FIFTH KNOT
That night—five weeks ago now—I lost my shit.
I told Naoya to take that shit off, barked like a fucking mad dog. Because I hated that I liked it. Hated the heat crawling down my spine and pooling in my stomach. Hated the way my arms felt stuck and helpless and the way that made everything harder to breathe through.
I stood up, still tied, pacing like a damn caged animal, trying to make it look like rage instead of panic.
I tried to shake it off, kick it out of me.
Tried to kick Naoya even though he didn’t fucking flinch.
I knocked some things over instead—a wood frame, something on the wall that I don’t even remember what it was.
I fell on my side. I tried to get up and failed.
Tried again, failed again. I tried to twist out of the rope, tried to use brute strength on something that didn’t care how many people I’ve killed or how many knives I’ve held.
I growled, thrashed, swore at the walls, and somewhere in all that, I was fucking humping the floor like some desperate freak, not even thinking, not even aware of it until I came in my pants so hard it made me bite my tongue.
I didn’t say the safe word at all.
Saying it would’ve meant surrender, begging out.
Naoya didn’t untie me until I stopped moving, until I was breathing so loud it was the only thing I could hear.
When he untied me, it was slow, no judgment, no gloating.
It was just hands on rope, then hands gone, and me lying there, sticky, furious, and ashamed of what my dick had done.
I hated myself that night.
Hated how good it felt. Hated that he hadn’t mocked me.
And hated that I wanted him to.
I showed up the next day because I had to.
I’d broken shit and I don’t leave this kind of mess behind.
So I went back, handed over the money for the damages and for the session, and stood there like an idiot waiting to be told to fuck off.
But he just nodded and asked if I wanted to book again.
And that’s how I made an appointment like some regular asshole.
Next day, I went back. Then the next week.
Then the week after that. Now it’s been five weeks, five fucking sessions, and every single one leaves me worse off than the last. He never pushes too far, but it still sets my nerves on fire and leaves my limbs aching for more.
Never a full bind, never suspension, nothing extreme.
But always something new. Always some precise configuration that makes my body remember the burn of the rope for days.
And always, without fail, it makes my cock hard before we’re even halfway through it.
And every single time, he acts like my hard-on doesn’t exist. He adjusts rope, checks circulation, keeps things smooth and distant.
Always with that calm, deep voice asking if it’s too tight, if anything’s going numb.
I want to scream at him and tell him to shut the fuck up and do it already, do the real shit, stop dancing around it.
Last session, he pulled my arms behind my back again, but added a chest harness that spread my shoulders wide, curved my spine forward until I couldn’t breathe right.
Rope pressed against my ribs, each inhale rubbing against the knots, every movement a reminder of how little control I had.
He stayed quiet most of the time, eyes focused, mouth tight, until he finished, stepped back, and said that I would look beautiful fully tied.
That word punched right through me.
Beautiful. Not hot. Not fucked up.
Beautiful.
Fuck. I’m not someone who blushes. I don’t fucking blush. But I did that day. My whole face burning, ears hot, and I didn’t say shit because I didn’t know what to say to that. It hit somewhere wrong and deep, and I couldn’t dig it out even after the ropes were gone.
So I tried to fuck it out.
After his voice slipped into my head and stayed there, I went to every whorehouse I knew that offered rope, underground kink joints where they tie you up and beat the shit out of you if you ask.
Let women wrap rope around me, pulling it tight with their soft hands brushing over my skin.
I got my dick sucked, got ridden until my balls were empty, even let one of them use some weird leather whip on me.
It felt good and my body liked it. But afterward I sat in the corner, sweaty, sore, trying not to bite my tongue in half because it wasn’t enough.
The ropes didn’t hold the same weight. The voices were too high, too eager and too sweet.
I wanted that deep voice telling me to breathe, asking if I felt the pressure, adjusting the line like it was a matter of art instead of play.
So I kept going back to Naoya’s studio. Didn’t matter how many people I fucked or how many ropes burned into my skin—nothing felt as close to real as sitting on that tatami, waiting for his smart fingers to bind me.
* * *
My dick stayed half-hard the whole day. Not because I was thinking about anything specific, but because my body knows. It remembers what day it is. Rope time. Session six. Every cell in me was tuned to it from the moment I woke up.
But tonight’s fucked before it even starts, and I hate that I can’t do shit about it.
Instead of walking barefoot into Naoya’s quiet little studio, I’m crammed into the passenger seat of a shitty black sedan with Ryo at the wheel, windows half down and the stink of his cologne in the air.
We’re headed to deliver a message. Real fucking work.
Kobayashi-sama gave the order himself, so there’s no saying no, no matter how much my skin’s itching to be somewhere else.
The peace accord between Kobayashi-sama and the two other big names—Midori-san of the Kagebōshi-gumi, and Hasebe-san of the Tetsukaminari-ikka—has held longer than anyone expected.
We split territory. We stopped bleeding each other out in the alleys.
The turf grew. Bigger profits, fewer dead bodies, less heat from the cops.
And now, our new shared problem is some loudmouthed rats on bikes calling themselves the Gora Specters.
Punks who think patch jackets and Kawasakis give them balls.
Their little slice of turf sits where our next cut should be, and someone’s gotta soften them up.
That someone is us.
Tonight we’ll see how they bite. Maybe take out a tooth or two.
Ryo exhales hard through his nose, tapping his cigarette out the cracked window.
“This shit’s beneath us.”
I don’t answer.
“We should’ve sent the new guys. Let them break their noses and learn something.”
He’s right, but I won’t say it. I keep my eyes on the road ahead because there’s no way I’ll agree with him out loud. Ryo talks too much, the asshole. Half the time I want to punch his throat just to hear him shut up for five minutes.
He smacks the wheel with his palm.
“You hear that, Arakawa? That silence? That’s your fucking personality these days. Did Kobayashi-san finally tame his dog enough to not talk unless someone tells, huh?”
I don’t answer.
“Figures. You got your tongue cut or something?” He spits out the window. “No wonder Midori-san wanted me here. Gotta keep you from messing this up.”
I picture breaking his nose against the steering wheel. His blood would look good on the dashboard. I bet he sings nice.
Ryo laughs, teeth flashing.
“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you? You wanna hit me, I can feel it. Go ahead, Arakawa. Show me how the big dog from Dokugumo-kai fights.”
The bastard’s really begging for it, and I can feel my pulse beating behind my eyes. But if I kill him now, the fucking “peace” goes to shit. Fuck, I bet I wouldn’t be able to go see Naoya for a couple of months, if that happened.
“If someone gets whacked tonight, my money’s on you, especially since your dick fell off and all.” He gestures with his cigarette to my crotch. “Did you grow a cunt overnight?”
“You fucking done?”
He shrugs.
“Nah, not yet.”
“Let’s just go in and get this shit over with.” I tap my fingers against my thigh, my knuckles begging for pain. “We smash their fucking faces, go home. Easy.”
Ryo gives that infuriating, teeth-baring smirk of his.
“You think it’s gonna be that easy?”
“I bet I could take them all down by myself,” I say, and I mean it.
He laughs.
“That right? Then let’s make it interesting.”
“You wanna count bodies?”
“Fuck yes.”
“Loser pays for drinks.”
“Sure.”
We killed the engine a block out and rolled to a stop in the shadows.
The Gora Specters’ garage squatted at the edge of the industrial strip—a shithole with half-rusted shutters and a green neon glow flickering behind the gaps.
From inside, the thump of bad music and drunken laughter bled through the walls.
The beautiful sounds of a herd that doesn’t know it’s being hunted.
A slow smile stretches my face.
Perfect.
* * *
There’s blood drying on my knuckles and a long scratch along my cheek where some idiot tried to stab me with a broken bottle. I should be tired, but I’m wired, lungs burning with the aftershocks, pulse still hammering. Ryo’s crouched beside one of them, wiping a knife on a torn battle vest.
They were fucking pathetic.
Most of them looked like high schoolers, if that, and we didn’t even need to kill those.
A kid pissed himself the second Ryo shoved open the door and kicked in a chair for fun.
A few tried to act tough. One swung a bat like he’d seen too many movies.
Another actually yelled “fuck you!” right before I drove my elbow into his nose and shattered it so loud it echoed.
But some of the older ones put up a fight. One had a chain. Ryo took that one—tore through him like he’d been waiting for it all week. Left his ribs bent the wrong way and blood bubbling out of his mouth as he wheezed on the floor.
I took the one with tattoos on his neck and too many teeth in his mouth. Knocked out five of them. Dislocated his shoulder. Smashed his hand until it crunched.
“You’re not even a real gang,” I spat into his face when he started crying.
They had no plan and no chain of command.
Fucking noise and bravado don’t work in the real world, and I made sure they learned that.
Their loyalty broke the second pain hit, too.
One of them tried to run and I grabbed him by the back of his vest, dragged him down the concrete, and kicked his stomach in until he stopped moving.
Ryo got bitten by one of the punks and laughed as he knocked three teeth out in response.
We didn’t kill them all because that’d be a waste.
The kids, especially. Scared and stupid, sure, but I’ve seen worse grow into something useful.
I told a few of them, while they crawled toward the back exit with busted arms and cracked ribs, “Come find me if you want to live longer than a week. Maybe I’ll make something out of you. ”
One of them nodded. Cried the whole time, but nodded.
I step over a puddle of blood that’s mostly not mine. My hands are shaking from the high of it, and I need to hit something else. Or fuck.
Or Naoya.
Or fucking Naoya. That would be great.
“Lost count. But I’m pretty sure I won,” Ryo says, slowly walking towards me.
“Bullshit.”
“Let’s call it a tie.”
“Let’s not.”
We step out into the alley behind the garage.
It’s quiet now, the kind of silence that comes only after screaming.
I crush down into a squat, cigarette between my fingers.
I can still taste blood in my mouth that’s not mine, and I let it sit on my tongue, enjoying the aftertaste of a fight well earned.
Ryo slumps down next to me, leaning back against the damp concrete wall, all smug and loose-limbed. His cigarette lights with a click of his cheap-ass lighter, the flame dancing in the wind.
I take a drag of mine, let the smoke settle deep. The buzz from the fight is still crawling under my skin, but I don’t want to talk about that even though my brain’s wired. My cock’s hard and the thought of fucking Naoya is a pretty good one.
“You ever fuck around with a guy?” I ask, smoke trailing out with the words.
Ryo turns his head, his eyes sliding over me very obviously.
“You offering?”
“Fuck no. Just curious.”
He considers that and then shrugs.
“Sure. Why not? Plenty of pretty guys around.”
“You ever get fucked?”
His mouth curls, like he can’t tell if I’m baiting or not.
“No. Not my style.”
I nod, take another drag. My brain’s already turning the next thing over before I stop it.
“We should go back and count bodies,” I mutter.
“Why?”
“Loser gets fucked.”
He laughs loudly.
“You’re fucking insane, Arakawa.” I hold his stare and blow smoke into the night air. His grin falters. Then it comes back meaner. “Alright, then. Let’s count.”
We go back inside, and most of the bodies are gone—those who could still crawl, ran away.
I realize too late that I spent too long testing the kids, letting them go with only bruises and warnings, while trying to see who was worth saving.
And Ryo didn’t waste time. His side of the room’s got real damage.
Busted ribs, cracked faces, a broken leg twisted the wrong way.
I don’t need to count to know I lost.
And I don’t even care.
My whole body is humming, muscles twitching under my jacket. Skin hot. Blood fizzing under the surface. I want something deeper than bruises. I want—
Ryo steps close.
“You serious about the deal?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Ryo grins again, something predatory curling behind his teeth.
“I usually go for the pretty ones,” he says, flicking ash to the floor. “But you’d do.”
I snort.
“Thanks, asshole.”
I’d prefer someone prettier too, like Naoya.
But Ryo’s not a bad consolation. He’s older, got four or five years on me, so maybe he knows a trick or two.
He’s a little taller and way skinnier than me, but his shoulders are broad and his hands are large.
Even that ridiculous piss-yellow bleach job somehow works for him. Yeah, he’s definitely not that bad.
“Can I fuck you right here?” he asks, motioning toward the blood-wet floor. “Because this? Kind of a turn-on.”
“No.”
Yeah, it is a turn-on. But I want more than this.
“I want to go somewhere you can tie me up. Make me not move.”
His head jerks back a little, but then he barks a laugh.
“Holy shit, you trust me that much?”
“Fucking hell no. But the chance you’ll kill me while I’m helpless is a bigger fucking turn-on.”
“You’re into some freaky kink shit, Arakawa.”
“Yeah. You in or not?”
“Fuck, you even need to ask?”