"Maybe we should move back to the city," the young man mused quietly to himself, blankly staring at the wall. "Ryuuta may not even remember what happened anymore…"

He spent another few minutes drowning in his thoughts before he was startled back to his senses by a call across the room.

"Kiku! You have customers! Stop making them wait!" the manager yelled, beckoning him to the entrance of the dimly lit store.

Kiku was clad in slightly feminine kimono that was in stark contrast to the dark, simple kimono he wore during the day. He ceremoniously adjusted the small hairpiece on his head and hopped off the bar stool. Westerners and their kimono fetishes- he would never understand.

He allowed himself to be guided to a table filled with men from the military base nearby, seated in a semi-circular couch that surrounded the round table. He bowed deeply.

"I apologize for the delay," he said in fluent English. "My name is Kiku, and I will be serving you tonight."

He raised himself, smiling, then froze. In the midst of the five men was the young blond man with glasses from earlier, sitting in the center, looking a little more than slightly uncomfortable.

"May I take your orders?" Kiku finished smoothly, shaking surprise away from his head. The boy must be new, he concluded. He has probably never been to a bar like this. He smiled directly at him, and watched him color, with amusement.

"I will be back in a moment," he excused himself, and went back to retrieve jugs of beer. Kiku personally found this brand disgusting, but the Americans loved it. Yet another thing he would never understand.

Kiku came back to the table with jugs full of beer and slid them to every man, scooting himself into the rounded booth as well. His job was to make them talk, and order them drinks so they will keep talking. Many stayed long into the night, sometimes into early morning where an employee would have to call someone at the base to take them back because they were too drunk and incoherent to do so themselves. Kiku always managed to get a few dozen drinks in before they all drunk themselves to sleep or left (or more dragged away). His proficiency with English, having been an English teacher for a short period of time before the war, probably helped in his conversation skills.

Oh, the irony of the fact that the language of the demons was being used to feed him and his brother and keep food on their plates.

He would listen all night long about their work and family, and listen to them complain about a superior or brag about a new accomplishment.

Alfred didn't talk much. Kiku liked that. The rest of the men did enough to cover for him anyways, trying to impress him, fighting for his attention. When one of the soldiers noticed Kiku quietly studying the young man, he slapped Alfred in the back roughly.

"This's our new officer, Kiku," he grinned. "He just came from the mainland last week. And it's his birthday today! That's why we're here!"

"Oh, is that so?" Kiku smiled. "Then we must celebrate."

Ignoring the flustered American who attempted to convey that nothing was necessary, Kiku clapped his hands and called for a birthday drink and for the other waiters to come sing for him.

"Happy birthday, Mr. Alfred," Kiku said as he passed him the martini after the song was over. "May your year be filled with blessings."

It was almost dawn by the time Kiku was allowed to change out of the gaudy kimono and into his normal wear and snort to himself as he walked back home in the dark. Somehow it was all just too funny- that he had wished an American blessings. He may look harmless, Kiku told himself under his breath, but he's one of them- one of them that killed so many of his people.