Chapter Text
Detective Akechi, otherwise known as the Ace Detective of Justice, Second Detective Prince, or sometimes, rarely, just Goro, stared at the invitation and considered his problem.
Honorary banquet for the Ace Detective of Justice: Guest of Honour, plus one.
The first part was fine, though Goro had attempted to dissuade the police department from throwing him such an ostentatious ball, but it was a lost hope. He'd been holding it off for years now, but he was twenty three already and his track record was just too good, whether fairly gotten or not. Sooner or later he was going to have to accept some kind of accolade.
No, it was the last part that was the issue. Plus one.
Goro did not have a plus one, unless you counted his masked vigilante persona who went out to break legs, kick in teeth and do all the things an official detective could not do legally to support his astonishing track record on the books. The broken eggs behind the tasty omurice he served up time after time for the adoring public and appreciative police and justice ministry.
No, Goro was perennially unattached, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, he was gay, and his public image wasn’t. While he’d never actually said he was straight, he’d also never denied it. He had also made the odd comment here and there on talk shows and the like to sustain the predominant belief that he was a run of the mill heterosexual.
Secondly, any time Goro had attempted to date, in secret of course, his would-be boyfriends had tired quickly of his constant working, intense secrecy, and the requirement that they never be seen in public together. What it amounted to, so said the last boy Goro had failed to date, was a paid escort who came over at Goro’s beck and call to get fucked and then be left again before the cum had dried. The only thing missing was cash on the nightstand, and even then he still did that sometimes, for taxi fare or missed dinners or a generalised feeling of guilt.
Thirdly, Goro had a devoted and predominantly female fan following who scrutinised anyone around him and needed very little to speculate romantic involvement. This usually involved the women around him but was not excluded to men for the part of his fanbase that were into that sort of thing. Not that Goro took much comfort from the contingent who fetishised his hidden sexuality, and invariably wrote some twisted fanfiction where he was a sobbing bottom getting dominated by a dangerous criminal, never knowing he was far more like the criminal than their quivering portrayals of him in that fantasy.
Either way, judgement was quickly passed on whether any person was good enough to be around him, a verdict that was rarely favourable. Had Goro managed to actually maintain a relationship long enough to risk the person being seen with him in public, they had all kinds of insane behaviour to look forward to, considering people Goro never even went on a date with had received death threats among the weirder and more colourful communications from his fan club.
However, it was still undesirable for Goro to show up to his honorary event without a date. He would look lonely, which was an unattractive quality for his public image, even if it was true, but worse yet, it would open him up to an endless string of introductions from people trying to set him up with someone of the wrong gender. His fanclub would also eat up his being unable to get a date for the event, and the last thing Goro needed was to encourage their delusion that he belonged to them in any way.
Really, what Goro needed, he reflected that evening as he had a staring contest with the invitation in his empty apartment over a glass of wine, was an actual paid escort. Someone hired to be at his convenience, free from emotional entanglement, who could pose politely on his elbow at such an event to shield him from irritating introductions, and be financially incentivised to tolerate any fallout from his rabid fans.
Goro scoffed at himself for actually considering it, finished his wine, and got up to change into his Black Mask jumpsuit. There was some evidence in a high profile politician’s apartment he was never going to get his hands on through a search warrant, so he was going to break in and rob the place, then have an incredible stroke of luck when the Ace Detective stumbled on the very same evidence being sold on the black market the next day.
It was a depressingly easy job, the apartment barely secure, just a few lock picks for Goro to get inside, or Black Mask, as it were. The politician was over with his mistress tonight, leaving the apartment empty, and the evidence was in a locked filing cabinet he just kicked open rather than bother with picking the lock. The papers detailing a number of bribes given to the corrupt official were then placed into an expensive briefcase, where Goro reset the number combination to a new code only he knew and locked them in. He would drop the case off locked at a sleazy pawn shop tonight, knowing it wouldn’t be opened before he went by tomorrow morning in his official capacity to ‘discover’ it by chance, based on recognising it from some pictures in which the politician had it with him. If it was any neater it'd have a fucking bow on it.
To maintain the appearance of a burglary it was necessary to wreck the place, though it could be said the Black Mask did enjoy ruining the illicitly gained riches of a greedy man too arrogant to even invest in a proper security system. He loaded anything of value into a sports bag where he also hid the briefcase, shoved everything off the shelves and kicked various furniture over so it looked appropriately scoured. He left through the same fire escape he’d accessed the building through, having shot out the few security cameras that would’ve shown him with a paintball gun of black paint to cover the lenses. It was a lot of floors to walk the stairs, but the safest way in and out, and it gave him more time to mull over the absurd plan he’d thought up earlier.
Would it really be that absurd? If he could find someone anonymous, untraceable and unrecognisable, who he could just pay to be his date then it might actually work. The only unfortunate thing was that he’d have to hire a girl, and though he wouldn’t actually be on a date with them, he’d still have to look like it. The part of him that resented playing straight objected to finally confirming it with such a performance.
Once he was clear of the building Goro removed the black mask, since it raised more suspicion than it deterred on the city streets, and pulled on some baggy pedestrian clothes over the top of his military grade stealth jumpsuit. A high necked jumper and loose brown trousers covered the jumpsuit completely, like a superhero suit under his clothes, except for the superhero part.
Making his way to Shinjuku where the all night pawn shop that he had a special arrangement with was located, Goro dropped off the bag of stolen goods under a fake name for an obscene wad of cash, even considering the discounted price he got for selling hot goods. Goro told the owner not to trouble himself with the briefcase, meaning put it somewhere out of the way, don’t try to open it, and definitely don’t sell it to anyone except him when he returned to get it under his real name.
It was well after midnight by the time Goro concluded his business in Shinjuku, which was bustling and busy, perfect for someone to melt into unnoticed. He was walking back to the station, taking an indirect route for extra caution, and passed by all the usual host clubs when one caught his eye.
The logo was a red and black top heart with a mask and flames spilling from one eye. The sign read ‘ The Phantom Thieves of Hearts’ and below advertised itself as a ‘fully masked’ host and hostess bar, with the tagline ‘Let us steal your heart!’
Fully masked, Goro considered, presumably meant the identities of everyone, hosts or customers, was kept anonymous. It made even more sense considering the rainbow flag hanging at the foot of the stairwell that led up to the establishment.
It couldn’t hurt to just check it out, he reasoned. After looking around to confirm there was no one watching or following him, the habits of a professional paranoid, he moved quickly through the doorway and climbed the stairs.
At the top of the stairs was a booth staffed by a short man with a black bandit mask of sorts with cat ears, who charged Goro for entry, told him not to take pictures of any kind, and finally, to pick out a mask of his own for the visit.
Goro chose a red carnival type mask with a long beak, thinking it was as good as any. He put it on, held in place by a clear elastic strap around the back of his head, then finally made his way in.
The inside of the club was like some kind of fever dream, black panelled walls and red lights barely turned up. The floor was a maze of strangely shaped booths with curved seats, almost organic in structure, like amoebas or cells clustered together.
Goro hadn’t been standing there for ten seconds when a buxom blonde in a skin tight red leather jumpsuit and another cat mask came up to him.
“Hiii, welcome to the Phantom Thieves of Hearts!” she delivered energetically, striking a pose for their tagline “Let us steal your heart!”
Instantly, Goro started to reevaluate if this was even a good idea. Probably not, but he’d paid to get in already, so he'd see through a little further at least.
“Now then, Crow, who would you like to meet this evening?” the girl carried on cheerfully.
Goro could only imagine the hell that’d break loose if he turned up to his honorary event with someone like that on his arm, a chirpy blonde with huge breasts. No, it was impossible. His fans would eat her alive.
“Crow?” he repeated curiously.
“Your mask, of course,” she explained. “Since our customers have to wear a mask like us, we have nicknames for them all, it helps us identify each other without using real names. You can call me Panther, for example.”
“I see.” There had been a rainbow flag hanging outside this place, but maybe that was a mistake, Goro thought to himself. Besides, he wasn’t here to meet a guy anyway, as much as he’d like to if this wasn’t a purely professional interest.
“Now then, let me introduce you to someone,” Panther continued, taking Goro by the arm and leading him through the room. “Tonight we have working Fox, Skull, me of course, Queen, Noir, and our number one, Joker.”
Goro allowed himself to be led to an empty booth, passing on the way some other booths with curtains drawn across the door, affording the ultimate privacy to guests.
“I’m not really sure what I’m looking for just yet,” he said vaguely, thinking it better to scope the place and people out before he got committed to a night paying for overpriced drinks with a glorified prostitute.
“That’s fine, how about I send whoever’s free over to get you started, and then you can change later if you feel like meeting someone else?”
“Fine,” Goro conceded, figuring he might as well spend some of the hot money he got from fencing stolen goods anyway. He sat down and pulled out the wad of cash as if to check it was all there, just so they knew he wasn’t messing around and gave him decent service. “I’ll have a flask of hot sake.”
“Right away!” Panther dashed off to prepare his order, and Goro had a brief moment of peace.
“Good evening,” came a smooth toned voice, as a young man in a kitsune mask appeared with the tray of sake Goro had ordered. “I am Fox, if it pleases you.”
“A drink would please me more,” Goro replied in an instinctive imitation of the affected tone the host used, almost tempted to give up his initial reason for coming here and just enjoy some male company for once.
“But of course.” Fox’s chest was exposed by the deep unbuttoned shirt he wore, his clothing nostalgically traditional with the same feverish twist this whole place was decked out in, and he poured sake gracefully enough, but after a few minutes of chatting Goro couldn’t find it in himself to be particularly interested. He wasn’t here for the fantasy, after all, what he wanted was far more transactional. Perhaps he should’ve just gone directly to a brothel than something one step removed, even if it was only one step.
Goro drank the sake quicker than he should’ve, the quality pretty good considering his expectations weren’t very high. He zoned in and out while Fox talked about aesthetics and beauty and passion, then had to leave when another customer requested him.
That was a relief, to be honest, so Goro ordered another flask of sake, which was brought to him this time by a blonde in a skull mask whose body in tight black leather was the most appealing thing about him, his rough charm and lack of manners not doing much for Goro. If he’d only been out for a warm body then Skull might’ve done, but Goro was still figuring out how to explain he was looking for a woman in a gay bar.
There was the question of why he’d even come into a gay bar if he was looking for a woman, but some part of him still needed the comfort of gay spaces, not to mention the understanding of what it meant to be a beard. Better an informed lesbian than a misguided straight girl, Goro reasoned, and had finally drunk enough to feel ready to make this point.
“How’s everything going here?” asked a woman with a metal mask and studded shoulder pads, coming to check on them with the air of a supervisor, if not an official house mother.
“Heya Queen, everything’s great over here!” Skull burst enthusiastically, looking at Goro to urge, “Another round, bud?”
“Actually, I’d like to talk to you,” Goro directed to the woman who went by Queen, coaxing her into his booth with a flutter of his gloved fingers, another persistent habit of the professional paranoid.
As someone who’d planted his fair share of fingerprints, there were many advantages and no downsides to wearing gloves almost all the time. Another of his unsuccessful lovers had accused him of only taking them off to bathe or fuck, which wasn’t true, because he’d fucked with them on plenty of times.
“Is there a problem?” she inquired politely.
“Not really, I mean, it’s a bit complicated,” Goro struggled to explain, realising that the nerve to actually bring this up was now working against his inebriation affecting his ability to express himself. Glancing at Skull, inoffensive but not exactly trustworthy, he turned back to Queen to ask, “Can we talk alone?”
“Oh,” Skull sounded disappointed, but Queen waved him away and took a seat.
“Well, go ahead,” she invited, her attitude cool and steely, considering Goro was surely keeping her from the fairer sex and he'd just dismissed his assigned host rather abruptly.
“I’m looking for someone for a particular engagement,” Goro explained. “I need a… girlfriend for hire, basically.”
“So you came here?” she replied scathingly.
“I am gay,” Goro found himself blurting. “I’m just not out publicly, and there’s an event in a couple of weeks that I have to bring a date to, so I found myself thinking… if I could just hire someone to accompany me it would be the simplest solution.”
“I understand your situation, but I still don’t know why you came here,” Queen pointed out.
“You all wear masks, and I can’t risk anyone finding out I’ve hired a hostess to be my date,” Goro laid out. “Not to mention I’d feel more comfortable knowing that there’s no possibility of emotional investment, given I don’t actually like women.”
“I see,” Queen mused. “Noir might be suitable for you then, she’s from a good background so she can easily blend in at high class events.”
“What about the number one?” Goro found himself inquiring, his old competitive instinct flaring up to want the best on offer and settle for nothing less.
“Oh no, I don’t think Joker would be a possibility,” Queen dismissed promptly. “You see…”
“Did I hear my name?” came a voice from behind the curtain, which was pulled back to reveal the single most stunning creature Goro had ever laid eyes on. Long black boots leading to two matching bands of creamy thighs, which went all the way up, all the way, to a tiny miniskirt that clung to shapely hips, giving way to a ribbed corset with a chest cutout and a high neck, around which the most incredible long black hair swept in choppy waves. “Are you keeping the high rollers to yourself, Queen? You’re not going to beat me in sales that way, you know.”
“I wasn’t doing anything of the sort, Joker,” Queen responded dryly, while Goro was mostly trying to wind his jaw up off the floor after the initial shock of seeing their number one hostess. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“Why not?” Goro and Joker both said at the same time, locking eyes with shared surprise at how exactly their words aligned. Joker’s mask was white and pointed over the nose, almost birdlike, with a tight black border around each eye and painted on lashes.
“Joker’s not actually… Joker is our crossdressing hostess,” Queen informed Goro, and the words landed like darts on a bullseye. Crossdressing hostess. Meaning, even though Joker looked like that, what appeared right now as she was he under that scandalous miniskirt.
Goro took a swig of sake and reminded himself that the clever thing to do would not be to recruit a crossdresser for the very important honorary dinner being given in his honour. But that was a decision for less drunk ago.
Queen was meanwhile explaining to Joker, “Crow here is looking for someone to help him outside of the club by posing as his date for a social occasion.”
“Oh, like a pretty woman situation?” Joker suggested.
“Pretty woman?” Queen echoed cluelessly.
“It’s an American movie, you’ve never heard of it?” Joker shifted from one hip to the other, returning attention to Goro. “So why am I not suitable for this job?”
“He wants a girl–”
“You’ll do just fine,” Goro rolled right over Queen.
“Huh?” Queen responded. “But you said…”
“I said I want to hire someone to pretend to be my girlfriend for a social function,” Goro reiterated with a slightly different emphasis. “As long as they look like a woman I don’t see why it’d be a problem.”
“Isn’t that more risky?” Queen pointed out, and rightly so. Joker certainly passed under the dim club lights and slutty clothes of a hostess, but in a high end social affair he might stick out like a sore thumb. Goro wanted to see it anyway.
“You let the customer worry about that,” Joker instructed, peeking out to the rest of the club from behind the curtain and looking back to say, “Besides, I just saw one of your best customers walking in, so you should go and greet them.”
Queen appeared to consider this for a moment then promptly resigned herself. She got up and just before she left commented, “Don’t blame me if this blows up in your face, Joker.”
“I never do,” Joker replied, then slid into the booth next to Goro now they were alone. “Tell me more about this job.”
“Not so fast, I want to know more about you first,” Goro countered.
“Oh, you’ll need to buy more drinks for that,” Joker announced with a flip of bouncy hair over one shoulder.
“Fine, two glasses of the most expensive whiskey on your menu,” Goro ordered, now drunk enough to think nothing of flaunting the cash burning a hole in his pocket anyway. Better spent than kept around to possibly be tracked back to him. Not to mention making sure this Joker knew he could afford it.
“You sure? It’s not cheap,” Joker warned just as Goro had anticipated.
“Hopefully neither are you,” Goro retorted, watching the smirk and defiant flash in Joker’s eyes.
“Not to you, anyway.” Joker stood up, sauntering away to fetch the drinks and giving Goro ample opportunity to check out their ass in the miniskirt. No wonder Joker was their most popular hostess, Goro thought as he dragged a hand through his hair and attempted to coordinate his thoughts before the enigma they called Joker got back.
Of course, what Queen said was entirely right, and it would be far more risky hiring a crossdresser as his date, even a convincing one, but now the thought of anyone else was intolerable. Wasn’t Joker the best of both? Female to the casual observer, which is all the public would see, and male everywhere else. The part of Goro that’d rankled at having to pay a woman to even pretend to be with him leapt at the thought of subverting it so delightfully, of letting everyone think Goro’s date was a gorgeous woman when only he knew the truth.
Suffice to say, Goro didn’t really manage to calm down while Joker was getting their drinks.
“Here we are, two of the best we have to offer,” Joker declared upon returning to the booth and setting down the couple of glasses with the receipt Goro could read from across the table. It wasn’t cheap, as stated, but still well within the payout of the goods he’d moved this evening. Goro didn’t drink much whiskey, usually just when he was drunk, and only the very best stuff, so he reached for one of the glasses to take a sip, finding it just about pleasant enough despite the inflated price tag. “Well?” Joker prompted, gesturing to the whiskey glass.
“I’ve had better,” Goro muttered.
“I'm sure you have,” Joker scoffed, reaching for their own glass to sip. “Well then, what did you want to know?”
“Do you only do this here?”
“Do what?”
“Dressing as a woman,” Goro specified. “Is it something you only do for work, or do you do it in everyday life as well?”
“If I was a trans woman I’d just say that,” Joker corrected sharply. “If it's so important to you, I dress like a guy in my personal life… most of the time.”
“Most of the time?”
“What, I can’t have a little fun?” Joker accused flirtatiously. “Isn’t that what you want anyway? A passing female to be your arm candy?”
“Yeah, that’s… pretty much it,” Goro accepted. “I’d pay for your time, of course.”
“I know I scared Queen off already, but at the risk of losing myself some money, why choose me?” Joker posed.
“It’s the subversive element, if you will,” Goro admitted. “I’m a public personality, and not out, so while I’d resent paying for a female escort to be my beard, I’d find it more tolerable knowing I’m misleading the people who assume I’m straight with… someone like you,” he finished inelegantly.
“Sounds like a lot of bother if you ask me, but hey, you’re paying,” Joker declared, swigging the whiskey like water and crossing one leg over the other. Goro had to admit, even with the mask, Joker was an utterly convincing woman in this setting, even their voice was pitched at such a level that it could easily be taken for a husky female.
“Not so fast, this is just an initial introduction,” Goro advised, not quite blind drunk and stupid enough to put any ink on this just yet. “I’d like to meet you separately and discuss this further before I make any decisions.”
“That’s normally against our policy, but I suppose I can let it slide,” Joker remarked like such violations of policy were not so uncommon around here. “Give me your phone and I’ll enter my details, then you can contact me and let me know when and where you want to meet.”
Goro pulled out his phone and opened a new contact, saying, “Just tell me your information and I’ll enter it.”
Joker grinned. “Secretive type, I see,” but recited the details anyway.
“Got it.” Goro locked his phone and put it away, reaching for his whiskey glass and knocking the rest of it back in a single scowling gulp, feeling the heat run from the back of his throat down through his chest. Joker was watching him as he set the glass back down and pulled out a wad of dirty cash, peeling off enough to cover his drinks for the night and then some before tossing it down on the table.
“I’ll be in touch,” Goro said, standing up to leave and feeling the floor shift just a little under his feet. Stupid outrageous design of this place, making it feel like the inside of a funhouse, that black and red rippling carpet.
Joker winked at him, eyes framed perfectly by the hard outline of the mask, and said, “Til next time, Detective.”
So much for the fucking mask, Goro thought, but never mind. They were going to find out who the other really was soon enough anyway.
“Til then, Joker,” he returned, and mustered all the wherewithal he had left to walk in a straight line out of the club.