The book's characters are based on ones in some short stories I wrote a few years ago. And one of them is very slightly based on an original character I added to some *cough* fanfiction.
I'm hoping to write a series of books about these people, but - best to let them speak for themselves.
I can't post the first chapter as it's what I'm sending to the competition, but here's an excerpt from later on. Please excuse the language. It's Miao Shou. He wasn't brought up right. :D
“Polymath, huh?”
“I wouldn’t say that,”
Kenji said. “That’d imply I had an exceptionally high IQ.”
“Do you?”
“What makes you think I’d
know?” Kenji countered.
“Because you’re avoiding
telling me,” Shou said. “This water’s warm. Will you fill it up again, please.”
“Sure.” Kenji got up and
took the jug over to the washbasin.
“So why are you ashamed to
be clever?” Shou persisted after he’d tasted the fresh water and nodded to say
it was acceptable.
“I just –“ Kenji shrugged.
“I’ve just found that people generally don’t like to give a job to someone
who’s more intelligent than they are.”
“You think you’re more
intelligent than me?” Shou banged down his glass, spraying the table with
water. “I don’t fuckin think so.”
“You’re very competitive,
aren’t you?” Kenji said. “But even if I
had a higher IQ than you, you’ve probably got a lot more life experience and
stuff.”
“What, you’re sayin I’m old
now?” Shou demanded. “First I’m fuckin stupid, now I’ve got one foot in the
fuckin grave? Did you ever think about takin a course in fuckin interview
skills?”
“Uh –“
“I notice you don’t say
I’ve probably got more common sense than you,” Shou railroaded on. “Most people
would say I’ve probably got more common sense. Since I’m so much fuckin older than you. An I run my own business
an so on.”
“Well, you’re lying in bed
with a gunshot wound and I’m not,” Kenji said. “So I don’t think I’ve yet
encountered all this common sense you think you’ve got.”
“Hey, that could happen to
anybody!” Shou said. “Drive bys happen all the time.”
“But you run a gay
brothel,” Kenji said. “It’s got to be a high risk business as far as getting
shot is concerned. Or getting arrested for that matter. Or getting a social
disease. I’m not sure it’s the most sensible of career choices.”
“Yeah, right, what fuckin
ever,” Shou said. “Anyway, Mr Sense an fuckin Sensibility, what the fuck job
are you fuckin doing right now this very minute?”
“Well, at this exact minute –“
“You know what I mean!”
“I’m running your brothel.”
Kenji grinned.
“Yeah, an tou fuckin ché to
you too,” Shou said. “An please don’t call it a brothel in public. It’s a
bathhouse.”
And here's another bit from later still - Kenji must be having a calming effect on Shou, he only uses the f word once in this ;)
“I don’t know why you
bother to exercise,” Miao Shou said. “You’ll be fat by the time you’re forty,
anyway.”
“No I won’t,” Kenji said.
“Why should I?”
“All Japanese men get fat.
You just look at any group of middleaged Japanese men, there they are with
their bellies hangin over their belts.”
“I don’t intend to be like
that.”
“You’ve got no option. It’s
genetics. Age forty, lardass time. Blib blob, all over the place.”
“Well, I’ll watch my diet,”
Kenji said.
“Why bother?”
“I don’t know,” Kenji said.
“I mean – I might have a boyfriend. He might not like it if I’m oozing around
like a big puddle of grease.”
“You got a cute face,” Miao
Shou said. “That should make up for – hey, wait a minute. Boyfriend? Are you – gay?”
“Huh?” Kenji stared at
Shou. “Well, duh.”
“You never told me you were
gay!”
“Why do you think I came
for a job at your bathhouse?”
“You thought you were gonna
get a job doing massage,” Shou said. "All that New Age Reiki Shiatsu shit."
“Yeah, but I knew it was a
gay bathhouse,” Kenji said. “I checked it out before I came in.”
“Oh, you did, did you?”
“Yeah, I waited outside for
a couple of days to see what kind of people went in and out.”
“You must be fuckin
sneaky,” Shou said. “I never noticed you.”
“Yeah, I’m quite
unobtrusive when I want to be,” Kenji said. “Despite my incipient lardass.”
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