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 bareand 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 needsafety,” 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. Butfucking hellI 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 fortherapy.
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.
