SEVENTH KNOT
The studio smells like rain-soaked wood and incense, but the door doesn’t budge when I shove it. I growl under my breath and check the fucking handle again, like maybe I’ve missed something, like maybe it’ll magically know who I am and slide open.
It doesn’t.
There’s a note taped to the inside of the glass, something polite in neat brush strokes, but I don’t read it. I already know what it says. My appointment was yesterday, and yesterday I was busy cracking some fucker’s teeth into a curb and bleeding all over Ryo’s sheets.
I pace once, fists tight, fury curling up my spine—an itch I can’t scratch. But walking away isn’t happening.
I look up. The light above the studio glows low and amber, warm against the grey sky. Yeah, fuck it.
The narrow stairway tucked beside the studio groans under my boots, each protesting creak echoing in the cramped alley. At the top, a single flimsy door. I hammer on it—three rapid knocks that rattle the frame. Silence. I slam my fist harder, the sound loud and demanding against the thin wood.
The door opens slowly, and Naoya stands there barefoot, wearing a loose white shirt and dark, soft-looking pants. No pristine kimono. Nothing structured, nothing formal. He looks good.
“Arakawa-san,” he says, voice as level as ever. “You were meant to come yesterday.”
“No shit,” I snarl, shouldering my way forward until he blocks me with just the line of his body. “I got held up.”
“Held up?”
“Work.”
He studies me for a breath. Then he just sighs and starts to close the door. I slam my palm against it.
“I need this.”
“You missed your time.”
“I need this.”
His gaze flickers over me, then it shifts, catching on something on my neck. I know what he’s seeing.
Slowly, he steps forward, his fingers reaching out and pulling the neck of my shirt aside, exposing the high, red impression of last night’s rope, bruised and tender. The edge of his thumb brushes just under it.
“You did this to yourself?”
“Friend did.”
His eyes lift to mine.
“A man?”
I blink.
“Hm… yeah. How the fu—?”
“Did he fuck you?”
For a second, something flares up in my chest—reflexive and automatic. Usually, someone asking me shit like that would be reason enough to slam their face into a wall and walk away humming. But this isn’t some asshole talking shit. It’s him.
It’s him demanding an answer.
“Yes,” I say.
“Did you like it?”
“Yeah.”
Another beat of silence.
“Did he respect the ropes?”
“What?”
He holds his gaze steady. Dead serious.
I laugh.
“There was a lotta shit happening in that room. But ‘respect’ sure as fuck wasn’t one of them.”
Something behind his eyes sharpens, and I feel it in my spine—call it animal instinct or whatever. I’ve felt it many times, but only while fighting, not while a much weaker and soft looking man is standing before me.
“Come downstairs.”
He closes the door and moves past me, and I follow because there’s nothing else I can do other than trail behind him like a leashed dog.
Naoya unlocks the entrance to the studio and pushes the door open without a sound.
Once we’re both inside, he shuts it. The lock clicks behind us, final and quiet.
Then he speaks.
“Strip,” he says, voice low. Commanding.
And fuck me. Maybe I really became a pussy, because I don’t even think about arguing. He’s never asked that before, and if I’m being completely honest, that’s a little scary.
I pull my shirt over my head, and my pants hit the floor soon after. I think about leaving my briefs on, but fuck it—I’m here for a good time.
He walks around me, slow, cataloging every bruise and every muscle twitch. Then he crouches behind me, fingers brushing down the backs of my thighs, the curve behind my knees, the base of my spine.
“I’m going to bind your legs open,” he says. “You will be exposed and won’t be able to move. Not forward. Not back. Not up. Is that okay?”
I nod. My mouth is dry.
“Sit.”
I obey, and he sits behind me.
He starts at my right leg, folding it up tight, thigh drawn toward my chest, calf pressed close.
The rope circles thick around both above and below my knee, locking the bend.
I grunt under my breath at the pressure—not pain, but it forces everything in place.
When he leans me forward, I follow without protest, and he drags the rope behind my back, pulling across my spine.
I feel him move, reposition behind my left side, and then he does the same there—bending the leg, binding it shut.
And when he pulls me upright again, my legs are forced apart.
The rope behind my back holds the position open, and it fucks with my balance instantly.
I wobble. My core tightens. No way to close myself. No way to hide.
Naoya shifts in behind me again, the press of his chest settling right against my back.
One arm wraps around my waist to steady me, while his other hand slides down the inside of my thigh, fingers trailing light and slow and unhurried over the rope-bent curve.
My breath stutters out. The fucker doesn’t even pretend to be clinical now.
He strokes lower—under the thigh, near the edge where skin gets sensitive.
His palm presses in, kneading deliberately, dragging heat straight up toward the crease where everything’s already tight and buzzing.
I twitch, but there’s nowhere to go. My legs are frozen open, and I can’t even flinch away.
I feel it when my head tips all the way, shoulder blades flush to his chest, back resting fully against him now, helpless in that unnatural pose.
He slides his arm from my waist and shifts behind me as he leans me down, and the second I’m down, I know I’m fucked.
My legs are pulled up and out, bent and bound and it’s impossible to get up without help.
I look like a flipped fucking bug. The position forces everything open, and all I can do is lie there, breathing too hard.
Naoya kneels beside me now, his hands ghosting over my arms like he’s mapping the next step. Then he binds my wrists to my ankles—right to right, left to left—ropes looping tight and steady. Then he moves to my elbows, bends them in, and fastens them to the curve of my knees.
“Try to move,” he says.
And I do.
Every muscle fires, all at once, my body jerking in the ropes like an animal trying to break from a trap.
But nothing gives. My shoulders can’t lift.
My hips can’t roll. My thighs burn, flexing against the restraints.
My arms are dead weight, locked to my legs.
My head thuds back to the floor with a choked breath, frustration bubbling up hot.
I can’t fucking move.
And fuck if that doesn’t make me harder.
“I fucking knew you were a kinky bastard.”
“People get tied how they need to be tied.”
His eyes move over me, all naked and shit, peeled open like a goddamn offering.
“And you, Arakawa-san… you looked like you wanted to be seen like this.”
My whole body wants to snap, to yell fuck off, I didn’t want shit.
But I’m here, aren’t I?
Flat on my back, every part of me forced open, bound so tight I couldn’t even flinch if I tried. More exposed than I was last night with Ryo, which is saying something. And somehow my body likes that. Fuck, my body more than likes it. It thrums with it.
Kaito, the guy who’s fought twenty men and walked away laughing.
Kaito, whose fists twitch when there’s silence in the room.
Kaito, who can’t sit still for five fucking minutes without pacing or breaking something.
That Kaito is tied flat on his back, arms bound to his ankles, legs bent up and open, every inch of him useless.
He can’t move.
He has to be still.
Maybe that’s what this kink shit’s about. Not the rope, not the position, not the pretty patterns or the aesthetics people love to jerk off over.
Maybe it’s about being forced to stop.
Naoya steps in, kneeling between my open legs. His hands settle on the inside of my knees, and then he pushes my legs up even higher and wider. The ropes strain against themselves. My breath catches.
His hand slides slowly down between my legs, fingers deliberate and sure, and then his thumbs push my ass open.
My breath hitches. The ropes won’t let me flinch or twist or pretend I’m not right here with my hole spread and cock throbbing and leaking all over my fucking stomach like some pathetic slut.
I wasn’t expecting this, to be honest. Naoya never touched me like this. It makes my brain go all blank.
“Some people confuse bondage with self-destruction,” he says, fingertips teasing just around the edges of me, where it’s hot and twitching and far too exposed. “But it isn’t. It’s about trust. And care. And limits.”
“Trust, my ass,” I mutter, panting, but the words are weak even to my ears.
Naoya presses a finger against my hole, not forcing it in, just resting there.
“Did you find your limits with the man who did this to you?”
“Tch… no fucking way,” I say, breath hitching. “Ryo was a pussy. Didn’t even give it to me hard enough.”
Naoya hums, like that doesn’t surprise him. His finger presses inside a little, and I grit my teeth as a rush of sensation tears through me. My head falls back against the mat, chest heaving.
“And do you know your own limits?” he asks.
“Death’s probably the limit for everyone, right?”
He sighs as if I’m not being funny when I obviously am.
He withdraws his hand and sits back on his heels. Then he stands, stepping out of view, and for a second I think he’s done, that maybe I pissed him off for real. But no. He comes back a moment later with that goddamn little tin of ointment he always insists on using after every session.
“Seriously?” I try to squirm, but the ropes don’t budge, and the movement only makes everything worse. “It’s fine, fuck—”
“Stay quiet.”
He kneels between my splayed legs again, dips his fingers deep into the ointment, and brings it to spread right there, all over my hole.
I flinch, humiliated.
“Caring is the foundation of all this, Arakawa-san. If you don’t let me take care of you, you don’t need to come back after today.”
That shuts me up.