onepassingnight | Opening Night at Club Yaso-Inaba.

Souji leaned on the balcony overlooking the nightclub, listening to the rhythmic bass thrum of the music, as deep and regular as the sound of a train. When he looked under the edge of his glasses, he could see the dry-ice fog swirling on the dance floor, but all the patrons of the club had a pair of their own, handed out by the mascot-suited bouncer at the door, so everything was okay. Even if the strobing lights sometimes made their eyes look yellow, he knew everything was going smoothly -- the DJ kept looking up from his booth to flash a smile and a thumbs-up, as if he could hear Souji's thoughts beamed directly into his headphones.

The waitress was busy, consulting her big black album of drink recipes to advise the patrons on what to order, and behind her the bartender continuously mixed and re-mixed drink ingredients, producing a multicolored array of cocktails, each in their own specially shaped glass.

Souji looked down, realizing that he was turning a chopstick in his hand, marked red on one end. He gave it a smile.

He was King of the Club... and it was good to be the King.

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"We've just opened," he said. "But we're going places. If you like it here tonight, you should definitely make it for the Risette show. It'll be on our calendar, unless it's raining that day."

"I'll remember that." There was a certain faint irony in those words coming from the Soldier of Lost Memories, but she'd been entertained enough so far; why not come back?

"I am Lethe," she introduced herself finally, expecting his name in return.

"Souji," he replied, smiling slightly. "Although it's King Souji at the moment, I suppose."

Lethe, who had a queen of her own to serve, gave a smile that was slightly cold somehow. "Consider me a visitor to your kingdom," she suggested.

"Do you dance?" It was, she supposed, one of the small pleasures she'd be able to partake of more often and more leisurely once the rest of Galaxia's conquest had been achieved.

"I haven't had time in a while," he says, wondering how that can be true while certain that it is. "But for an honored guest in the kingdom..."

He sweeps a bow, and then offers her his hand.

Lethe finds herself amused, and plays along. What does she care that it ends after the night, like some mundane fairy tale where there's no everlasting destiny but just a pair of strangers meeting and parting?

It's enjoyable for the moment. She takes Souji's hand.

The fog swirls around them as they move out onto the dance floor, lights strobing, music rhythmic but surreal. Their dance seems to move through one style after another -- from the typical pulse-pounding close movements of a club dance floor to something more appropriate for a ballet recital, classical to modern, personal to artistic.

Gradually, Souji begins to notice that while each dance is distinct in his head -- even ones with steps he's certain he doesn't know -- the transitions between one and the next always seem to escape him, as if they didn't exist between one flash of the lights and the next.

Lethe is no expert dancer; but in the dream, she goes through the steps without difficulty, if also without particularly standing out. She seems to prefer the quicker tempos.

If Souji's beginning to forget the borders between the dances, the guardian of the River of Oblivion would hardly be surprised, or sympathetic.

"Did you enjoy the last song?" It might be hard to fully remember that, too.

"I've got the best DJ in the business," he says, which is at least half an answer. he pauses to tip a salute to the young man in the booth, and gets a grin and a return of the gesture.

"Should we dance some more? Or would you like a drink? The first round is on the house."

"Let's keep going right here." Maybe it was the effect of drink already - both of them had had some - or maybe it was the music, or just a girl being with a guy.

Maybe.

But what was certain, was that it became more difficult to remember how long they'd been there, what they'd been doing before, who else had come and gone. Lethe's face gave nothing away.

"Fine by me."

Another number started, and the dancing began again. Souji kept as close to her as he could -- not intruding on her space, if he could help it, but not shying away either.

Even as he became more and more sure that there was something he was missing, it wasn't as if he had anything more agreeable or important to do while he tried to puzzle it out.

"I shouldn't monopolize you." As they danced, Lethe let herself tease by asking questions. "Did you come with a date? Friends, maybe?" Even the undisputed king of the club might have done so.

"No date. As for my friends... most of them are working, too. Except..." he frowns. "Not all of them could make it," he finishes, a little lamely.

"You have plenty to do here without them anyway, don't you?" Lethe was not particularly the most attached to friendship.

Opening Night at Club Yaso-Inaba.

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