#(ooc: anon you have the mod giggling and kicking her feet)

[a-gilded-imprisonment]

"i can handle all three of them" in a fight, right? in a fight. right

-🕳

I think you know exactly what I meant, anon~

*Aventurine smirks wolfishly, double-coloured irises glittering in the light.*

However, if believing I meant such a thing in the context of a battle helps you sleep at night, then by all means ignore my innuendo.

[thehuggamugcafe]

Alouette I: A Host’s Favourite Customer

“Hm~. My, my, that was quick. My first customer; what impeccable timing they have.” Mod Barista mused, humming as a small smile curled her lips as she approached the table, occupied by a single person. There was a twinkle in her eyes, one that surely wasn’t missed by the quiet customer—however, no sooner had Mod Barista raised her notepad and pen, ready to jot down the customer’s order, her smile turned slightly devious as there was a certain sparkle in her eyes now. “...Oh? Ohh. I see. Well, then... I should get started on it, shouldn’t I? Enjoy your music. I’ll be back with your order shortly.” Mod Barista smiled to herself as she got behind the service counter, cracking her thumb as she set herself to work. OOC: My first request. My first request~! I’m so excited! I’m so excited I’m nervous! But don’t worry, askkrisachan. I said I’d accommodate you to the fullest, and I shall do so to the best of my abilities. Here you are, hun. One spicy treat coming up; just the first slice though, dear. First come, first served. Also, thank you for suggesting the name of the café, askkrisachan. I appreciate it, truly! As for you lovely anons, the usual heads up applies. Dirty talk, some body worship, food play with strawberries and cream, bondage, finger fucking, and being screwed out of your mind by Incubus!Akira/Ren. ...Hmm. Food play, huh? This kink is a first for me. It should be interesting. Strawberries and cream, my one true weakness! How’d you know, askkrisachan?) Contrary to popular belief, denizens of the infernal realm—and the realms stretching beyond even its roaring rivers of flame, torture, and eternal damnation—were very interested in humans. Most saw them as nothing but playthings, mere toys to be used, re-used, and discarded (or worse.) once they grew bored of them. Some saw them as business partners. Others took one, two, or more as lovers. A select few saw them as something... more. One such incubus was certainly a rarity amongst his kind. A demon who saw humans as more than just things to be toyed with. Akira breathed a sigh as he all but flooped down on the plush couch, blinking as he raised a hand to rest on the sweating crown of his forehead. A few other hosts were relaxing in the lounge room as well, chatting, chuckling, or texting their girlfriends, fiancées, or wives. The constant dings and text tunes playing weren’t helping Akira’s headache, huffing forth a second sigh as his free hand dug into the breast pocket of his butler attire, withdrawing his own cellphone. His eyes stared from behind the round, black-framed (fake) glasses that sat on his nose, onyx irises peering at the illuminated screen. A notification popped up. “No new messages.” Akira pocketed the cellular device, a frown pursed his lips as he flicked his bespectacled eyes on the other hosts as they talked, laughed, smoked, and drank. They were all dressed in fine tailored suits just as he was, but unlike them, his lover wasn’t texting him. You hadn’t even sent him a good morning text, asked him how his day was, or even asked him what—if anything—he wanted when you went grocery shopping last night. By herself. Again. The frizzy-haired incubus thought, pursing his lips. He sighed; he shouldn’t be surprised at how distant you’d become in the last few weeks. Especially not after he had gone and told you that he finally found a place that would gladly have him as an employee—and however joyful, however pleased you’d been had come crashing down in mere seconds as Akira explained his employment situation. “...A host club?” “Yes.” “A. Fucking. Host club, Akira!?” “...Yes?” “...Well.” His heart always sank a bit whenever he recalled seeing the brief flash of hurt, of distrust in your eyes as you uttered your next words. “I hope you have fun being swarmed by women who want to have ‘fun’ with you.” Ever since the day Akira started working at the host club, no, the week before... He noticed that the relationship had taken a rather... sour turn. Slowly, the nights where he’d spent curled up beside you in bed grew less and less frequent, as he’d been asked (ordered, more like.) to sleep on the lumpy couch in the living room of your apartment room. You both still ate breakfast in the morning and had dinner together every evening, but the long pockets of silence were stifling, awkward. Your replies were curt, clipped, and ice-cold whenever he asked you a question. Mornings had always been his favourite time of day, as well as the evenings when you returned home from your part-time job, however... Lately, whenever he tried to hug or kiss you goodbye before leaving for ‘work,’ you’d get all huffy and grumble what sounded like, “And how many women have you kissed lately with that mouth?” under your breath, turning your head at the last moment, so that his lips met your cheek instead of your mouth. Humans were frail, selfish, and jealous beings, but were demons any better? Akira doubted that even the most pious of creatures, whether they were human, angel, or something else entirely... Not even they could claim to truly be “just.” Neither could a demon for that matter, but especially someone like Akira. The sharp click-click of heels that signalled the approach of the café’s owner caused the other hosts’ eyes to widen, passing a quick glance at each other as they straightened their postures, kicking their feet up off of the furniture they sat or were splayed out across on. They were quick to send their significant others’ one last goodbye text, swallowing the last trace of sake from their shot glasses, or crushing their cigarettes into ashtrays just as the door to the lounge room burst open. The woman who ran the host café, Ai Nitta, stood on the lounge room’s threshold, pointing her brown eyes across the room, staring—almost glaring—at every male who stared back at her. She was a thirty-something-year-old imposing, no-nonsense woman with a personality that of a cold-hearted perfectionist, and a woman with impeccable business sense at that. Apparently, from what some of the other, far more experienced hosts had told Akira when he first started working at the café, Ai Nitta had been married to a very successful entrepreneur until he died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of thirty-five. The authorities immediately suspected foul play, but no matter how much they dug into Ai Nitta’s past and character, there was nothing that implicated her in her husband’s untimely passing. Eventually, her husband’s death had been written off as due to natural causes; there was simply nothing connecting the woman to her spouse’s passing, and the case had been declared closed. Still, the groundless gossip continued to be spread, and whispers of rumours continued to be hissed around the city, dubbing Ai Nitta by a rather macabre title as the “Black Widow.” Even so, if people expected the business of a woman who owned and managed the café from top to bottom to go under, it didn’t cause people to turn their noses up at the business. Certainly not the females, young and up to thirty-odd-year-olds alike. Teenagers, college students, influential women from all walks of the higher rungs of society, and rich ex-wives of doctors, lawyers, and the like... They all visited the café, looking for companionship or an expensive, but satisfying quickie in one of the (thankfully.) sound-proof rooms on the second floor of the café. If people expected a woman like Ai Nitta, a woman of infamous prestige to suffer due to suspicions of murdering her husband, to declare bankruptcy, to live as a homeless beggar on the street corner, they were sorely mistaken. Unlike other, far less successful cafés and host clubs in the city, there was one policy Ai Nitta tasked her employees to stick to no matter what, no matter how much the young women whined, pleaded, batted their eyelashes. No matter how many women flashed their wallets stuffed with money, or offered a teasing glimpse of a shining credit card or two. The policy went a little something like this... “If that lonely housewife wants to see you again, she better fork over the money!” That’s what she had said to Akira upon arriving for his first shift roughly a month ago, after a regular customer—a woman who had just gone through a messy divorce, but was most certainly “loaded,” as his boss had assured Akira of—had said she would request him again as she bid him a good day. After she paid for Akira to keep her company for two straight hours, of course. He had passed his interview with flying colours, which quietly surprised him. Despite his natural gifts of charming and seducing others, females especially, with the sort of ease that it was almost laughable how eager, how quick they were to want him in their beds, there were an extremely rare few who weren’t as susceptible to his charisma. They were affected, yes, just not to the degree so many, many other women had been, and still were drawn to him like moths to a flame. To be honest, he thought that his boss, Ai Nitta, might perhaps be one of them at first, but much to his unspoken relief, she was nothing of the sort. She was a bit stubborn, yes, wanting to “test the waters” with a potential host, allowing him to cater to three smirking, doe-eyed college girls. They whispered and giggled to each other, batting their eyelashes at him as he approached them with a calm gait, the smallest of warm, welcoming grins on his lips as he tugged the gloves he wore closer to his fingers. And of course, how could he forget what the manager and owner of the host club/café, Alouette, had said to him after they left? After he told his boss what they had said as they were leaving the establishment...? “Hah!? They won’t pay for your services upfront next time!? Unacceptable! You tell those snobby, rich college sluts for me the moment they come through that door. Cash or credit cards upfront. No ifs, ands, or buts; no money, no service!” “Kurusu, you’ve been requested. Again. Come on! Up, up, up! I need my best host front and center!” Ai’s voice was as brisk as it ever was, the click-clicks of her heels signalling her approach as she made her way over to where the frizzy-haired, bespectacled host was lying down. For a seemingly frail, dark-haired woman who was only 5’5’’, a woman who looked like the most gentle of breezes would send her crashing to the floor, she was certainly stronger than she let herself on to be. “I said come on, Kurusu. Your break isn’t for another hour; you can service one more customer until then!” “Yes, Miss Nitta,” Akira breathed through his lips, his voice sounding a bit husky as he was sort of dragged, sort of got to his feet on his own. He wasn’t attempting to charm her into letting him off the hook, but as one of the most requested hosts in the café, if not the most requested employee, he was often working instead of resting. He could hear the scoffs, disgruntled remarks, and scathing words of his fellow employees as their boss all but hauled him off of the couch, leading him toward the lounge room’s open doorway. “Tch. Kiss ass.” “What a damn suck-up he is.” “I bet he gets ‘special favours’ from the boss for raking in so much money.” “You think? No way... Then... Hey, do you guys think he’s got a bit of sugar on the side?” “With the boss, of all people? Nah, he couldn’t be. ‘Sides, she’s way too old for him.” Akira’s lips became pursed as his jaw became set, feeling himself tensing up at the mere suggestion that he was cheating on you. Although he felt the bittersweet sting of quiet gratitude for the last remark he heard, it didn’t excuse what the others were whispering about him. He wasn’t like them, the hosts who actually had cheated on their significant others’ with customers who visited the café. He never looked at another woman the way he looked at you. He didn’t dare touch a woman in the ways he touched you. He never cooed sweet nothings into another woman’s ear as he did with you. No, it was different with you. Akira honestly and truly meant what he whispered to you, and only to you, in the dead of night whenever you were in bed together. You were granted the privilege of seeing a part of him no one else was allowed to see, as he hissed tantalizing promises of “fucking your brains out,” screwing you until you weren’t sure you’d be able to walk right the following morning, or get out of bed at all for that matter. The voice of his boss, Ai Nitta, pried him out of his inner musings, blinking his eyes as he cleared his throat before asking, “I’m sorry. What did you say, Miss Nitta?” The dark-haired woman stopped in mid-step, pointing a glare over her shoulder. “If you’d been paying attention, you would have heard me say,” Ai paused to release his hand, turning around and reaching up, gripping a hold of the black frame of his glasses and pulling them off of his face, revealing the intensity of his onyx irises as he blinked owlishly down at her. “...that the glasses are a nice touch. Good for rich, lonely, and slobbering bitches who are into the ‘nerdy’ look you put out, but this customer isn’t. She’s requested that you service her with them off; you’re more good-looking without them on your face.” “...Yes, Miss Nitta,” Akira replied after a moment’s pause, watching as a frown clipped the corner of Ai’s glossed lips. She quirked a brow questionably, pointing her brown eyes up at him. “Is there a problem, Akira?” For once in the short time he’d known her, his boss sounded—and faintly looked—as though she honestly gave a damn as to what might be bothering him. That, and she had addressed him by his first name. That was certainly a first. “...No, Miss Nitta.” The barely-there expression of concern was gone as soon as it had come, as Ai’s face returned to looking as though she smelled something awful 24/7. “Second room down the left-hand corridor. Don’t keep her waiting; a waiting customer won’t pay as well.” “Understood, Miss Nitta,” Akira nodded, pausing to bow respectfully before walking past the thirty-odd-year-old, taking a sharp left as he met a fork in the hallway, stopping in front of a door marked with the numbers ‘69’ bolted into the polished mahagony wood. All in all, Akira enjoyed working at the café. The hours were managable, the pay was pretty good, the work environment was a tad... questionable at times, but overall, the staff and employees were warm and welcoming, but... If there was one thing he could honestly say he disliked about the host club/café... It was the women. The customers whom he catered to, young or well into their thirties, curious, lonely, heartbroken, or wanting some company. Because... No matter how many smiles they flashed at him... No matter how many giggles they tossed his way... No matter how many times they batted their eyelashes as they stared up at him with shining doe eyes... No matter how many times they asked for his number, asked for a quickie in one of the sound-proof rooms... They were always turned down, always rejected, as gently as he possibly could pass on their offers. Why? Because they weren’t you.

[a-gilded-imprisonment]

*leans up agains the nearest wall, crossing arms on chest. a smirk appears on anon's face*

ya like jazz?

*Aventurine smirks at the stranger, tilting his head coyly.*

Jazz is... alright. A little too mellow of a music genre for me, but mmm~

*The blonde examines the other person curiously, looking them up and down.*

Although, I must admit... the jazz players do tend to be my type...