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FIC: Yoshizumi's Night Out, Part 3 of 3
Title: Yoshizumi's Night Out, Part 3 of 3
Rating: NC-17 overall
Fandom: Haru wo Daiteita, When a Man Loves a Man
Pairing: Kenzaki/Yoshizumi
Characters: Yoshizumi, Asano, Kenzaki, Kikuchi, Onozuka
Word count: ~4,185
Warnings: spoilers for the When a Man Loves a Man series
Disclaimer: No money is being made off this story; consider it a little wish fulfillment on my part.
Sequel to: Unexpected Opportunities, Comeback (Part 1 and Part 2), Forgiveness, Firsts, First Date (Part 1 and Part 2), Going Steady (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6), Audition (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), Cookout (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), Press Conference (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), Sanctuary, The Prince vs. the Groupie (Part 1, Part 2), Family Visit: Tokyo (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5), and Gigolo (Part 1, Part 2). The series also includes two side-stories that are outside of the main timeline: Valentine's Day Surprise and Strictly Business.
Summary: Asano is thrilled to get some blackmail material on Yoshizumi, but things don't go according to plan.
Part 1, Part 2
***
Asano had nearly dozed off, but quickly snapped to alertness when Yoshizumi finally emerged from the hotel, yawning and running a hand through his damp (freshly showered?) hair. Asano hastily took out his wallet and paid the cab driver the amount that was owed, plus a generous tip. "Wait here for a few minutes," he said.
"I'll wait until the meter runs past the amount you gave me," the driver replied.
Asano pulled out his cell phone and got out of the cab, snapping a photo of Yoshizumi standing in front of the love hotel. "Well, fancy meeting you here, Yoshizumi-san," he said with a smug grin. "You're lucky that it's me who found you and not the paparazzi."
"Asano-kun," Yoshizumi said, looking startled for a brief moment, before his features settled back into his typical amiable expression. "What a coincidence."
"Isn't it, though?" Asano replied, annoyed by Yoshizumi's composure. Didn't he realize that Asano had the upper hand here?
"I realize that you're playing a stalker, so I guess you must be trying to get into character," Yoshizumi said lightly. "But I think you might be taking the method acting thing a little too far. People might misunderstand."
"They also might misunderstand a prominent actor spending the night with a male host!" Asano snapped. This wasn't turning out the way he had planned. He hadn't really intended to sell the information to the tabloids--he had just wanted to make Yoshizumi squirm a little, and to have some potential blackmail material to keep in reserve, just in case it ever became useful.
The car Yoshizumi had arrived in pulled out of the parking lot, and the host rolled down the window and leaned out of it, scowling in a threatening manner at Asano.
"Is everything all right, Yoshizumi-san?" the host asked.
"Yes, it's fine--I just happened to run into one of my coworkers," Yoshizumi replied cheerfully. "This is Asano-kun. Asano-kun, this is Kenzaki-san, the manager and number one host of the Rusty Nail."
Asano frowned, thrown off-balance by Yoshizumi's air of blithe unconcern, and Kenzaki's scowl grew a little more fierce. "If there's a problem here, I'd be happy to help you take care of it, Yoshizumi-san," Kenzaki said, with a meaningful glance at Asano.
"I'm fine, really," Yoshizumi assured him. "Go on home; I'll give you a call later."
"If you're sure," Kenzaki said doubtfully. Yoshizumi nodded, and the host gave Asano one last glare before driving off.
A second cab pulled up and Yoshizumi gave Asano a shrewd look and said, "Why don't we go get some breakfast, Asano-kun? I think that we have a few things to discuss."
Asano was the one with blackmail material on Yoshizumi, so why did he suddenly feel as if he was being put on the defensive? "Fine," he huffed defiantly, then dismissed his driver and climbed into the second cab with Yoshizumi.
Yoshizumi directed the driver to a twenty-four hour diner, which was half-empty. The other customers appeared to be a few bleary-eyed salarymen who had stayed out all night drinking and had missed the last train home, a couple of hostesses stopping by for breakfast after work, and a few kids in their late teens who looked like they had been partying all night. They were seated at a booth in the corner, and Yoshizumi cheerfully ordered hotcakes and a cup of coffee, while Asano just ordered coffee.
After the waitress left, Yoshizumi said, "If you plan to sell that picture to the tabloids, I think you'll be disappointed, Asano-kun. A scandal involving a supporting actor like me isn't really much of a scandal--no one cares. I doubt that you'll get much money for it."
"I wasn't planning on selling it to the tabloids!" Asano snapped.
"Then why were you following me around, and why take the picture?" Yoshizumi asked calmly.
"I just happened to see you coming out of the Rusty Nail with that guy, so of course I was a little curious," Asano protested innocently.
"And you just happened to be near the Rusty Nail because...?" Yoshizumi asked skeptically.
"I didn't feel like going home after we all left the first bar," Asano replied with a casual shrug. "I decided to do a little more drinking after that, and I just happened to be in the area."
They continued parrying back and forth for a few minutes, until the waitress reappeared with their orders. Yoshizumi drenched his hotcakes in butter and syrup, took a hearty bite, and chewed and swallowed with a look of satisfaction while Asano sipped his coffee, feeling tired and impatient.
"Look, it's late--or rather, early--and we're both tired, so let's stop playing games, shall we?" Yoshizumi said bluntly, but without any apparent hostility. "You followed me to the host club and then to the hotel, and caught me in what you seem to think is a compromising position. Obviously, your aim is blackmail, so what exactly is it that you want from me, Asano-kun?"
Asano was taken aback by Yoshizumi's blunt confrontation, and even more by the unconcerned, matter-of-fact tone of his voice. "I don't want anything from you now," Asano replied, attempting to sound smooth, but it came out sounding a bit sullen instead. "I'd just like you to keep it in mind, in case I need a favor from you later."
"Let me make this clear, Asano-kun," Yoshizumi said in a voice that was still calm, but now had an underlying hint of steel in it. "I won't give in to blackmail, so you can go ahead and take your story to the press if you like."
"I haven't even asked anything of you yet," Asano protested. This was not how his plan was supposed to have gone! He hadn't really wanted anything of Yoshizumi, except maybe his respect. He had wanted to catch the older actor off-guard and make him realize Asano was a force to be reckoned with, not just another young punk actor. And maybe he had wanted to wield a little power over Yoshizumi as revenge for Yoshizumi's gentle teasing.
"It doesn't matter what you ask, even if it's something as trivial as buying you a cup of coffee," Yoshizumi replied. "I don't like being threatened, and I don't like actors who rely on bribery or intimidation rather than their own abilities."
Asano felt his face grow hot with anger--and with shame. Somehow, this was even worse than when Katou had confronted him about the sleepover scandal, because he hadn't cared about Katou (although Asano had since gained a bit of grudging respect for him), but he did like and respect Yoshizumi.
"Actually, you have enough talent to become successful on your own without playing these petty little power games," Yoshizumi added, thoroughly confusing Asano by throwing in an unexpected compliment after his sanctimonious lecture. "I'm really disappointed in you, Asano-kun." Asano felt his face turn even redder, although he was almost as mad at himself as he was at Yoshizumi, for acting like a kid being lectured by a parent or teacher. "And anyway," Yoshizumi continued, "as I said, I doubt that the tabloids would even care whom I'm sleeping with."
"You might be surprised," Asano said sullenly. "Even if you're only a supporting actor, you're working on a high-profile movie and you have high-profile friends."
"I would rather take the chance of a scandal developing than find myself beholden to an actor who has no faith in his own talent," Yoshizumi replied coolly. "However," he added, his voice sharpening, "the one thing that I won't forgive is if a scandal should harm the movie. I don't care what the tabloids say about me, but if you should do anything to jeopardize the movie, I will make you regret it, Asano-kun."
Asano knew that he should just back down and laugh off the incident as a harmless prank, and tell Yoshizumi that of course he had never really intended to blackmail him. But he was angry and his pride had been stung, and he found himself sneering, "You talk big, Yoshizumi-san, but what could you possibly do to me?"
"I could reveal the truth about you being behind the sleepover scandal with Iwaki-kun," Yoshizumi retorted coolly.
Asano flushed guiltily and blurted out, "How did you--" before he managed to cut himself off, silently cursing himself for falling into Yoshizumi's trap.
"It's obvious, isn't it?" Yoshizumi replied, with a faint smile of satisfaction on his face. "You're too clever and calculating not to have foreseen that sleeping over while Katou-kun was gone would cause a scandal. Therefore, you must have done it on purpose."
"You can't prove that!" Asano snapped.
"No, but I could probably get Katou-kun to back me up," Yoshizumi said, unfazed. "He's wary of you, beyond the point of simple jealousy that he feels towards anyone who gets close to Iwaki-kun. That means that he knows what you did, but kept quiet about it for some reason--maybe he couldn't prove it, or maybe Iwaki-kun decided to forgive you. But if I tell him that you're up to your old tricks again, he won't hold back this time. And if two respected actors speak out against you in the press--one of those actors being a very famous and well-loved star--then your career will be damaged, Asano-kun, whether we have any proof to back up our words or not. And perhaps more importantly, you'll lose Iwaki-kun's good opinion of you."
Checkmate.
Asano spluttered and fumed, but he knew that he'd been outmaneuvered in a game he hadn't really intended to play in the first place. He resolved to never, ever underestimate Yoshizumi again.
"It was only a joke," Asano said sullenly. "I never intended to blackmail you, only to tease you a little bit, but you took it seriously."
"I suppose that I've seen too many actors' careers ruined to catch the joke," Yoshizumi replied quietly. "Kikuchi-san probably wouldn't find it funny, either."
Asano was quite sure that he wouldn't, and he would have been a lot more cautious about trying to blackmail Kikuchi. The man had the air of a predator, and while the risk might be worth the reward in certain situations, trying to muzzle a wolf was a dangerous prospect. Asano had been fooled by Yoshizumi's seemingly pleasant and mild demeanor, but he wouldn't make that mistake again. He was, in his own way, just as dangerous as Kikuchi--maybe even more so, because Kikuchi was a cynic, while Yoshizumi had the zeal and stubbornness of an idealist.
Conceding defeat, which left a taste as bitter as the cheap coffee in his mouth, Asano took out his cell phone. "Here, I'll delete the photo," Asano said, holding up the phone so that Yoshizumi could confirm the deletion.
"I'm glad that we were able to come to an understanding," Yoshizumi said pleasantly. "I'll forget about the incident and chalk it up to youthful indiscretion, but if you ever pull a stunt like this again, I won't be so quick to forgive you a second time."
"I understand," Asano replied, flushing once again, then forced himself to say, "I'm sorry, Yoshizumi-san." It took a great effort and an almost physical pain to force the words out of his mouth, but strangely, he felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders once he'd said it, and also, a sense of relief when Yoshizumi gave him what appeared to be a sincere smile. He was surprised and a little humbled to find that he cared what Yoshizumi thought of him, much as he had been surprised to find that he cared about what Iwaki thought of him, when Katou had told him after the sleepover scandal, "If you ever want to see Iwaki-san smile again, I suggest that you keep your mouth shut." Up until then, he hadn't seen Iwaki as anything but a pawn to be used in his own scheme for advancement.
"I'm such an idiot," Asano sighed, more to himself than Yoshizumi, but the older actor chuckled.
"We're all idiots when we're young," Yoshizumi said good-naturedly, though he added, "Some of us more than others. But as long as you learn from your mistakes, it's fine."
The subtle reprimand stung slightly, but Asano felt relieved that Yoshizumi didn't seem to hold a grudge and their...well, Asano wasn't sure that it could actually be called a friendship; maybe a working relationship? Anyway, whatever it was, Asano was glad that it was returning to normal after his blunder.
Yoshizumi ate his hotcakes with gusto while Asano sipped his coffee in silence, but it was a companionable rather than an awkward silence. "How did you meet that guy, anyway?" Asano wondered, mostly thinking to himself rather than addressing Yoshizumi. However, with his guard down and his head muddled slightly from fatigue, the words had slipped out of his mouth before he could stop them. "Sorry," he hastily added. "That's none of my business."
"I don't mind answering," Yoshizumi replied pleasantly. "If you're curious about something, I'd rather that you ask just me straight out." He politely left out the unspoken words instead of snooping around behind my back, but Asano flushed anyway. "And in return, if I feel that it's too personal to share, I'll just say so," Yoshizumi continued. "Anyway, I met Kenzaki-kun a few years ago when I was acting in a TV series about a host club."
"Ah, I remember--that was 'The Kings of Ginza,'" Asano recalled. "You played one of the main character's rivals. It kind of stands out, since you work mostly in historical dramas."
"Well, I'm flattered that you're such a fan, Asano-kun!" Yoshizumi teased. "Not many people remember that one. Anyway, as part of our research, the director and all the main actors visited Rusty Nail and talked to the hosts there in order to get a better understanding of our roles. Kenzaki-kun and I became friendly, and I stop by to visit him occasionally when I'm in Tokyo."
And just how 'friendly' are you? Asano wondered.
Yoshizumi smiled, as if picking up on Asano's thoughts, and said, "We're friends who share each other's company from time to time. Neither of us has a career conducive to a serious relationship: I'm always busy working, and I have to travel away from home a lot, and for Kenzaki-kun, obviously many partners would feel threatened by the fact that their lover makes his living by flirting with other men or women."
"I see," Asano murmured. It was no skin off his nose whether Yoshizumi's relationship with the host was serious or not, but he felt slightly comforted by the fact that it wasn't, and decided not to examine those feelings too closely. It was all probably due to too much alcohol and too little sleep, anyway--he'd spent half the night drinking with his coworkers, and the rest of the night and a portion of the morning spying on Yoshizumi.
"I know that I was out of line today," Asano said, changing the subject. "And I think that Tanabe's an ass, but he made a good point: sometimes talent isn't enough to get an actor noticed."
"Then I suppose that it's up to the individual actor as to how far he or she will go to get noticed," Yoshizumi replied. "But let me ask you something, Asano-kun: do you want to be known for your acting ability or for your connection to a tabloid scandal?"
"I suppose it's a little too late to be asking that, since I was already involved in a scandal," Asano said with a wry smile.
"You don't need to be so impatient, Asano-kun," Yoshizumi said solemnly. "You got good reviews in your last film, and I expect that you'll also be praised for your role in this film. In time, you'll get the recognition you want without having to resort to underhanded methods."
Asano appreciated the compliment, but he didn't want to be patient. He had hoped that the good reviews for "Winter Cicadas" would lead to a bigger role in his next film, but once again, he was stuck in the supporting role--while that smug bastard Onozuka got the co-lead and all the publicity that went along with playing the lover of an openly gay actor. Asano grudgingly admitted that Onozuka had given a good reading at the audition, but he wasn't convinced that it was Onozuka's acting ability that had won him the role as much as it was the chemistry between him and Kikuchi--a smoldering heat on the verge of igniting into flames. Asano sulkily thought that it wouldn't have been hard to generate that kind of chemistry if he'd been fucking Kikuchi--and Asano was beginning to suspect that their affair had started before the audition, not after it. They had been just a little too familiar with each other during the love scene, with Onozuka daring to touch the star of the movie in what was merely supposed to be a reading. On the other hand, it could just have been a blatant--and apparently effective--attempt to seduce Kikuchi; Onozuka was certainly audacious enough to carry out such a scheme despite his princely demeanor.
Asano started to scowl, but instead found his mouth opening in a yawn that he could no longer repress. "I'm going home to get some rest," he told Yoshizumi. Before I say any more stupid things under the influence of sleep deprivation, he added silently. Aloud, he said (with a faint touch of sarcasm), "As an apology, I'll pick up the check--unless you would consider that a bribe."
"Not at all," Yoshizumi replied cheerfully. "It's perfectly natural for friends to treat each other to a meal sometimes. Next time, it'll be my turn to treat you."
Was Yoshizumi being facetious, or did he really consider Asano to be a friend, even after what he had just done? It was one thing to be forgiving; it was another to accept an attempted blackmailer as a friend, when they hadn't been particularly close to begin with. Asano shook his head slightly, wondering if he would ever understand Yoshizumi.
"Then I'm going to choose a nicer place to eat next time!" he retorted, and Yoshizumi laughed good-naturedly.
***
Yoshizumi smiled to himself as he finished his breakfast alone. Asano was a clever young man, but he was not quite the cool and calculating schemer that he obviously liked to think of himself as. He was too impulsive, too easily provoked by anger or pride into reacting without thinking.
But Yoshizumi could sympathize with Asano's ambitions and frustration. He too had once been a prideful young idiot, although not as much of an idiot as Asano, since he had never tried to deliberately hurt or blackmail another actor in order to gain an advantage.
After his almost accidental introduction into acting as a child, he had gained a reputation as a promising young actor. Although his parents had gently cautioned him that the business was unpredictable, a teenage Yoshizumi had allowed himself to believe his manager's prediction that he was destined for great things. And then, as he had entered his twenties, he had discovered that he was no longer the brilliant child actor, but just another talented young actor among many others. He had grown angry and bewildered when he saw roles going to actors with less talent than himself, for reasons that didn't make sense to him: maybe they were better looking and able to draw in a large female audience; or they were more famous--a pop singer crossing over into acting, for example; or sometimes they simply had better connections than he did.
"It's all part of the game, Naotaka," his father had tried to console him. "Sometimes it's more about politics or money than talent. Filmmaking isn't just an art; it's a business."
That hadn't made any sense to Yoshizumi at the time, and although he now accepted the realities of the business, it still didn't make much sense to him. It just seemed like a movie with the best possible writing, directing, and acting ought to do better than one that had been compromised to suit the egos of the studio bigwigs. In his younger days, Yoshizumi had voiced that opinion out loud to his manager, and had been told that he was being impossibly naive and idealistic.
He had still been able to get work in supporting roles, but he had chafed and fumed at seeing all the "good" roles--meaning all the starring roles, of course--go to lesser actors. After watching this go on for quite some time, his mother had drawn him aside and asked in a quiet voice, "Are you sure that you want to continue acting, Naotaka?"
"Why do you ask?" Yoshizumi had countered defensively. "Do you think that I'm not good enough to make it as an actor?"
"Of course not," his mother had replied gently. "As your mother, I'm obviously a little biased, but I think that you're an excellent actor. When you first started acting, your father and I had our reservations about letting you get involved with the business at such a young age, but you insisted that you wanted to do it. Do you remember what we told you?"
"That I could keep acting, as long as I was enjoying myself," Yoshizumi had recalled. "But that if there ever came a time when it wasn't fun anymore, I could stop, and you wouldn't be angry or disappointed with me."
"You used to love acting so much, but lately, it seems to me that you haven't been enjoying yourself," his mother had replied. "You sort of drifted into acting as a child, without really thinking about the pressures and sacrifices that such a career demands. That was fine when it was only a hobby, but now that you're a grown man, you need to think long and hard about whether you love acting enough to stick with it in spite of all the politics and unfairness and backstabbing. Because you won't succeed if you go into acting halfheartedly, and I don't want to see you making yourself miserable, slaving away at something you don't love."
"What else would I do?" Yoshizumi had asked helplessly. He had been acting since he was eight, and he never before even considered doing anything else.
"If you still want to be involved with show business, you could work behind the scenes like your father and me," his mother had replied briskly. "And it's not too late for you to take the entrance exams and go to college. You'd be a few years behind most of your classmates, of course, but you're a smart and determined young man, Naotaka, and I'm sure you can succeed if you put your mind to it."
That had given Yoshizumi some pause for thought. He had become so obsessed with "winning" that the work he had once loved so much had become a chore. So Yoshizumi had taken some time off and thought things over, as his mother had suggested, and eventually he was able to recall his love of acting and the joy he took in seeing a movie or TV show come to life. And in the end, he had decided that he wanted to continue being a part of that process, in whatever capacity he could.
So he had finally accepted the possibility that he might never become a star, and although it was difficult, he found a measure of peace in that acceptance. He had sought out other ways to challenge himself, and found that sometimes it was actually more interesting to play the character roles and villains instead of the blandly heroic romantic lead. Besides, he'd never really been comfortable with the romantic roles--he liked to joke that he was allergic to romance.
Now he was content as a "supporting actor," and making a very good living at it, thank you very much--a better living and a longer career than many "stars" who had faded after a brief moment in the limelight. Yoshizumi wondered whether Asano would also burn out and fade away, or if he would learn to accept supporting roles without shame.
Or maybe he would be one of the lucky few to achieve long-lasting fame. Statistically, the chances were pretty slim, but Asano did have the potential for it. Whether or not he could fulfill that potential remained to be seen.
"I look forward to seeing how your career turns out, Asano-kun," Yoshizumi chuckled to himself, then raised his coffee cup in a toast to his absent co-star. The waitress gave him a curious look, then shrugged it off and moved on to wait on the next customer.
THE END
Next story in the series: Family Visit: Okinawa, Part 1
***
Afterword: I have to admit that my views of Yoshizumi--including his views on acting and his allergy to romance--have been influenced by
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
bronze_ribbons 's wonderful drabbles and fics about Yoshizumi, as well as canon. These were particularly insightful into his character:Earning
Replacements
Filling
Deserving
Because Yoshizumi looks young but appears to be an experienced actor, I had envisioned him in my mind as having started off as a child actor, which gives him enough time to be a veteran while still being relatively young in years. However, in this post and this follow-up discussion post on the Youka Nitta IJ Asylum about Yoshizumi's age, we determined that he's probably older than he looks. Still, I really liked the child actor idea, so I kept it for this fic.
The hospital scenes in the movie were inspired by the real movie "Return to Me," starring David Duchovny and Minnie Driver. In the beginning of the film, Duchovny's character's wife is killed in an accident, and he agrees to donate her organs. Her heart is transplanted into Driver's character. I remember being really struck by the emotional contrast as the film cut between scenes of Duchovny grieving and Driver's family jubilantly celebrating the fact that she was finally getting the transplant that she needed. Of course it's natural for them to be overjoyed that their loved one's life will be saved, but at the same time, I found it disturbing that they were essentially celebrating another person's death, although of course that wasn't what they intended. The rest of the movie was a pleasant if somewhat implausible love story where Duchnovy and Driver later meet and fall in love, but the hospital scenes were the ones that resonated with me the most, and some of that moral/emotional ambiguity went into the scene with Eisuke and Jun.
It was Snapelike's idea that "Yoshizumi needs to get laid," and since I didn't want him to get involved in a serious relationship at this point in the series, she suggested setting him up with one of the hosts from When a Man Loves a Man, which I thought was a great idea. But then I needed to figure out how Yoshizumi and Kenzaki first met, so unless Yoshizumi makes a habit out of going to host clubs (which actually isn't a bad idea but not what I had in mind), I decided that the most likely reason was that Yoshizumi had gone to the Rusty Nail to do research for a TV show about a host club.
In the afterword for Going Steady Part 2, I mentioned a show about hosts called "Yaoh," which I've seen translated as "Night King" or "Night Kings" or "Kings of the Night," depending on who's doing the translating. This was actually the type of drama I had in mind for Yoshizumi's fictional TV show, although of course I altered the title slightly to "Kings of Ginza," paying homage to "Yaoh," which is set in Ginza, although the Rusty Nail is located in Shinjuku. "Yaoh" actually provided some good background information for my fic, since I learned that a bottle of Dom Perignon runs about a hundred thousand yen (approximately $1,000) at a club like this. In fact, the Dom Perignon is actually at the lower end of the scale, and the bottles range in price from about 100,000 to 900,000 yen, depending on the type of liquor one is ordering. (In the TV show, the hosts call out their bottle orders in the same dramatic fashion that Kenzaki does, as if to show off their status, although I don't know if they do this in real life.) Customers can order cheaper, individual drinks, but the real money seems to come from selling them whole bottles. Also, the top-ranked hosts will usually have to wait on several customers during an evening, so the lesser hosts without clients of their own act as assistants and entertain the senior host's customers when he has to attend to another customer.
In the TV show, it's also stated that it's important for a top host to have a clique of assistants for this very reason, and also to help him consume the copious amounts of alcohol that his customers order, since he would become very drunk and ill if he had to drink it by himself. A couple of news articles about hosts that I found online said that many hosts (and hostesses) do develop alcohol-related health problems due to the heavy drinking that their job requires. The articles also stated that new hosts have to pay their dues by doing menial chores such as cleaning bathrooms and the like, which was why I had Kenzaki sentence Akira and Kei to similar chores as punishment.
Also, it generally seems to be the manager's job to greet customers at the door, and if they're a new customer, to inquire as to which host they would like to wait on them, but since Kenzaki is also working the floor as a host, I had him delegate that responsibility to an assistant.
I had Asano and Yoshizumi go to a nameless diner to discuss their differences, but I actually had in mind a Denny's. (It's sort of a cheap 24-hour family restaurant chain in the US, for non-Americans who might not be familiar with it.) I first learned that there are Denny's restaurants in Japan thanks to this Megatokyo webcomic strip, and I verified it with a little online research. And apparently there actually is one in Shinjuku!
I stumbled across this video while doing my research, and I have to say that the Japanese menu looks a hell of a lot better than what we have in the US!
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Thank you for sharing!
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and I'm looking forward to how asano had changed due to this situation- maybe he faces his roles now more ernest... well, I will be waiting ^^
have a nice time
see you in the next part XDDDD
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As for Asano...well, we'll see what happens. ~_^ Thanks again for reading!
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Thanks for reading, and I'm glad you enjoyed the story, even out of order! ^_^
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i liked the way Asano this scheming shameless brat got trapped and how he got the lesson he bitterly deserved *LOL* - and Yoshizumi did this without to leave a bad feeling reel at the end.
these 3 chaps were great, you made a lot of Yoshizumi's chara ^^
dunno if i'll read more/write today, so i wish you *happy new year*, lotsa fun in 2010 and baskets full of inspiration!! (^_^)
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Wishing you a happy new year also, and thanks for reading!
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Unfortunately, I'm afraid I am going to disappoint you on the Yoshizumi/Asano thing, though. I was originally planning to have them get together, but he and Kenzaki clicked together so well that the plot bunny into another direction and it ended up spoiling my plans.
However, I still like the idea of Yoshi/Asano, so someday I may return to my Haru-Shakespeare series and have them get together in that universe! ^_^
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Please tell me I'm reading this all in order - I presume that series is later - sorry, been years since I was a manga fan and just niw getting back into it. I so love your stories!!!
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You have been reading this series in order--I've tried to link to the next chapter or fic at the end of each post. But you can check out my fanfic masterlist for a chronological listing, as well as a list of my stand-alone Haru fics:
http://geri-chan.livejournal.com/56079.html
Btw, it's okay if you like Yoshi/Asano more than K/O! ~_^ I'm fond of them myself, in spite of Asano's scheming.