THIRD KNOT
Honestly, I forgot about him. About the studio. About the way he said my name.
That whole week—fuck, maybe two. Was it two?
—I was too busy cracking ribs and stomping faces to think about ghost-eyed pretty boys in black silk.
Not work that makes my blood boil, but work nonetheless.
And so life goes the same as always. Wake up, take a piss, grab a smoke, punch someone in the teeth.
This fucking ceasefire bullshit between the gangs means most of the real fun’s off the table.
Which meant fewer good jobs. Fewer reasons to break someone’s skull open without paperwork.
But today I got lucky.
I was just supposed to send a message to some low-life fuck who was owning money to us. The message being: stop fucking around or we gut you and hang you from the overpass.
You know, diplomacy.
But it turned into a fight because the dumb fucker thought holing up with six of his drinking buddies would be enough to keep him safe.
Seven of them in total, all bark, no bite, shouting and swaggering like I’d be the one leaving in pieces.
I took the first two down with my fists, shattered the third’s jaw with the heel of my boot, and when the fourth tried to bolt, I grabbed him by the collar and cracked his skull against the curb until the concrete drank what was left of his thoughts.
After that, the rest didn’t look so brave.
They tried knives and a fucking pipe, but it didn’t help.
Nothing does when I’m having fun. Pain doesn’t register as something bad.
All I feel is the heat crawling under my skin, the tight pulse behind my eyes, and the pressure in my chest like a scream that I never let out.
All I hear is the singing and the beautiful gasps.
I left four of them not breathing. Maybe five. Don’t know if that was the plan. Don’t care. The last two limp off half-conscious, crying, and I light a cigarette over one of the bodies, ignoring the blood on my hands as I flick the match.
And then—for no fucking reason—I think of him.
Not in a poetic way. Not some meaningful echo from the depths of my soul or any shit like that. Just, there, in the haze of my pulse hammering and hands dripping, I see his fucking face. Cold and pretty.
Takahashi Naoya.
I remember the way he stood like he was carved from stillness. The way he looked at me like I was already bound. The way he didn’t flinch when I grabbed him.
I toss the cigarette, let it hiss in a puddle, and make my way back to that strange little studio tucked between a shuttered bookstore and a dead ramen joint.
The street’s exactly the same—gray, grimy, cracked like old teeth.
The same rusting street lamp flickers overhead, casting twitching shadows across the door.
Same old kanji sign with rope coiled through it.
I push the door open, half expecting the same eerie stillness from before, that off-putting silence that pressed too tightly against the skull.
But no, this time, the room’s full of movement, with at least half a dozen people spread out across the wide open room in the back.
Some are on their knees. Others are standing, arms raised or stretched, held in place by ropes that coil over their skin.
Pale arms. Bare backs. Bent necks. Everyone’s either tying or getting tied, and every single one of those freaks turns to look at me the second I open the fucking door.
I stop just inside the doorway, hands clenched because I haven’t shaken the fight off yet. Their eyes crawl over me, and I can smell that little spike of fear I learned to enjoy early in life.
“What the fuck—” I start, voice already half a growl, half a laugh, because I can’t believe it’s actually real. These people are really tying each other up. I stop when he appears again.
Naoya.
Sliding out from the far side of the room like he’s made of smoke. He’s dressed the same—black kimono, perfect lines, glasses that somehow make his eyes look darker. Even his hair hasn’t moved. I don’t know how that’s possible.
“You don’t have an appointment,” he says before I can open my mouth again, voice deep in a way that makes the hairs on my neck twitch.
Some of the freaks flinch. One guy drops his rope. They all look like I’m about to lose my shit and kill them all—which, in all honesty, could happen.
“The fuck you mean, appointment? Thought you said if I came back—”
“I said if you came back clear-eyed,” he cuts in, still walking toward me. “And you are. But I’m in the middle of a class, as you can see. It ends in fifteen minutes. You may wait outside.”
I stare at him. I feel my jaw flex. My fingers twitch. I just beat seven assholes into pulp because one of them thought he could get lucky if it was seven against one, and now this thin bastard in bare feet is telling me to wait like a goddamn dog on the porch.
The urge to break something flares hot in my chest. To grab him by that pristine collar and shove him against the wall. To hear his breath hitch. To see if that blank expression cracks when my fist connects.
But I don’t.
I don’t know why I don’t.
Instead, I scoff loud, roll my shoulders like they’re stiff, which they aren’t, and turn on my heel. There’s rain coming down in thin sheets, soft but steady, plastering my shirt to my back. I glance sideways, scowl at the darkened bookstore, then the cracked windows of the ramen joint.
Fuck it.
I shoulder the ramen-shop door open, immediately getting hit with the smell of broth and mildew.
There’s one old guy behind the counter, eyes on a tiny TV set playing horse races; and some kids slurping in the corner.
No one looks at me. Good. I’m buzzing and could gut every last one of them, and the last shit I want is to go off and kill that freak’s neighbor or whatever.
Fifteen minutes.
I can wait fifteen fucking minutes.
But I don’t know why I’m waiting at all.
* * *
I stay for thirty-four minutes. Thirty-four minutes of restless legs, cracked knuckles, two bowls of tonkotsu ramen and a side of gyoza I don’t remember ordering.
I finish all of it not because I’m hungry, but because I need to keep moving somehow, even if it’s just my fucking jaw.
The cook gives me one too many looks, like he’s wondering whether I’m going to start a fight with the air.
I throw cash on the counter and walk out.
The rain’s stopped, mostly, but the sky’s still bruised. Dim, wet, full of pressure. Like me.
I go back to the studio and stop by the window without thinking how weird I must look to a passerby.
I just stand here, like a freak, like a stalker, like some trembling little voyeur with his dick in his hand.
There’s no one near the glass, no ropes in sight because the window shows only the small foyer, so I don’t know what’s going on inside.
I swear under my breath and push the door open before I can change my mind.
“Oi,” I call out loud, because I need noise. The silence is too slick in this place, too tight around my ears. “You done playing rope?”
A moment passes. Then a soft footstep, then another.
Naoya appears from the hallway at the back like he’s stepping out of fog.
He looks at me like he wasn’t expecting me to return, but not impressed that I actually did.
He tips his chin slightly, that unreadable expression set across his face like always, and says, “Come with me.”
He turns without waiting for my answer, so I follow, half wanting to slam something just to see if I can shake the calm out of him.
He leads me down a short, narrow hallway that forces my shoulders tight and makes my hands twitchy.
We stop in front of a door and step into a room so small I almost laugh.
Office, maybe, but it’s barely bigger than a janitor’s closet.
There’s a low table. A zaisu on either side.
A small shelf on the wall with neatly stacked folders and two white ceramic cups.
Everything’s bare and clean. It looks like the kind of space you confess to murder over tea. Or sign your soul away.
“Sit.”
I don’t sit.
I stand, fidgeting, the thrum of movement still trapped under my skin, nowhere to put it. Naoya lowers himself into one seat, gestures to the other and repeats, like it’s a fucking order, “Sit.”
I do, even though every instinct in me says don’t. Even though the zaisu’s too small and the room too tight and the air too thick with whatever it is that clings to this man. I sit, and he slides a single sheet of paper across the desk toward me.
CONSENT FORM.
I blink at it. Read the words twice. And then the heat in my chest explodes.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”
Naoya doesn’t flinch. He folds his hands over the table like he’s settling in for a pleasant little conversation and waits for me to finish my tantrum, which only pisses me off more.
“I didn’t come here to sign up for a fucking loan. I came to get tied up. Or whatever the hell this is. I came for the thing… the kink stuff. You said if I came back, you’d—”
“And that’s how we’ll do it,” he cuts in, smooth. “This isn’t a street fight, Arakawa-san. There are procedures. Kinbaku is not something you throw yourself into full of noise. You’ll hurt yourself or someone else.”
“That’s the fucking point.”
“No,” he says, then taps the top of the paper with one long finger. “This form is the first layer. It’s not just consent. It’s a map. You fill it out with me.”
I snort.
“Every rope has meaning,” he continues. “This isn’t improvisation. It’s architecture. Without a strong foundation, it collapses.”
“I don’t need safety,” I say through my teeth. “I came here because I want to be tied up, not write shit. I want you to fucking do it, not—”
“I’ll tie you, but only under my conditions. If you are not ready to accept something as simple, you are not ready for my ropes.”
I want to crumple the paper and throw it in his face. I want to punch his mouth. But fucking hell I don’t. I sit here with my jaw tight and my shoulders tense because something in his voice reaches deeper than shouting ever could.
Naoya slides a pen across the table next, and I snatch it, grip it so tight my knuckles pop.
This whole bullshit it’s too much. I thought I’d show up, play a little with this guy, get tied up and convince him to ride me—maybe not in that order, but whatever. I didn’t come for therapy.
Naoya watches me, and there’s not even a flicker of pity or amusement. Just patience.
I stare at the form. It feels stupid. It feels insulting.
But I’m already here, anyway.
I grip the pen.
And I write.