RIVALS INCARNATE

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Not Her Kind Of Night

PRESENT, 2020 (Tokyo)

Confusing.

Completely confusing...

Yuko Amazawa paused and gazed through the window from where she sat at the backseat of her car at the glittering display of an upscale nightclub somewhere in the redlight district of the city where she had been told to go. This was the place that Ami Komatsu had given her as their venue when her assistant had called her office yesterday to give the details for their meeting. And it appeared to be somewhat confusing.

Why here?

This was certainly not the place that looked like something you can call, "Doré".  Yuko had initially thought when she read the name of the place that it would be just some kind of another fancy restaurant like that same luxury fine dining place they had gone to last time along with Kurosaki and Sato. Although the address was suspicious at first glance, Yuko never really thought too much about it, which she had now certainly regretted. And she could not even resist a frown as she chose to stay inside the car for a while, anxious of ever getting out.

"Is this..." Mr. Sugine, her driver, suddenly spoke from the driver seat with a skeptical look on his face. He, as well,  was staring warily at the place, confused if it was the right one or not, "... the place, ma'am Amazawa? Or did I take a wrong stop?"

Yuko did not reply right away but her face obviously showed that there was no denying this was not the place. She was already hesitating to get out of the car, but she knew she had no choice. There were a lot of young people hanging outside of it, scattered all around and huddled in groups while talking loudly to each other with cigarettes in their hands and cans of beer. It was not just a typical nightclub, not even the ones that only the VIPs go to. It was a pretty normal slightly high-end nightclub with crowded customers and blaring music heard from the inside.

Can she really enter this place?

"Ma'am?" Mr. Sugine asked again, raising a brow through the rearview mirror where he was now looking at Yuko's reflection with a worried face. "Should I go or is this it? We're blocking the driveway."

And as if on cue, just as Mr. Sugine said those words a car angrily honked behind them so loud that Yuko jolted from the backseat. She reflexively turned to look over her shoulder and glared at the disturbance and swiftly braced herself as she took a deep breath.

She had to move. No choice left.

"It's here," she finally answered back to Mr. Sugine, turning to the front as she reached for the door handle beside her and continued, "This is the place. You don't have to wait for me, Mr. Sugine, just leave the car at my place and I'll get a cab on my way home. Thank you."

She breathed deeply once more.

Hesitating and still worried, Mr. Sugine just nodded his head as Yuko moved to get out of the car and said, "Okay, ma'am. Please take care of yourself. Good evening."

Then the car shut closed behind her. But not after the other car behind them honked again. This time the horns blared two times. Yuko gave the driver of the noisy vehicle through its tinted windshield a death glare from where she stood just outside her car and she took the front steps of the nightclub with an angry scowl. Mr. Sugine drove off soon after he saw her leaving and Yuko maneuvered her way through the sweaty bodies of young people blocking the path towards the entrance of the club. Some gave her curious glances, some eyed her from head to toe. 

Great.

It was only by that time that she had also realized how formally overdressed she was right now. She was wearing her very prim and sophisticated office attire while trying to blend herself in this kind of place where most of the young women around her were dressed in short skirts, stilettos, and flimsy tank tops. Obviously, she would really stand out like a sore thumb, further making it more embarrassing for her as she struggled to keep her head high while getting unnecessary attention from the people around her. It was a very demeaning moment for her, yet Yuko simply shook that irritating emotion off of her mind, thinking that she had to deal with it since she got no time to lose now. She needed to do this.

So let this be... This was just a mere simple sacrifice for a much bigger reward coming soon.

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Turned out, the bigger reward that Yuko was expecting still had not shown up yet.

When she had reached the front entrance with the big bouncer blocking the doors, she quickly gave her name and Komatsu's code, "eloquent" to the guy, which eventually let her in so easy that she was still too shocked to actually figure how this thing worked in these kinds of places. But as soon as Yuko got inside and met a much overwhelming scene of gyrating bodies and loud music, she instantly felt nauseous as she walked and tried to get a clear path to the bar counter.

She had been advised by the bouncer at the entrance to give her name to the bartender as soon as she walked in and she was told that a private room will be given to her afterward. But not more than a few steps into the place, she was immediately barricaded by a wall of muscle and sweat, stopping her on her tracks. 

"Hey, beautiful," the guy told her in a slurry voice, obviously drunk, with his breath filled with acid scent hitting her nostrils as he swayed towards her in an attempt to lean closer which Yuko quickly tried to avoid by stepping back, "You with someone tonight?"

"I'm sorry," she coldly brushed him off, stepping to the side to leave him, and went on, "I'm not here for a drink. Find someone else."

She started walking away but she was immediately halted when she got pulled back again by an aggressive grab on her arm.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," the guy still insisted, his eyes glossy and half-closed as he dragged her close to him, "Don't leave that fast... We're not yet finished."

Yuko glowered. The audacity of this f*****g drunk bastard. She almost said that out loud but chose to be calm and collected as she did not really want to lose her temper in this kind of place, least of all. Her reputation was still important, however. But Yuko knew that she needed to get rid of him, and the only thing she could come up with was to suck up and try to fool him.

She really had no choice. He was bigger than her, and physical strength would be her disadvantage. So she decided to do something else and endured the smell and the irritating look on the guy's face. Yuko suddenly moved forward and slowly leaned against the guy's body as if she was now seducing him and her face shifted into a look of sensuous invitation.

"Tell you what, big boy," she said in a sultry voice, masking her annoyance while keeping her voice soft as she tried to whisper her words, "We can have some fun later but only if you can go and get me a drink right now. I'll wait for you here... So, go get it fast, okay?"

Fucking bastard, take that. She thought to herself ominously, that must be enough already. And luckily, it actually worked. As if hypnotized and fooled too fast, the guy's face broke into a stupid smile, and nodded his head, looking like he just won a jackpot. He quickly obliged and turned to walk away but not before grabbing a handful of Yuko's ass that almost made her yelp and cursed him off. But she bit it back and kept a tight smile on her face, even when a vein had started to pop on the side of her forehead. This f*****g bastard...

Fortunately, the guy finally left and Yuko's face immediately went dark as she glared at his back before turning around to go in the opposite direction. She just had to lose him. And she needed to get out of his sight before he could come back. But as soon as she turned, her eyes widened in surprise upon seeing no other than, Ami Komatsu herself, standing there from a meter away behind her with a smirk on her face and her hands crossed over her chest. She was wearing a glamorous party get-up, of course, and her hair was styled in a way that she almost looked younger than her age. This was real now.

Yuko was really seeing her for real now.

"That was cool," Yuko heard her say after a moment, through the noises of the people dancing near them and the bopping bass in the background, she could still clearly understood Ami's muffled words as she went on, "I thought you were in trouble, but it seemed like you didn't actually need any saving."

Saving?

"I thought you were not here yet," Yuko replied distractingly, partly yelling just to make her voice loud and clear for her as she stared back to Ami's eyes, "Where are we going to talk? We need someplace much more appropriate, right?"

"Right," Ami said back, slightly chuckling as she dropped her hands to her side and motioned her head to Yuko gesturing to follow her, "Well we ought to leave, anyway,"--she added, glancing past Yuko's shoulder with an amused grin---"And your loverboy's coming back quite faster than expected. We surely don't want to deal with that son of a b***h again. So let's go."

Right after saying that as well, Ami reached out a hand to her. But Yuko just stared at the gesture with a hesitant look, not sure what to do with it. Was she supposed to take it? She was anxious. But before she could even ask, Ami suddenly grabbed her hand and pulled her as they started walking in a rush through the dancing sweaty crowd. In the midst of all that, Yuko's entire mind was drifting away from reality. She felt the warmth of her palm, the smallness of her hand, and the softness of her fingers...

It was almost as if she was holding Lady Aoi's hand too. They felt so the same. This must be a dream... Yet she knew this was all so real.

She was really with Ami/Aoi tonight.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------next chapter: Chapter Forty