Drinks: Often Lead To Other Things

William decided that his slough of despondancy was, once and for all, over. What would Chichang say if he saw his friend like this? No, it was time to have some fun. He resolutely left the tiny room he was staying in that evening and went out into the nightclub district.

Everything was so confusing! The lights, the colours, the signs... He found himself a little excited. He didn't know quite where to turn, everything was so new and different. He decided to stop wasting time and just go into the first nightblub he came to. There was no name, but only a neon pink flamingo above the door. He thought it looked quite interesting, as a matter of fact, and so he went in immediately and went to the bar.

It was quite a nice atmosphere inside; the music wasn't too loud and, bizarrely, there were what seemed to be several sailors gathered in one corner. It was mostly full of men, as well; even the bar staff were all men.

"How pleasant." William thought to himself. "A nice little place for a man to come and drink."

He waited for the barman (who called him 'darling' - how strange!) and ordered a simple Coke, not wanting to be too extravagant all at once.

He heard something over the speakers - it was a song he recognised, from quite a few years ago but still good all the same. He tried to listen over the sound of people talking. What were the lyrics, again? So you go, and you stand on your own... Well, he certainly didn't want that to happen; and yet he couldn't help feeling a little shy. These were real Japanese people, not just his teachers from China, and he didn't know how good his Japanese accent was or if he could really be understood. Aside from akk that, he didn't know anyone at all! It was quite... frightening, in a way.

After he had been there for a while, still nursing the same Coke, he dared to look around at the other patrons. Some of them were dressed in rather odd manners, but he put it aside as just being a Japanese thing, since some others were also wearing suits or normal clothes. There was one in particular, a suit man, who was sitting just a few empty barstools away and who met William's eyes when he looked over. William smiled and nodded after a second, and, taking this as an invitation to talk, the other man moved over the intervening barstools to sit next to him.

"Hi." He said. "My name's Takeshi Niro."

"Hi." William replied. "Er, I'm William."

"That's not very Chinese." Takeshi said, recognising of course his accent. "You are Chinese?"

"Yes, I am." William said. "And no, it's not."

At this point, William suddenly realised that Takeshi was in fact a very handsome man, and he was very snappily dressed. Also, he wasn't afraid to flash the cash, immediately offering to buy William an exotic-sounding cocktail.

And that was that. Takeshi Niro, it turned out, was very charming, and full of funny little sayings that made William laugh. And he really liked The Smiths, and kept making jokes about their song that had William's name in it. He had a twinkle in his eye and really nice hair, and he kept touching William's arm, which he didn't mind at all. William couldn't really say exactly how it happened, or indeed what happened, but he found himself a few hours later in the flat belonging to Takeshi Niro. It was spacious and well-decorated, the kind owned only by the wealthy. It was littered with half-empty wine glasses... and scattered, discarded clothing. And, William dimly realised, some of that clothing was his own.

"Well." He thought to himself, "That was certainly an interesing evening."