. He rinsed the plates, glasses, and silverware with the spray hose, then placed them into the tray and slid it into an industrial dishwasher. He looked over at the Scammer girl who was just standing around doing nothing.
“Hey YOU, can you please dry the dishes and put them away?” asked Yuuto.
She looked over at Yuuto and gave an exasperated sigh. Then picked up a towel and started to dry the dishes and put them away.
“I have a name you know. It’s Niko Ogiwara.”
“Well, it would have been better if you had told me when we first met. On the other hand, Niko, you have a nice name.”
“You don’t need to praise my name. It’s not like I’m that easy to please.”
“So I’m here because I was scammed by a lot of people on the second day I moved here causing me to rack up a large amount of debt. How ‘bout you?”
Niko was quiet for some time then blurted out, “Look, it’s like I said before, I was trying to help get my parent’s debt lowered by helping those guys out when we first met.
My parents died in an accident where a piano fell on top of them when they were out on a daily jog. Leaving me with my two younger siblings, my younger brother and sister who are both in elementary school.
Their debt has been passed onto me and I can’t take care of it. We don’t have any other relatives, so to keep the creditors off me and keep my younger siblings safe, I’m working and living here with my siblings. Happy? Or do you need the rest of my life story?”
“Oh, I’m sorry that your parents died. I know this is not comparable but I don’t have any contact with my parents or any other family members myself.”
“Thanks, I guess,” Niko quietly replied.
They finished washing the dishes and cleaning in silence. The head cook came in and after checking told them they could leave.
Before they parted ways in the hallway Yuuto called out.
“It was a wild ride working with you. It was interesting to learn more about you Niko,” said Yuuto in his best gentleman host voice while giving a slight bow.
Niko looked away and said, “Thanks,” and then walked towards the stairs that led to the woman’s side of the building.
As Yuuto watched her walk away, he wondered if what she had said was true or if she was just trying to trick him again.
‘Why does it even matter if it’s true or not,’ thought Yuuto.
