Due to her minor criminal record 20-year-old Richardis can't get a scholarship in Japan, so she decides to accept a job as a Tokyo hostess to earn enough money to pay her student loans, unknowing whom she will come across as her unwilling clientele. The story and title was inspired by Utada Hikaru's song "Tokyo Nights".

This is my 1st fanfic. I'm not a native speaker, so forgive the occassional mistake. I hope you like it!

〜Hyucham〜

3½ years ago Richardis Herzsprung got deported from Japan. Since she was a minor at the time everything was worse - at least it felt that way. Instead of being able to take responsibility and to explain the situation to her parents by herself, her mother and father had been faced with a version of the story by their emotionally distraught adolescent daughter and one from the most prestigious exchange agency in all of Japan.

The agency finally agreed not to press charges and to be satisfied by certifying the 16-year- old exchange student’s actions as illicit, thus officially giving her a criminal record in Japan. Richardis's parents assured her that they loved her no matter what had really happened and that she would always have a home where they lived no matter how low she might go in the future.

3½ years later Richardis was about to go low. Not very low – just quite low from her intellectual parent’s perspective. Only they didn’t actually know she was about to. Her brother knew. He could keep a secret. And her close friends knew, some were skeptical, some approved. It didn’t matter now. Richardis was 20 years old, legally emancipated and what not.

If only it weren’t for the criminal record in Japan - then life would be full of options now. Richardis was hell bent on going back to the country that had kicked her out. That was her abusive relationship: She had been a highly-motivated exchange student when she had gone there to stay for 10 months in Osaka. Reality soon caught up with her – her Japanese wasn’t good enough, she didn’t understand all sorts of social conventions and nobody had the energy or time or whatever to befriend her. Then she had been kicked out. She didn’t like remembering how it had come to that.

Well, Japan was going to get a 2nd chance if it wanted it or not. Richardis had applied for a number of university cholarships, because with 3 siblings her parents couldn’t afford to pay for her studying abroad. Several German agencies accepted her application, but when the reply from Japan got back, there was always some mysterious reason why they could not have Herzsprung-san in their program. It was the record no doubt. Finally a German scholarship agent informed her that it would not be possible for her to receive a scholarship anywhere in Japan. If she should turn out to be able to pay all fines, universities would be willing to overlook her record, but a scholarship was out of the question.

At these news Richardis had thrown a fit and locked herself in her room for 5 full hours. Usually a calm and pensive person, she had completely lost control and thrown her collection of Japan brochures and application documents out her 3rd floor window only to go outside and pick them all up again while cursing herself for her inability to break social convention.

She had brought the paper stacks all back to