Itlooksclosed, and should be at this hour, but there’s a soft light inside still on.
I squint up at the weird sign. One of those discreet, vertical jobs with white paper and brush strokes, all curves and fancy bullshit, like it got lost on the way to a tea ceremony and ended up here in this piss-stained street.
??—Kinbaku.
A single paper lantern glows above the door.
My brain’s fogged with alcohol and perfume, but that word slices through. Rope. Binding. Some freaky sex thing.
Curious, alittledrunk, and needing to break something, I shove the door open.
No bell chime.
Inside it’s calm, like a fucking shrine or something. Wooden floors, pale walls with coils of rope like art. Smells like tatami and incense. There’s no music. No giggling girls. No moaning behind thin walls. Just calm, unnatural fucking silence. Calm in a way that pisses me off, which makes me want to piss all over the front steps just to ruin it.
“Oi,” I call out, swaying forward. “This a brothel or what?”
There’s no answer at first, but I hear the creak of floorboards from somewhere in the back. I’m halfway through deciding whether to spit on the floor or light a cigarette when he appears.
And fuck me—that would be actually scary if this place was really a shrine.
He fuckingemerges. All smooth and slender and unreal, as if he slid out of some old brush painting in a museum nobody visits. He’s wearing a black kimono over a hakama, aligned perfectly without a wrinkle, the fabric soft and heavy like a shadow turned solid. Bare feet. Hands folded precisely in front of him. Round glasses that catch the lantern light in twin ghosts across the lenses. Hair slick and dark, not a strand out of place. Pale as if he hasn’t seen the sun in years, like he’s carved out of wax. He looks like he belongs in some fucking Kyoto mountain temple pouring tea for monks, not standing here.
“Welcome. You’re bleeding.”
It’s wrong, his voice. Too deep and too fucking calm. It fucks with my head for a second. It makes me itch, makes me clench my teeth.
I want to cut his throat before he says another word.
I scowl, tongue poking at the split on my lip and trying to not make a red mess in this fucking dead place. So I stomp across the threshold like I’m not restless and itching and vibrating with unshed violence.
“The fuck is this place? Smells like a fucking funeral home.”
He watches me move. Doesn’t flinch even when I get closer.
“It’s a Kinbaku studio. I am Takahashi Naoya. I own this place.”
“Studio,” I repeat, scanning the room once more. “Tying chicks up to fuck them? That kinda shit?”
He doesn’t blink.
“No.”
“Bullshit. You’ve got rope in your sign. You’re telling me that’s not code?”
He still doesn’t blink. He’s like a goddamn ghost that got bored haunting temples and decided to tie people up instead. Or some kind of yokai, bored with eternity and trying out some freaky hobbies.
“I specialize in Kinbaku,” he says, with that same quiet voice that makes my hands itch. “It doesn’t need to be sexual. It’s art. Discipline. Surrender.”
“Surrender, huh?” I step closer, chest buzzing. “Sounds like bitch talk.”
He doesn’t react. Which pisses me off more.
“You’re kinda pretty, you know,” I say, tilting my head and circling him. “You do this tying shit too? I guess you look good enough to be the entertainment. Bet you’d look good on your knees.”
“I wouldn’t kneel.”
“Everyone kneels for something.”
