“Hey you player, what the hell are you doing here?” Hyde asked as Gackt sauntered up to them, an unmarked bottle in his hand. 

“Nothing much, really.  Trying to relax,” the other man answered taking a rather large gulp of the clear contents in the bottle before handing it off to Cha, who had just joined them from the crowd, who also took a swallow of the drink.

“Please tell me that’s not alcohol.”

Gackt shook his head and answered with a short hum, his lips pursed against the water still in his mouth.  Cha translated.  “In this heat?  Oh no.  This is water – the barkeeps aren’t selling alcohol for at least another hour.”

“Why not?”

“One of the guys hanging out at the bar told me that people started passing out.”

“Yeah, they’d get off of the dance floor, tipsy and dehydrated, to go to the bathroom or something and just--” he pantomimed his hand falling face-first to the floor, “--keel over.”

“I noticed that,” Hyde said.  “The heat, I mean.  I walked in and it felt like I just stepped into an oven.”

“Well it’s 32 degrees outside, so what do you think it is inside?”

“Don’t they have air conditioning or something?”  Hyde asked, a bit concerned.

“Oh they do,” Gackt assured.  “It’s just that for the amount of jumping around everyone’s been doing, even with them going full blast, it’s not doing much good.”

“Jumping around?” Hyde asked before realization hit him.  “Oh that’s right – this is the infamous dancing-on-the-tables club, isn’t it?”

Now it was Cha’s turn to answer around a mouthful of water.  Gackt translated this round.  “Yes, yes it is.”  He saddled up beside his friend and draped an arm over his shoulder.  “We’ve got a table over there.  Come join us.”

They wove through the mob of people in the bar, squeezing between the people seated at the bar on their taller stools and the people on the dance floors.  They reached the booth Gackt and co. had been able to nab before the rush started and he slid onto a seat.  Cha offered him a fresh bottle of water and he thanked the other man, taking a deep swallow.  Then he said, “So just water, huh?”

“Yeah,” Gackt answered sliding onto the seat next to Hyde who smirked.

“No Volvic?” he teased.

The other man glared at him.  “No,” he said, indignant.

“They didn’t have any on tap,” You explained.

Cha laughed.  “He did ask though.”

“…so why are there half-naked people walking around?” Hyde asked, eyeing a rather appealing couple stroll by.  Both were topless.  The girl had on a lacy red bra.  He blinked.

“Oh we forgot to tell you about that – that started about half an hour before you showed up,” Gackt explained.

“I had a jacket because it’s supposed to rain later, but I have no idea where it went…” Cha trailed off, looking only mildly concerned.  “It’s somewhere here.”

“Maybe.”

“Yeah, maybe.  It’s a nice jacket too…”

“But…why are people getting naked?”

“Well one, because it’s fucking hot both inside and outside.  Two, no one’s complaining and three,” he motioned to the people around them.  “All these people are so hydrated they don’t need to get liquored up.  They’re getting drunk off of the water.”

Conversation passed easily between the group, all of them hoping that at some point the bar would open completely but not really having the energy to care if it didn’t.  Hyde found himself watching the people on the dance floor and tables twisting, jumping, and gyrating – and occasionally losing another article of clothing – to the beat of the music that drifted on the sticky summer air.  “Have any of you been up on the tables yet tonight?” he asked.  The rest of the group grinned at each other as if sharing in some private joke.

“Oh yeah.  We all have at some point so far,” Cha answered before downing the rest of the bottle in his hand.

“Really?”  Hyde turned to Gackt and laughed.  “I can’t imagine you dancing on a table.”

Gackt swallowed another mouthful of water and smiled.  “I’ve already been up on the table twice tonight.”

“Twice?”

“Um…yeah,” the other man said trying to hide his smile around the mouth of his water bottle. 

“When?”

“Well, once for a singles call and I got to dance with a very pretty young lady over on the other side of the bar.”

“He was very smug about that,” Cha added.

“And then again with You.”

“What?  With You?”  Hyde looked at the violinist for confirmation before turning back to Gackt.  “Really?”

“Yeah – they said that if you were here with your best friend you were up.  And then the guy added ‘even if you’re guys.’  So up we went.”

“It was fucking hot,” Cha added again, earning him a searing look from his co-producer.  Hyde laughed.  “They kissed too!” he said with a rather evil grin.

“He’s done worse,” You assured from the other side of the table.