Neverland

Chapter 1: Ukiyo, The Floating World

My chosen name is Oshiro, Akihiko. The bright prince from the big castle. That’s the image I wanted to convey. A world of fantasy. I am the founder of a host club in Osaka called Neverando, or Neverland. In this world that I’ve created, I take my clients away to a place that doesn’t really exist. It’s a place of dreams and fantasies. It’s a place where I can become whatever it is that my clients wish for. That is the illusion. In reality, it’s simply business. I’ve designed the interior of the club to appear soft with smooth cream walls and muted chandelier lighting, so that it seems as if my clients have been whisked away to a beautiful castle. There, we can sip champagne and chat idly. Even the exterior looks like a castle with small towers and an antique looking sign. As for me, I am a product, and as such I have to become the image that my clients search for. I have to dress in expensive clothes, adorn flashy expensive accessories, dye and style my hair frequently, and usually I’ll add contacts to appear more exotic. My aesthetic is to seem elegant. I am a prince after all and I have to act accordingly. Not only must I sell my image but I must also sell my personality. It has to be whatever my client wants. If she wants a joker I have to impress her with my dry humor, if she’s a romantic, I have to court her like a prince. It’s exhausting work, but the pay is good. Usually we’ll make at least $10,000 a week.
My stage name is Minami, Katsuki. South, the victorious beauty. It is an embarrassing name, but at least “victorious” gives me some sense of pride. When times are at their worst I look for the strength in Katsuki. I am a nightlife worker, in the mizu shoubai, or the nightlife business. I work for a soapland in the Umeda district of Osaka called Sweet Dreams. It is a place where businessmen come to unwind and escape their difficult lives. My job is to help them to relax and to relieve them of stress, but many times I receive stress from their persistent demands. I try to reassure myself that I make good money, that my salary is better than most, sometimes making up to $40,000 a week, but in the end I feel disgraced, my body aches, and I ask myself why do I do this with the body my parents gave me?…If I think about my parents, my heart aches. Deep down inside, I know that I want to quit, that I’d like to find a respectable job, but a regular job will not allow me my pleasures, and there is one that is more important than all others, the host club, Nebarando…
I have many clients. Since I founded the host club, I have perfected the art that is to be a host. I am an illusionist, providing women with everything they could ever want or imagine, for a price. The other members and I draw them in on the streets. We watch for the girls that show signs of money, usually clutching name brand purses or wearing high end clothes, and we try to entice them and lure them into our world. This is called “catch”. Those that are interested will come with us and we will suggest a few drinks or some karaoke. It doesn’t take long before they’re hooked…
I became interested in the host clubs as a way to rebuild myself I think after the difficulties I had faced during work. The host club was a place where I could escape myself for a while, and just have fun. Walking through the doors of Nebarando, I felt like I had entered a castle, and there they all stood, facing me, smiling and laughing, expecting me. And at the center of them all was Akihiko with his hand outstretched…
It is a false love. It is a lie. But if we have to lie, we lie. We will tell our clients whatever they want to hear, because it makes them happy, it keeps them with us, and it makes us money. That is how it works. We are merely products while we work. We cannot be honest, because it would destroy their dreams. We cannot tell them that we have no intentions of dating them or marrying them. If they knew that, they would leave.
Society looks down on us for what we do the job that we chose, but when we go to the host clubs there is no prejudice in the eyes of the hosts. They understand our situation and they listen, they help us escape, and even though we buy this happiness with money, it truly is happiness…
To say that it is not difficult, however, would also be a lie. It is difficult, of course. The reason these girls sell themselves as fuuzoku is to support their relationships with us, the hosts. They have to make the money to support us, so they will not stop. But if you get too attached in this industry, you will fall behind. You can’t let your feelings get in the way, it’s business.
I know it’s just a dream, this relationship with Akihiko-san. He says all the pretty things I like to hear and he’ll do whatever I want, but really does he want to do these things?
It is hard, especially when you’re dealing with a long-term client, someone who’s been coming to the host club for maybe 4-5 years. Especially if she’s a nice girl, pretty, and you can see the potential in her. Sometimes you’ll feel guilty and you’ll patronize her, tell her not to spend so much money, you worry about her, you know she’s young, maybe her early to mid-twenties and when you realize she’s spending her savings on you, it does make you feel guilty, you try to put limits on her spending, on what you’ll accept, but then your own finances go down. You have to push the guilt away and tell yourself that you’re providing the services she wants. That you’re helping, healing, and making her dreams come true as best as you can. If you do that, you have nothing to feel guilty about.
Akihiko-san is always there. Sometimes there are others, temporary hosts that are there for a few months, sometimes they’ll have a hard time competing and sometimes they’ll leave. They seem sad somehow, sad eyes in the faces of those hosts…

Chapter Two: Yume ni Okiru: To Wake from a Dream

Eventually, they might wake up from their dreams, and then they’re gone. We try to avoid these situations. We try to avoid their questions when they ask us to take the relationship to the next level. We say things like we’re busy with work, or it’s moving too fast, that we need to slow it down. We have to skillfully avoid these situations if we want to stretch out the relationship. And then it becomes a gamble of how long you can stretch it.
Sometimes, I feel as if the hosts are not men I can trust. They deal with so many women, as much as I’d like to believe Akihiko-san is mine alone, I know that he knows exactly what to say and how to act to each woman he caters to. I know that they are lying to me, and it’s a deception I embrace willingly, because at least for a short while I know I can find happiness in those lies. There is truth in their words as well, but after a while it all turns to lies.
I know that Minami is upset; I can see the frustration hidden behind her smiles more often when she comes to Neverland now. I suspect she’s beginning to reach the end of her dreams here, and in a way it does make me sad to think that she might be leaving, but she’s beginning to read me like a book. She knows I don’t love her, that I never will, and that the relationship between us is, and always has been, a dream. She’s told me she knows that I don’t love her, and I try to cover her sadness with illusions once more, claiming that I do love her.
Pursuing Akihiko-san seems pointless now. I spend so much time and money at his expense, but it’s just a dream I’m trying to chase. Maybe it would be best if I simply woke up. I find myself yearning for true answers, even if they are answers that reject me. All I want is to continue to support them, Akihiko-san and the others. I feel that if I invest enough money and time I might receive something of greater value from Akihiko-san in return.
Of all the women I cater to, there’s something about Minami that’s particularly stressful. She’s intelligent, in a bad way. She’s very aware and manipulative, and it becomes difficult to find new ways to push her away.
When I go to Neverland and I see that Akihiko-san has had many customers, and that he seems tired or stressed, I rent my private booth as a place for him to rest and relax. I hope that maybe he can feel a little more at ease, and I hope I can see a little of the real him beneath his exhausting façade.
She says she tries not to tire me and yet at the end of each night with her I am extremely exhausted. She is particularly difficult to maintain. I understand that she spends a lot of money on me, but it’s a fine line that we tread, I suppose because I’m lying to her in return. We lie that we love them, when really we don’t. That’s what it is to be a host. It’s a typical relationship. It’s draining. I know that they take me half-seriously, because many of the girls go to other host clubs as well, including Minami. They come here and tell me they love me and yet they go around to all the host clubs and say the same thing. I know this, and they know that I’m aware of it. So, how could I ever fall in love? If I were in a serious relationship, I would want the girl to only like me. I wouldn’t want her to go to other clubs.
I know that if Akihiko-san were in a relationship and he was forced to choose between his girlfriend and his work, he would choose his work, and then I would be the one who’s hurting.

Chapter Three: Uso no Hohoemu: A Smile's Lie

These girls have boyfriends too, and they don’t tell them about the host clubs. Some of their boyfriends are even other host club members, and they don’t have a clue that we’re in contact with their girlfriends. I think that I might just be damaged, that all my clients are women, and though we deceive them, we too are being deceived, and out of a hundred women in a room, I feel as though I can’t trust a single one of them. I learn to read their thoughts so well, as a host it is necessary to read what they’re thinking to properly cater to them, but it reaches a point to where I begin to see their bad sides. Some clients come and they spend very little money and demand the world of us. If they don’t want to be here, why do they come. I’m only one person, I can’t do everything you demand. I really don’t like clients like that. I try to restrain my temper, but sometimes it’s impossible, and I can’t show it, not in this job, so my real personality is always hidden. Sometimes I don’t really know who I am and really what my personality really is. It’s like there’s someone else in my body with the same name, moving me around but I don’t really know who that is. Sometimes I wonder if I’m telling lies or if I’m speaking from the heart. A lot of times I grow numb, and confused. When you’re a host for this long, you become frozen to the feeling of love. You can look at a woman and be attracted to her, you can think she’s beautiful, yet when it comes to love; it’s just this unobtainable thing. They’re our clients, and all we see after a while is numbers and sales figures. It becomes a mess. Love depends on the person, how they want it to be manifested, but yes, to a certain extent, love can be bought.

Chapter Four: Ai to Kofuku: Love and Happiness

I make a lot of money, this is true. But to say that I’m content with my life…I’m not. I came to Osaka to make a new life for myself, and I wound up in the darkest places, consoling myself with lies and illusions of a better world. There is no time to be acknowledged, so I spend the only thing I have, my money, to try and find fulfillment in this world I’ve trapped myself in. I want to feel loved; I want to be needed, so I go to Neverland.
Everyone is searching for their own place in life, their own space to be loved and needed. They want to be understood. So, the money that they spend is worthwhile, it does provide them some of what they want.
Love is not material. It’s not money. It’s about doing everything you can for that person, giving everything to them, because you care that much. Akihiko will listen to me, he entertains me, and that’s enough for me. I can be happy with that.
People are weak, especially when they’re alone and sad. But people are beautiful and radiant. They have warm hearts. Host clubs really just exist for people to rest their hearts from all of the pain they face day to day throughout their lives. Even though we sell our services for 10 times their worth, our clients smile, say “thank you” and walk out the door. It hurts to say this, pain wells in my heart at the thought of it, but there’s nothing I can do but to continue. These people are incredible. Every day I try my best for the people that appreciate what I do. Honestly I do want a girlfriend. I think there are many things they could do to heal me, but I am sick, and my sickness seems incurable to me. Trust has become unobtainable to me.