Cutesy Maid was one of Yoko's favorite places to go on his days off, and even sometimes after work or during breaks. There was a particular appeal that host clubs had for him. It was much easier than maintaining any sort of normal sort of relationship. There were no expectations from women, no pressure. Even if he couldn't take them home, it took the edge off. If he wanted , there was always an easy way to get that as well. No need to combine the two and end up with a woman who expected him to settle down and get married within a month of dating. He just wasn't that type of guy, not yet anyway. His mother claimed he just hadn't met the right girl, his co-workers clapped him on the back and shared his opinions on the matter. Why get married before you have to? There was still plenty of time to make a family.

Walking in to Cutesy Maid, one of the girls smiled and welcomed him back by name. The familiarity of a place he'd been to before was something he also liked. He could name most of the girls who worked there, and most of them knew him just as well. They always gushed over what a good customer he was, how funny he was and how he always had a smile that lit up their day. Yoko wasn't stupid enough to believe that some of it wasn't put on, but at the same time he thought that he was a pretty good customer, in comparison to some of the other guys he'd seen in there anyway.

After getting his table, the usual one, closer to the back where the girls came and went to get drinks and food. They said they kept the table for him so they could all see him as they worked, and always apologized when it was already taken. Not that he minded too much, but he enjoyed the preferential treatment, not that they could make it too obvious in front of their other clients.

There was one particular visit to the club that changed things. Since Yoko knew the girls really well, he usually noticed when someone left, but he always noticed when someone new worked there. The frills on her skirt was the first thing that caught his eye, as she walked by him. Taller than most of the other girls there, brown hair curled elegantly around her face, and her eyes as they caught his gaze immediately got his attention. She simply smiled and looked away as she moved toward another table. Yoko found himself staring after her, the cute smile still imprinted in his mind. He was almost surprised when another one of the girls sat by him, but he quickly turned his attention to her instead, despite how his mind was still on the new girl.

Once a little time had gone by, Yoko decided to ask about her. After taking a drink of his sake, he leaned closer to the girl with blond pigtails and lighter make-up, making her look like a school-girl. "So, there's a new girl, isn't there?"

"You never miss one, You-kun," she said in her high, cutesy voice.

Yoko smiled in response and leaned back into the seat. "Of course not. I'm a trained cop you know."

That rewarded him with an impressed smile and a refill to his cup. "Would you like to meet her?" Yoko nodded at the question and smiled. Of course, he liked meeting all the new girls. He did think this one was particularly interesting, at least she looked very appealing to him. She was just very different from the other girls. "I think you'll like her," the girl added with a smile that almost looked mischievous before she stood and almost bounced toward the back. Yoko watched her go before shaking his head. One of the things he liked about the place was that there was such a variety of personalities there. It made him really curious as to what the new girl would act like. Would she be more cute and young, or more elegant and refined.

It took a surprisingly small amount of time for the new girl to make her way to his table. Probably five minutes later, she was sliding into the seat across from him. The other girl didn't return, something he didn't necessarily mind. It just meant that the new girl would probably take over serving him for the time being. "Yoroshiku," she said, her voice sounding a little lower than most of the girls, but it still had a really cute quality to it. While she didn't have too much make-up on, Yoko could tell she had fake lashes and had put a lot of work into how she looked. But it was a nice balance.

"My name is Yokoyama You, but you can call me whatever you like," he said with a friendly smile. "Some of the girls here call me You-kun, others call me Yokoyama-san."

twitched slightly in a way that Yoko wasn't sure he could ascertain the meaning of, but it did make him more curious.

"Then, I will have to think of something else to call you by, shall I?" She smiled sweetly before standing and moving to the seat beside him. "Shall I serve you, Yoko-sama?"

The addition of sama along with the shortening of his last name made Yoko smile before nodding. "Please," he responded as he watched her pick up the sake bottle to refill his cup. He watched her curls fall over her shoulder as she leaned forward. There was something very sensual looking about her, but maybe it was just because of how attractive she was to him.

"So, you are an amazing police officer, am I correct?"

Yoko laughed and took a drink of the sake before shaking his head. "I guess the other girls told you? Well, I wouldn't say amazing. I do my job the best I can," he responded, feeling a little smug by the compliments.

"No," she responded simply, catching him by surprise a little. "The girls simply told me you were a frequent customer. Yoko-sama and I have met before," she said as her lips curved up into a smile.

That immediately caught Yoko's attention. He sat up a little straighter and tried to get a better look at her face, but she had stood and turned away before he had time to react. "I'll get Mimi-chan to finish serving you. It was nice to see you again, Yoko-sama."

"Wait, I..." Yoko tried, starting to stand, but she walked off too quickly. Sitting back down, Yoko turned his gaze back to his cup, his mind racing. Now that he thought about it, she had looked familiar, but he couldn't place her face. Where had he seen her before? Who was she? Damnit. He hadn't even gotten a name, not that he could trust it to be her actual name anyway. Most of these girls used a fake one. Sighing, Yoko sat back in his seat and tried to figure out who she could possibly be, but he just couldn't connect her face to any woman he'd met before.



Later, as Yoko was leaving the club, he still felt unsatisfied. Even after asking Mimi-chan about the girl more, he couldn't really find anything out other than her name being Shoko-chan, which didn't really tell him much. Although the name seemed to tug at something in his memory, but he thought it could have just been because he was looking for some kind of clue. His first thought was that she might have been a hostess at another club, but he couldn't remember any like her. Of course, being a police officer, he met a lot of people he only saw once or twice and of course he wouldn't remember all of their names or faces. But this felt different. He felt like her face was too familiar to not remember who she was.

Suddenly, Yoko noticed a girl coming out from the side of the building. She turned to walk a little ways ahead of him, not looking in his direction. He immediately knew it was her, despite the fact that she was now wearing jeans and a loose pink shirt. Her hair was the same softly curled brown though, and he could easily recognize her frame. At first he wasn't sure if he should approach her or not. She hadn't seemed like she wanted to tell him who she was. But his curiosity won out pretty easily, and he quickened his pace to catch up to her.

"Shoko-chan?" He questioned, coming up behind her. She tensed a little and stopped mid-step, but when she looked around, she only smiled before continuing walking.

"Yoko-sama? Is there a problem?"

Pressing his lips together in thought, Yoko thought the voice as well sounded really familiar, but he still couldn't place her. "You said we've met before, and.."

"You can't figure it out?" She finished before he could. He frowned, but she just smiled at him in a secretive way that made him only feel more curious, to the point where his body felt on edge. There was definitely something about her that caused a reaction in him, one more strong than he'd felt for a woman in a while. "I bet it's driving you crazy," she continued, sounding more and more like she was enjoying teasing him. "Then, should I tell you?"

Yoko wasn't sure how to respond to the teasing, but he kind of liked it. "I'd like to know," he said simply, digging his hands into his pockets as he walked beside her.

"How about this, then? I will tell you who I am if you come home with me."

For a moment, Yoko was really surprised. Was she really inviting him home? That was against all kinds of rules for a hostess. Not that he felt like he would really mind going home with her, or breaking the rules. But no matter what she was wanting, he felt his curiosity ruling out any kind of sense he might have made out of the situation. "Okay," he answered after a moment. The resulting smile made him feel like he'd made the right decision. She really had a nice smile.



When they got to her apartment, Yoko looked at it as if he were inspecting it for any clue as to who she was, even from the outside. But the bricks told him nothing. While he had been to that side of town plenty of times before, nothing about the place she lived told him who she was. She smiled that coy smile before unlocking her door and inviting him in. Yoko slowly moved in as she the light and shut the door behind them. He looked around as he slid his shoes off and moved in. There wasn't anything that immediately jumped out at him. It looked like a normal apartment.

Suddenly Yoko felt a warm body pressing against his back as two arms slid around his waist. She pressed her head against his shoulder and he could hear her breath softly. But there was something off. Her body felt nice, but something triggered warning bells in his head. Before he could work out what it meant, her breath played softly across the skin of his neck as she turned her head and spoke.

"I never got the chance to thank you," her voice had changed a little. It sounded more serious, but also of a deeper tone. "For saving me."

Yoko felt his nerves tingle, his body reacting to the closeness of this person. But suddenly Yoko knew he wasn't dealing with a woman. The voice, the body pressing against his back now made everything else seem so clear, the height, what made her stick out amongst the girl. Reaching down, Yoko grabbed his hands and pulled them away so he could step away and turn around. The man looked up at him, his eyes held a nervousness and fear that made Yokoyama feel oddly protective. Suddenly he looked at this person with an entirely different perspective, one that allowed him to connect the missing pieces.

"Yasuda," his lips formed the name as it came to his mind. He could remember the smaller man easily. His scared face, how fragile he'd seemed when Yoko pulled him out of the dark room he'd been held in. He was immediately aware of exactly who he was looking at. He'd spent so long looking at the other man's picture when he was trying to find him that it was surprising he hadn't realized who he was already. Not to mention that Yoko was surprised the other man would know him, remember him, even though they'd only physically met once. After he'd been rescued, the other man had been escorted to an ambulance and taken to a hospital. He'd never seen the other man after that.

The man trembled slightly in front of him and Yoko released the hold on his wrists. "I know you probably think I'm gross, or weird, for pretending to be a girl. It's not how I would have had you see me when I thanked you, but I wanted to so badly. I didn't know if I would get another chance. I didn't know your name, only your face. And honestly, I didn't have the courage to find you before. I thought you wouldn't remember me, or that it would be insignificant to you. But," he paused and Yoko felt like he was hanging on that silence, like he was captured by everything the other man was saying. "ever since that night I have remembered your face, dreamed of you. You saved my life. I don't know how I can thank you enough."

His eyes were glued to the floor, and Yoko felt that protectiveness seeping into him again. He'd felt like that during the entire case. Looking at his face, Yoko had always felt like he had to save him. Even after he had, he remembered him. For a long time his face had been really clear in his memory, but five years later, he hadn't ever expected to meet him again.

Before he even thought about it, Yoko was stepping forward. Moving his arms, Yoko wrapped them firmly around the other man's shoulders, pulling his body closer. Yasuda almost melted against him, finding and grasping his shirt like his life depended on it. Yoko didn't know what he was doing, knew that it was wrong. He should never let a victim get to him, never take advantage of their gratitude, but he couldn't even control himself as he moved his face, tilting it down to find Yasuda's lips. The other man tilted his own face, giving him permission and access to more. His mouth opened against Yoko's and a smooth, sweet moan slipped from his lips. Yoko felt his body reacting immediately to the sound, to the feeling of the other man holding onto him tighter.

Pulling back from the kiss, Yoko looked at the other man and their gazes met. Yasuda smiled sweetly, a look that made all doubts slip from Yoko's mind. "You're welcome," he said softly, moving one hand up to run through the hair by his face. It felt as soft as it looked, and Yoko realized it was real. He smiled and let his fingers sink more into the curls, thinking it wasn't disgusting at all to him. In all honesty, it kind of turned him on, which was something else he knew was unprofessional of him.

"Stay," Yasuda suddenly said in almost a whisper, the word sounding both like a question and a request.

Without hesitation, Yoko smiled and nodded. "Of course," he felt his whole body reacting to the other man in a way that almost surprised him. Not because he was a man, but because it was unusual for him to feel that strongly for someone. Mixing feelings and could be messy, almost always was, but somehow he couldn't say no to Yasuda. Somehow, he just felt really special, and Yoko didn't want to throw that away. Leaning back in, Yoko pressed his lips against Yasuda's once more, loving the way the other man's body felt against his.