[Pin] a high-class affair
Akanishi Jin had been waiting for this day. He’d slowly gained more and more knowledge about the auctions over the last year - only twenty-one and older were allowed into the event, but Ryo, despite being the same age as Jin, was a lucky enough bastard that his father bought him a slave last year as a graduation present.
“He’s great,” Ryo would say with relish. “You know, they train them for at least three years? Uchi does whatever I want him to, and he feels so good.”
Jin shows the invitation to his driver - “Annual Auction” is all the white card says, in black script, with the address on back. The driver nods once and Jin leans back, adjusting the lapels of his black tuxedo. It takes twenty minutes for them to arrive at the location, an almost out-of-place looking English-style house. A man steps out of a car already in the arced driveway, dressed almost as sharply as Jin, who checks his watch. The two-hour reception began thirty minutes ago, but he knows that more people will follow.
A young woman greets him at the door, bowing and nodding politely when he shows her his invitation. She smiles at him when she looks up again, and Jin takes a second to smile back. She is probably in the family.
Kamenashi greets him a few moments later: he has been Jin’s inside man, the one who secured his invitation. Originally recruited as a prospective slave, Johnny had adopted him after seeing that the boy had a good head for leading the company. After going through training himself, he thoroughly understood the system in ways Johnny’s daughters could not. “This year’s group is sure to please,” he says, but Jin knows that every year’s crop is of superb quality. A high-class affair assures the finest.
“Any recommendations?” Jin asks, and Kame seems to sparkle - after all, this is his element.
“Number ten, in the master bedroom,” Kame says immediately. “He’s a lovely thing, really. I’ve been with him many times - tight, smooth, docile. He can take anything, do anything you want - compared to the others, he’s really something special.”
“I’ll be sure to stop by,” Jin says smoothly, turning to ascend up the spiral staircase. At the top, he accepts a glass of wine from a waiter, who inclines his head respectfully before briskly heading to collect a woman’s empty glass.
Jin steps in each room for a bit, looking for something that catches his eye. Each room is relatively the same: a few men and the occasional woman looking on as the slaves are presented, one to a room.
“Wonderfully tight,” one of the presenters says, pushing number four back onto the bed. He applies lubricant to two of his fingers and slips one inside the naked boy’s entrance.
“Go ahead and kiss him,” number six’s presenter says encouragingly, waving his hand at a spectator in front. This man must be in his middle thirties; the auctions draw a fairly large range of men and women, though the boys are all from twenty to twenty-five years of age. This man is new to the scene, Jin thinks anyone could tell - he steps up awkwardly, but the boy smiles gently at him and suddenly they are kissing. They break away after a few moments, and the man looks breathless - “How was it?” the presenter prompts, and the man licks his lips. “Fantastic,” he says dazedly.
He’d like to have number five, Jin thinks as he strides down the hallways, but he has yet to come across anyone truly special. However, he trusts Kame, and when he enters the master bedroom, he sees what Kame was saying for himself. The last boy is most certainly the most handsome of all, almost pretty, and he lies naked and exposed for all to see - for Jin to see. Kamenashi has switched roles at this point; now he is the one presenting number ten. He smiles when he sees Jin enter, and pushes the boy up lightly so that he sits.
“More than just a pretty face, though what a pretty face it is, with these eyes and lips” - he gestures to the boy’s dark, deep eyes and traces his heart-shaped mouth with a finger. “Speaking of lips, these are fine ones to have wrapped around you” - he shoves fingers into the boy’s mouth, and the boy sucks them hard and hungrily. Jin knows he is not the only one imagining those pretty pink lips around his cock.
“He’ll do anything for you,” Kame continues, sliding wet fingers down the boy’s stomach to palm at his growing erection. The boy closes his eyes, jerking his head back and hips up with an involuntary moan. “He’s very responsive,” Kame commentates.
It’s different, so different, and Jin doesn’t know why - all of the boys are good-looking and trained to be fantastic in bed, but this boy - Jin has to have him.
“Bondage,” Kame is saying when Jin tunes back in, “works quite well with him.” He holds up a silk scarf and the boy lets him bind his wrists together and secure them to the headboard. “Beautifully soft skin,” Kame murmurs just loud enough for those in the back of the room to hear him, before kissing the boy softly on the cheek.
“I’d like to invite you all to touch him,” Kame says more loudly, stepping away from the boy. “See how soft his skin is, how nice it is underneath your fingers.”
By this time, the room has drawn a larger crowd than Jin has seen in any of the previous rooms. The men and women crowd around the bed, marveling - “Oh, his hair is so soft!” one woman cries, while a man Jin’s age traces the boy’s abdomen. The hands start to creep lower, and lower, and Jin steps up and wraps a manicured hand around the boy’s cock. He hears a gasp of surprise, and when he looks up, he meets the boy’s eyes, large and dark; they look at each other for an endless moment until a hand gently pushes the boy’s head back down again. Jin strokes the cock in his hand once, languidly, before releasing it. Yes, the feel of it had been just right in his hand; the boy was hard and good. He was big, too, but Jin knew that the boy wouldn’t be inside him any time soon.
“Thank you,” Kame is saying, and the room falls silent at once. “This brings the reception to a close; please begin to make your way down to the hall. The auction will begin in fifteen minutes.” He unties the boy’s bindings as people begin to file out of the room. Jin knows that the boys need to be cleaned and dressed for the auction, but as he hovers at the door after it’s been closed (Akanishi Jin is never in a hurry), he hears the unmistakable sound of a zipper being pulled and the rustle of clothing, and he assumes that Kame needs to make his last goodbyes.
Sex is Jin’s foremost pleasure in life, but relationships are hard for him to keep up with, as a man who walks to the beat of his own drum. Though he ends up reaching out of his budget, he puts down the winning bid, calling out in a strong voice that cuts across the tittering crowd. The guests begin to disperse soon afterwards, since the auction has ended, and Jin goes to collect his prize.
“Thank you for your patronage, Akanishi-sama,” the auctioneer says politely, after the payment details have been discussed. He nudges number ten towards Jin, and the boy bows crisply. He is dressed in a tuxedo as well now, but Jin can’t wait to rip it off. He doesn’t see any reason why the boy needs to wear clothes ever again. Throughout the drive home, he looks out the window to avoid looking at the boy, because he knows one look will uncontrollably spike his desire, and he’s been waiting too long for this. He wants the first time to go slowly. He wants the first time done right. When they arrive at Jin’s western-style mansion, the older man lets the boy follow him obediently to his bedroom. Only then does he turn around and look the other boy in the eyes.
The look that the boy gives him in return doesn’t show any emotion at all; it is resigned, yet loose. His lips are parted the slightest bit and he looks into Jin’s eyes as if he is waiting and ready, and all of him is simply composed of smooth lines, gentle curves, lines gently curving under Jin’s lips - he’s nuzzling the contour of the boy’s jawline before he knows it, lips pressing smoothly up until they meet the other’s, barely touching and the boy applies light pressure to Jin’s bottom lip between his own, eyes closing just the way Jin likes.
Jin doesn’t know what he’s waiting for - even so, he takes his time removing the boy’s jacket and then his own, dropping each carelessly onto the ground - his cleaning lady will take care of it later. He guides the boy to the oversized bed, pushing him down on his back, and resumes undressing him, unbuttoning the pinstriped dress shirt from top to bottom, licking the golden skin he reveals as he progresses. If the boy moves at all, it’s only to settle himself solidly on the bed - he seems to understand that Jin wants full control, to savor this experience, and that no one should interrupt him. Once the boy’s shirt is gone, Jin starts on his pants, looking up briefly to swell at how the boy’s head tips back, exposing his throat. The pants come off rather quickly, and Jin strips off the socks on the way down. He peels off the boy’s Dolce and Gabbana boxers slowly to reveal that beautiful penis - the best part of his new favorite toy, and all his. There’s a red ribbon tied into a bow on the half-hard cock, slightly stretching, and Jin would have laughed if he weren’t so goddamn turned on. He pulls it off instead of untying it, stroking his hand along the cock, feeling it stiffen in his hand. Someone had told him - he couldn’t remember names now - that undressing the boys the first time was promised to be a real treat.
He realizes that he’s still fully dressed and scrambles to fix that. Once the two of them are naked - the boy looks at him steadily, breathes out steadily - Jin goes back to leaning over him, swipes his tongue over a smooth cheek and kisses the boy again, loving the way the boy’s lips are sweet, reaching into the other’s mouth with his tongue. He pulls back for an instant, ‘you’re beautiful’ on the tip of his tongue, but then the boy pushes his own body up just enough so that their chests brush and Jin’s nipples touch the boy’s hot skin, and those words are lost in a low moan. Things go faster from there; Jin doesn’t think that he needs to control his want as much. He runs hands over the boy’s chest, softening him up, loving the way he relaxes and tenses at the same time. He works his hands down quickly to tug and tease the boy’s cock, stroking fast and then slow, savoring the look of the boy’s flushed face as he starts to pant. Abruptly, he pulls away to pull lubricant out of his bedside table drawer. The boy doesn’t whine like other people would have, and Jin isn’t sure if he likes that or not, but either way this is so hot and so worth it, doing this with someone who belongs to him and no one else.
He inserts a slicked finger into the boy, who doesn’t flinch; instead, Jin sees him watching him with half-lidded eyes, dark and lustful. As Jin pumps his fingers slowly, he becomes more and more eager to know the feel of entering the boy, who is already delightfully warm around his fingers. The boy looks more than ready, and Jin feels like he’s been hard ever since he first saw him, so he applies the gel to his cock and presses against the boy’s prepared hole, eyes never leaving his face. He pushes in slowly, relishing the warmth of slick walls hugging his hardness, and when he’s all the way in he leans forward to kiss the boy again, let him know that yes, he was worth every penny. The boy places his hands on Jin’s shoulders as he responds to the kiss, and his touch feels electric on Jin’s skin. They break apart for air, and Jin pulls back and pushes in again, and again, and again, suddenly aware that the boy is moaning quite audibly - Jin thinks it’s the sexiest thing he’s ever heard; did the boy learn that, because it sounds completely natural and amazing.
Jin knows he’s close to coming, he’s been worked up for so long; so he changes his angle of entry to create more friction for himself. This turns out to be a brilliant move for the both, as Jin thrusts in and the boy gives a loud cry of pleasure. He only does this once more before his body tightens and he comes hotly inside the boy, who he watches through hazy vision, frantically stroking himself so that he can come too. Moments after he does, Jin pulls out and lies on top of him, skin on skin, the boy’s warm breath playing on his neck. “I like you,” he says, once he can, into the boy’s ear.
*
The boy gets his own room. He does not, however, get his own clothes. The tuxedo he arrived in is the only thing hanging in his closet. Jin tells him that there’s always food in the kitchen, so the cleaning lady becomes used to seeing Jin’s pet wander over to the west wing, clutching a blanket tightly around him. The boy also receives permission to use Jin’s training room, which is basically a small gym. Jin expects the boy to maintain his body, and he assumes that the boy is pleased that Jin has allowed him a way to entertain himself.
It’s not hard for Jin to adjust to his new routine. He has amazing sex any time he chooses, and it’s never quite the same, because Jin loves variation, and the boy seems to pick up on that quickly. They do it in Jin’s room, the boy’s room, and even a few times in the dining room. Jin pulls items from his stock of sex toys from time to time to satisfy his kinks. Though the sex is always great, the initial excitement naturally dies down, and Jin knows that he doesn’t need to rush anything. The boy is his and will always be his. There are days when they don’t see each other, and days when Jin has sex with the vigorous young women he likes. He brings the occasional girl home to his airy house, past the boy’s closed door, but never comes across anyone he wants a real relationship with. He loves knowing that the boy is there whenever he wants him, so it’s fine to play around with others.
Eventually, he buys the boy clothes. He comes home with a new wardrobe of handpicked items, smiling at the boy’s inquisitive look as Jin takes the time to load the clothing into his empty closet. “Make good use of this,” Jin says. “It’s so I can undress you again, and again.”
Two months have passed since Jin was able to undress the boy properly, and this time he wants to do it as quickly as possible. He presses the boy into his bed, pressing kisses down his throat until he reaches the boy’s tanned chest, licking his way across the golden expanse the low cut shirt exposes. Jin slides his hands to the hem of the boy’s shirt, but suddenly the boy pushes him away just enough to take off Jin’s shirt first. Jin hisses when the other’s hot hands explore his skin boldly; the boy never does wrong, only what he thinks - what he knows Jin will like. He slides hands down to Jin’s pants and strips those off as well, but Jin always wants to be in control, so soon enough he regains dominance and tears off the boy’s teasing shirt. The pants are more of a problem; he’s wearing tight jeans and Jin can’t think straight anyhow, so he struggles in pulling them off of the boy’s muscular legs. The younger could probably slip out of them himself, but he seems to realize that this is just working up Jin more, in a good way.
The jeans don’t get past the boy’s ankles at all; Jin only gets them past his knees and they stay bunched that way, letting creamy thighs contrast with the dark denim. And when Jin bends the boy’s knees over his shoulder and fucks him, the pants double as bondage, preventing the boy from thrashing around as his body spasms when Jin hits that certain spot over and over again.
Buying the boy clothes had definitely been a smart idea.
*
“Jin-san, you seem happier lately,” Matsushima says gently as she serves him dinner. Jin smiles at her warmly; he has always liked her. She has been in his household for as long as he can remember, as their cook when the house bustled with the activities of Jin’s father, mother, and younger brother. After his father’s death, Jin was to inherit the house upon his mother’s passing, but his mother had moved to Reio’s apartment after her husband’s death, once her youngest son had gone to study abroad. It’ll be nice to live in a smaller place for once, don’t you think, Jin? Therefore, now Jin only keeps Matsushima for her cooking, his driver, and that girl who does the cleaning. It’s less elaborate, but more private, and Jin prefers things that way.
*
“You’re coming with me to work tomorrow,” Jin tells the boy before bed one night, and he answers the boy’s confused face with a mere smile. The next morning, he dresses his toy in a sharp suit and tie before ushering him to the car. “It’s the time of year when I have to go through stacks of mundane papers and approve them,” he explains, almost like an afterthought. “It’s been the same thing for a few days now, so I thought I could use some entertainment.” He runs a hand through his hair lazily. “If anyone talks to us, just bow and nod, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” the boy responds.
They progress to Jin’s private office easily; Jin introduces the boy to a few people they pass as a representative of one of the companies their corporation has a deal with, and the boy bows as instructed. They hang up their jackets, and Jin tells the boy to sit on the couch until he’s ready. An hour and a half later, Jin finally looks up from his work, meets the boy’s eyes, and says, “I think now is a fine time. Underneath the desk.” The boy closes the book he’s been reading - Jin figures that he picked it up from the bookcase in attempt to bypass time - and comes to sit on his knees in the space underneath his owner’s large wooden desk. Jin doesn’t need to say anything further; the boy unfastens Jin’s pants and draws out his cock, giving it long strokes to harden it before sliding it into his mouth. As his actions increase in tempo, Jin presses his palms harder and harder into the hard desk, controlling his body as the sensations build. He squeezes his eyes shut as the boy increases his suction, and helplessly squeezes the boy’s head between his thighs when he comes. He knows that he boy is swallowing every last bit, making sure that no saliva or other fluid dirties Jin’s dress pants. It’s good to be president, Jin thinks dizzily. But he thinks he likes it better at home, where he can easily slide fingers into the boy’s hair and watch his expression as he works, eager to see if he’s pleasuring his master correctly.
*
As Jin holds the boy’s hips to steady him before pushing in, he notes that there is a bruise -two bruises on his pet’s skin, near the place where he usually puts his hands. He leans forward, forgetting sex for a moment, to trace the marks. He knows that they weren’t there yesterday, and yesterday Jin couldn’t have caused them himself; he had been too tired that day to do anything but comb fingers through the boy’s hair while the younger pressed sweet kisses down his chest before he’d gone to sleep. When he looks closer, another pair of bruises glare at him on the boy’s other side, and Jin knows that he didn’t put them there either.
“What are those?” he asks quietly, as the boy raises his head slightly off the bed to see what Jin is doing. He looks almost surprised to see the dark marks. “I don’t know,” he says in the soft voice he always uses. “I might have run into some equipment in the training room.”
“Is that so,” Jin replies, pushing in on the last word.
He’s not necessarily proud, but Jin does know sex. He knows what sex does to a person, how people are at their horniest; sex is his indulgence like the black market was his father’s. He knows where the bruises are most likely to show after rough sex. Most importantly, he knows that those angry marks came from a person entering the boy from behind. Someone else’s index and middle fingers were pressing into the boy’s honey skin; someone else had fucked him, hard. Jin prefers facing the boy so that he can watch his face as he thrusts, as he brings them both to climax; so they haven’t done it from behind in at least a week. Bruises like those don’t just appear a week afterwards. So a few days later, Jin takes the day off from work.
Either someone has come into the house, or the boy has actually left it. Jin realizes that he doesn’t exactly know what the boy does while he’s away at work, even though it’s been five months. After he finishes the breakfast Matsushima serves him, he bids her goodbye and quietly troops back to his room instead of to work, changing into more casual clothing in case he needs to follow the boy outside.
He slips into an empty room close to that of the boy, and waits patiently for movement, peering through the slightly ajar doorway from time to time. He hears some shuffling in the boy’s room within half an hour; he’s surprised that the boy doesn’t sleep more. He hears the shower run for some minutes; after a bit more time passes, the boy finally emerges from the room in clean clothes and damp hair, presumably making his way to the kitchen for nourishment. As the boy descends the staircase, Jin slowly exits the room and follows at a distance. As expected, the boy enters the kitchen. “Good morning, Matsushima-san,” Jin hears him say as he leans on the wall outside the kitchen doorway. “Ah! You already made my breakfast?”
“It’s here,” Matsushima says warmly; Jin can hear the smile in her voice.
“That thing you taught me to make, I have to practice it sometime.” Jin’s never heard the boy talk like this; but he’s not sure what makes it different.
“One day. But you like this, don’t you?” Jin hears the clink of a plate against the table.
“I like everything,” the boy says happily. “Itadakimasu.”
There’s a comfortable silence before Matsushima says, “Have a good day, all right? Don’t do anything dangerous.” Her tone is different too, somewhat regretful and worrisome. It’s interesting, Jin thinks, what one can observe by listening. But nothing makes sense to him. What kind of dangerous things could the boy possibly get into? He thinks about the bruises. What kind of person is the boy involved with?
Belatedly, he realizes that Matsushima knows things about the boy that he doesn’t. Perhaps developing some sort of relationship is inevitable after five months of meals together. Before he knows it, the boy is thanking Matsushima for the meal and Jin, snapping out of his thoughts, ducks behind a door as the boy exits the kitchen, heading to the doorway.
The way the boy walks is almost confident, as if he’s doing something routine, and Jin doesn’t like that. He follows, donning large sunglasses and a hat, as the boy enters a convenience store. Pretending to browse, he watches the boy waste no time selecting a package of condoms and paying for them with money from his pocket. Condoms. Jin never uses condoms with him because all high-class slaves are checked for diseases, and Jin doesn’t have any either. The boy opens the package straightaway, tucking the shiny packets into his other pocket, tossing the box into the trash as he leaves. Condoms. Jin thinks he might be pissed, if he weren’t still so curious.
He follows the boy on the bullet train to a flourishing area Jin is more or less familiar with. He’s been here a few times before, for things like shopping, food, and karaoke- does the boy have a girlfriend? Impossible, Jin tells himself. The angry marks on his hips must have come from a man, because who else could enter him from behind? A boyfriend, then? Jin wonders what that person could possibly offer that he himself could not. He looks at his reflection in a store window - and jumps at the store’s contents. Abruptly, he realizes that they’ve entered the red-light district. Though it is only mid-morning, business is already in motion. A pair of less attractive girls offers him a 6000-yen “massage” as he passes their health club; he shakes his head irritably at them. He follows the boy a bit further, until he suddenly slows at a street corner, pacing leisurely, as if waiting for someone.
Before long, an overweight middle age man in a suit approaches him. Jin creeps closer; making his movements appear natural before dropping down and pretending to tie a shoe. “How much?” the man asks lowly, and the boy smiles before telling him, 10,000 yen for forty-five minutes. Jin holds back a derisive snort- the boy is worth at least five times that amount. But Jin doesn’t need to stay and see what happens next. He follows the pair to a love hotel, but when they turn to enter the building, he continues home.
*
“Welcome back,” he says coldly, fighting a smirk as he watches the boy’s content expression quickly change to fear. Jin pushes himself off of the boy’s bed, frowning when the younger automatically takes a step back, clutching a handful of bills. “So you would let anyone fuck you, huh,” Jin continues, closing the distance between them quickly, “just as long as you get their money.” He pushes the boy again the door roughly and covers the boy’s mouth with his own in a hard kiss, biting the other’s lip so hard he almost draws blood, as his hand rubs harsh circles into the boy’s crotch. The boy’s mouth is stiff in his fear, but his cock is rapidly hardening, and that makes Jin laugh. Aided by adrenaline, he yanks the boy by the collar of his shirt and strides to the bed, the boy clumsily tripping over his own feet. He pushes the boy roughly onto the bed and proceeds to rip his clothes off, ignoring those large, still fearful eyes. Once the boy is fully naked, Jin pinches his nipples hard, liking the loud whimper that ensues. He sucks his fingers for a mere instant before shoving one into the boy’s hole. His only response to the increasingly louder whimpers is to add a second finger, and then a third one.
“What is the money for?” Jin asks smoothly, squeezing the boy’s erection in his hand as he unfastens his pants with his free hand. “Want to tell me?” Jin doubts the boy can even speak; he knows he’s squeezing far harder than comfort allows, but right now he cares more about punishment than answers. He thumbs hard over the tip of the boy’s cock before shucking off his own pants and pressing into him. The lack of lubrication and the fact that the boy has only been roughly prepared create more friction than they’ve ever had together, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing to Jin. When he looks up, the boy’s eyes are squeezed shut, so he leans forward and slaps his cheek sharply. “Look at me,” he hisses, and the boy obediently opens his eyes, full of tears. Satisfied, Jin continues stroking the boy jerkily as he thrusts.
It doesn’t take long for the boy to spill himself between the two, and Jin pushes in a few more times before he comes himself. He doesn’t look at the boy when he pulls out, doesn’t look at him when he puts his pants on, doesn’t look at him when he leaves the room. He doesn’t care. But tomorrow, he’ll get his answers.
*
“I have a present for you,” Jin says lightly, tossing the boy a white box. Startled, the boy stares at him until Jin tells him to open it, and he cautiously pulls out a shiny black leather collar. Jin beams. “Isn’t it perfect for you? There’s a chain, too,” he says, pulling a delicate yet strong-looking gold chain from the box as well. “Take off your shirt,” he commands the boy before buckling the collar around his neck. He secures the chain to the collar and to a leg of the bed; the excess chain pools on the ground, long enough to let the boy use his connecting bathroom but not much else.
“It suits you,” Jin says coolly, tracing the collar with one hand and the boy’s face with the other. He pulls the boy in close and presses soft kisses on his neck, wherever the collar doesn’t cover. The boy instinctively closes his eyes, murmuring meaningless words into Jin’s hair, and Jin smirks as he ties the boy’s wrists together before the younger can raise his eyelids. Because Jin likes bondage, he’s done this many times before. The boy helplessly lets him secure the tie to the headboard, and then connect two more cloth strips from each of his ankles to the lower corners of the bed. Jin slyly begins kissing down the boy’s slim body, from his collarbones, to his nipples, to his navel, to his slowly rising arousal. He slips a cock ring down to the base of the boy’s cock before helping it become harder, confidently stroking until it stands.
“I need to know something,” he says sweetly, breaking off all contact with the boy’s skin. “What do you need money for?”
The boy looks at him with a steady gaze. Jin smirks; he didn’t think it would be that easy. “I’m not going to let you come,” he warns the boy straightforwardly, pulling out a large feather. He lets it dance across the boy’s most sensitive places, tickling him mercilessly with the lightest touches. “You have a girlfriend?” he suggests. “Need to take her on dates?” He chuckles, swirling the feather up the boy’s cock, sweeping it over the tip. “Want to get married?”
The boy doesn’t say a word, but his breaths come shorter, and at least Jin knows that he’s off to a good start. “I didn’t think so,” he says, making to raise the bar. Abandoning the feather, he fingers the boy’s erection gingerly. “Tell me, won’t you?” he wheedles before increasing the tempo of his strokes, listening to the boy’s deep groan. “What are you doing it for?” He rubs the boy’s balls with his other hand, moving them against each other, letting them drop and holding them up again. “Just tell me.” He strokes until he feels the boy’s balls throb in his hand - then he pulls away.
Jin smirks again as the boy whines wantonly, involuntarily raising his hips into the air for more of Jin’s touch. Of course, it doesn’t come, and Jin simply looks into the boy’s pleading eyes and asks, “What’s my answer?”
He still refuses to say, and sooner or later his hips settle back onto the bed, though his cock still juts up, demanding attention. Just a little more, Jin tells himself. “You want to buy something big?” He meets the boy’s eyes with a raised eyebrow before lowering his head and licking the other’s hardness, up and down one round. The boy shivers violently, and Jin doesn’t hesitate before taking the boy into his mouth. The younger cries out before automatically bucking into the heat, and Jin smiles around the cock in his mouth. He works his tongue the way he knows will send sparks up the boy’s body, amused when the boy starts tugging at his bonds. He knows sex slaves do it too much to be able to hold out for too long, so he pulls away again when he feels the boy getting close. The younger groans loudly in frustration, tears welling in his eyes.
“Just tell me,” Jin cajoles. “You know I like to reward you when you’re good.” When the boy bites his lip hard as he returns Jin’s gaze, the older sighs. “Why are you doing this?” he demands, more sharply than ever before.
“The same reason I’m called Yamapi,” the boy chokes out desperately, before collapsing. Jin freezes for a moment, before sheer instinct calls him to take off the cock ring and pump lightly, letting the boy come. After all, having an erection for too long can damage a cock for life, and Jin isn’t about to let that happen to the boy - Yamapi. He honestly didn’t think that the boy would hold out like that; but whatever his secret is, it must be very, very important.
*
“You’ve never asked him for his name.”
Ryo’s look is incredulous, and Jin frowns at him before returning to his lunch. “I didn’t think it was important,” he says between bites.
“This is a new level of stupidity for you,” Ryo says, shaking his head, and Jin starts to feel annoyed. “What the hell have you been doing with him for the past, oh, five months?”
“What do you think I’ve been doing?” Jin says nastily. He’s used to Ryo’s sharp tongue; they’ve been friends for a long time, but he does have limits.
“Probably keeping him in a locked tower, by the looks of things,” Ryo returns sarcastically. “And of course, your strategy to find out what’s going on was to torture him. Sex actually isn’t the answer to everything, you know.”
“What’s Uchi doing right now, then?” Jin pouts, hoping to change the direction of their conversation.
“At the movies, with a friend,” Ryo says simply.
“Oh.”
*
“This is too much,” Matsushima says, hands on her hips. The look on her face is one meaning to protect; Jin knows it well. However, it’s never been directed at him before, and that’s a bit unnerving. “Jin-kun, you can’t do this.”
“What’s wrong, Matsushima-san?” he asks cautiously. She is probably the only person whom he would allow to talk to him like that, aside from Ryo.
“You can’t leave him tied up like that! Look at him, the poor thing. He missed dinner last night and I wondered what was wrong when he didn’t come for breakfast this morning, so I went up to find him, and the state of him! I was appalled! Yamapi is only a year younger than you, he’s not meant to wear a collar all the time like that.”
Jin blinks at the mention of the boy’s name. Of course, Matsushima knows something about the boy’s - Yamapi’s - secret. He’d forgotten that he could have asked her. “Matsushima-san,” he starts politely, slipping into one of the kitchen chairs, “do you know what he does every day?”
The older lady shifts, looking more nervous and less upset. “You don’t know anything about him, do you?” she asks, after a long pause, and her disappointed tone instills guilt in Jin that would otherwise never appear. “Look,” she says finally, joining Jin at the table. “I think that he would rather die than let you know, but I’ve known you since you were a child. I think you can understand him.”
Jin looks at her inquisitively, and she sighs. “That boy is just scared.”
“Of what?” Jin asks automatically. “Of me?”
“He’s scared of what will happen to him in the future,” Matsushima says slowly. “When nobody wants him anymore. Right now, all he’s good for is sex. He didn’t even graduate high school, you know that?”
“They train for three years,” Jin recalls.
“So he has virtually no education. He wants to graduate high school. He wants to go to college. That boy just wants to know that he’ll be okay in life. Most slaves end up going back to the company, you know? They end up as trainers or something like that, and in the end, all they know is the industry. That boy just wants to live.”
“So he becomes a prostitute to go to school.”
“You know how expensive schooling is, Jin. Sex is all he knows right now, and it’s all he can do right now, raise money. He wants to go while he’s still young.” She pauses. “Do you know what he does here, while you’re at work?”
“When he doesn’t sleep with random strangers?” Jin muses. “No.”
“He studies. He studies on his own with library books. I’ve lent him some of Sho’s old books, too,” she says, referring to her son, who studies abroad. “This might be hard for you to believe Jin, but sex isn’t the most important thing to everyone. I’m not sure what you’ve been thinking these last couple of years, after your father died. But really, he is trying so hard.”
Jin is struggling to process all this new information; he hasn’t been able to sort out his feelings yet. Things slowly begin to connect, like the boy reading one of his business books in his office. But he does have one question. “Matsushima-san,” he asks slowly. “Why is he called Yamapi?”
Her face softens. “It’s a nickname one of his trainers gave him. Takki, I think his name was. Yamapi was quite fond of him; he was the one who told Yamapi that he should have a way to get out of that world.”
*
“Hey,” Jin says, jiggling his key ring awkwardly. The boy - Yamapi stares at him as he unlocks both ends of the chain and unbuckles the collar. As Yamapi rubs his now free neck, Jin clears his throat. “Um,” he says. “Um, Matsushima told me everything” - Yamapi’s eyes go wide with fear - “and um, I honestly don’t mind if you go to classes while I am at work. Yes. Um, if you need to make money or anything, I can give you a job at my company, and you can file papers or something after your classes. Is that okay?”
Yamapi looks at him with big, disbelieving eyes, and half an hour later, Jin decides that he needs to come up with more plans because Yamapi’s thank-you blowjobs are phenomenal.
*
“That sounds better,” Ryo says wryly. “So you’ve finally recognized that he’s a human.”
“I just didn’t understand for a bit, okay?” Jin contradicts. “I just thought that it was a pretty cushy lifestyle, having your meals made for you and a nice place to sleep, not having to work for one bit.”
“Not having to work at all, hm?” Ryo sighs. “Of course, there are just those years of training. Once you get through those, you’ve got it made, huh?”
Jin hates having his words rephrased and thrown back at him, but that’s what Ryo does. “But you know,” Ryo adds, “no one can take that lifestyle for long, anyway. Look at you; you had to take those six months off to study abroad. And I know it wasn’t so much studying as partying. You already knew almost everything you needed for the company, and you didn’t learn much English in the end at all.”
“Shut up,” Jin says uncomfortably. He knows, he knew long before Matsushima said it. He’d been close to his father, and after he died, he’d become obsessed with sex. It was a way to forget; a few drinks and a couple of fucks had become his default comfort.
“And what about later? What is he going to do with that education of his?”
Jin shifts uncomfortably. Yamapi has already enrolled in classes to reach the level of high school graduate. “What about Uchi?”
“What about Uchi? He doesn’t have an education, but he has friends.”
“Friends, huh?”
“Akanishi, I tell you things all the time, but you’ve never listened, have you?” Ryo shakes his head. Jin understands, although he definitely won’t say why. In the past, every time Ryo mentioned his sex slave, Jin would just start thinking about sex, and how he couldn’t wait to buy one of his own. No, he had never listened.
“…but his best friend is me. What about Yamapi, Jin? Who’s going to be his best friend?”
*
‘Surprise’ isn’t enough to describe Jin’s reaction when Ryo appears at his door. His cleaning girl finds Jin and announces Ryo’s presence downstairs. “Ah- thank you, Maki,” he says, and stops short when he sees her stunned expression. “What is it?” he asks uneasily. It seems today is full of surprises.
“Ah!” the girl exclaims, clapping a hand to her mouth. “Excuse me, but, I didn’t know that you knew my name, sir.”
Jin blinks. “Of course I know your name,” he says. “I guess…I guess I just never called you by it.”
When he walks downstairs, Ryo is already lounging in one of the sitting room chairs. “Yo,” he greets Jin casually. “I wanted to meet him.”
Introducing Yamapi to someone feels weird, but Jin shrugs it off. He knocks on the boy’s door before entering, something he’s grown accustomed to only recently. The boy looks up from his books - studying is all he does in his free time now - and stands up to greet them, turning a curious eye on Ryo. “Ryo, this is Yamapi,” he says with the appropriate hand gestures, “Yamapi, this is my good friend Nishikido Ryo.”
Yamapi gives Ryo the proper greeting with a crisp bow, and Ryo smiles. “He’s very pretty,” he says to Jin, taking a step closer to the boy. “Are you sure he’s yours?” As Jin sputters, Ryo smiles kindly at Yamapi and cups his face in his hands, drawing him close and kissing him tenderly.
Yamapi automatically closes his eyes and loosely encircles his arms around Ryo’s waist as he responds to the kiss. To Jin, the two seem to go on forever, and the kiss deepens as they carry on; Ryo’s tongue is in Yamapi’s mouth and the boy doesn’t seem to be objecting to that at all. But before Jin can protest, the two separate and Ryo pats Yamapi’s hair dotingly. “You’re nice,” he compliments, letting his hand slide down to rest on the boy’s cheek. “You know, you can live with me if you want; this guy really has no idea what he’s doing.”
“Nishikido,” Jin growls lowly. Ryo laughs.
“Kidding, sort of,” he supplies amusedly. “Well, Yamapi” - he fingers the neck of the boy’s t-shirt - “it was nice to meet you. Jin, I actually must be getting back now.”
“Good riddance,” Jin mutters as Ryo leaves the room, and Yamapi laughs.
Jin stares at him, positive that this is the first time he has ever heard Yamapi laugh.
“I- I kind of like him,” Yamapi volunteers awkwardly, and Jin’s eyes go wide.
“Are- are you going to live with him, then?” he asks apprehensively.
“I didn’t know it was an option,” Yamapi answers with a smile. “But if it is, then I will have to decline.”
Jin returns his smile warmly before grasping his hand and pulling him in for a kiss on the cheek. “Good luck with studying,” he says softly into Yamapi’s ear before exiting the room himself.
He feels good.
*
They go out a lot now, Jin realizes. He’s always liked rewarding Yamapi for being good, but now he rewards him for being a good student, too. They go out on weekends for shopping, meals and movies, and Yamapi is just as fun as Ryo - or maybe more fun, Jin thinks, because Yamapi’s tongue could never be as sharp as Ryo’s. They spend time together at home, too, watching DVDs or just doing work together: Yamapi, reading for classes; Jin, reviewing proposals. After all of these months, they’ve come to enjoy each other’s company and the pleasant atmosphere they create together.
“I’ve graduated high school!” Yamapi cries one night, holding up his certificate proudly. Matsushima bakes him a cake to celebrate; and that night Jin, Yamapi, Matsushima and Maki all share a bottle of champagne.
Jin accepts that it took him forever just to begin wanting to know more about Yamapi, but the boy has been memorizing Jin’s habits and personality since day one - probably ever since their eyes first met in the master bedroom of the auction house. And soon enough, Jin realizes that all his relationship problems have nothing to do with any unwillingness on his part to commit - it was just a matter of finding the right person. He still goes out with the occasional girl because he thinks he should, but he no longer feels that twinge of fear that he might end up alone.
*
“He’s doing well, isn’t he?” Matsushima asks Jin as she serves him a cup of coffee. Yamapi has started his part-time job at Jin’s company, now that he’s entering college. “These books are so expensive,” he’d groaned.
“He really is,” Jin smiles, as Yamapi enters the kitchen with a yawn, not yet fully awake for his morning class.
*
“Yamashita-kun,” a pretty girl with long hair calls out Yamapi’s name, and Jin ducks behind a tree. He’d come to pick up Yamapi from school because he was being transferred to a different department at work, but this was an interesting development.
“Abiru-san?” Yamapi turns around to greet her.
“Um,” she starts before raising her head confidently, “Yamashita-kun, I like you. Would you consider going out with me?”
Yamapi pauses, before giving the girl an embarrassed smile, head slightly ducked down. “I’m so flattered. But I don’t think a girlfriend is right for me at this time.” He brightens visibly. “But because it’s you, I’m sure that you’ll quickly find someone who will treasure you.”
Jin can’t help feeling kind of warm; that’s one of the nicest rejections he’s ever heard. He thinks that Yamapi’s classmate feels the same; after she thanks him and excuses herself, she doesn’t seem to know whether she should smile or frown.
“Popular with the girls, aren’t you?” Jin teases, approaching Yamapi once the girl has turned out of sight.
“No,” Yamapi laughs, shrugging modestly. Jin smiles as he ruffles Yamapi’s hair playfully.
*
Everything seems to be going great; Jin muses. Yamapi is doing fine in the business faculty, balancing studying, work and relations with Jin day by day. He’s not brilliant by a long shot, but he is a hard worker and it’s his determination that allows him to succeed. On the other hand, Jin’s company is flourishing; they’ve just closed a deal with another company that will expand their reach. So Jin thinks it’s time.
“Pi,” he starts, and then hesitates. This is hard. He’s not going to pretend that it’s not hard. Yamapi gives him his full attention, but Jin doesn’t think that makes it any easier. “Look, um, I guess you just passed these first two semesters pretty well, so I thought I’d let you know.” He swallows. “I know you wanted a real life. So you probably want to get out of this place sooner or later.” He pauses again to take a deep breath, running a hand through his hair. “So, this might take some time, but I guess if you pay me half - no, a third of what I paid for you, you can-” Be free, his brain fills in, but that seems melodramatic. “You can live on your own. It might take a few years. Just - just come back and visit, okay?” He closes his eyes. It might take a few years, or Yamapi might get a loan and leave sooner. But this way, at least Yamapi knows that he’s studying for a purpose. He’ll grow, and Jin knows that’s important.
“Okay,” is all Yamapi says, and Jin is afraid that things are going to change now. But nothing does, and a small part of Jin is constantly afraid of the moment Yamapi will decide that he’s leaving. But a larger part of him feels better that at least right now Yamapi is staying because he wants to, not because he’s obligated to. Yet another part of him urges him to take every day for what it is, and appreciate the boy. He’s had him for an entire year and a half already, an amazing year and a half.
*
“In a way, it sucks,” Ryo nods, setting his coffee cup down. “I mean, you paid so much for him, but you can’t calculate a time equivalent for these kinds of things, can you?”
“It’s not so much the money,” Jin contemplates. “I just, I can’t help but feel like I bought him, so he’s mine. But it’s like,” he closes his eyes for a moment before meeting Ryo’s eyes. “It’s like buying a bird and setting it free. One of those exotic ones.” He takes a deep breath before giving a short laugh. “Does it make sense? It just feels like it has to happen.” He wishes sometimes, that he’d just become friends with Yamapi right off the bat, like Ryo had with Uchi. Then they could live together, forever, best friends under the same roof. But Yamapi has hopes and dreams-
“It makes sense.” Ryo smiles, a real smile, not one of his amused ones and nothing like his sarcastic smirks. “I’m kind of proud of you.”
“Are you?” Jin beams.
The smile morphs back into a smirk. “No, never mind, forget I said anything.”
Ryo’s eyes are still twinkling, and Jin is more than pleased.
*
Two years pass between Jin’s proposal and the fateful day. “Jin,” Yamapi announces. “I’m going to leave the company. I’ve already submitted my resign letter to my supervisor.” He smiles proudly before continuing, “Another company offered me a nice position, and it’s probably time for me to branch out and try something new.”
Something new, the words pang Jin’s heart. “I see,” he says simply, waiting for the boy’s next words. He’ll probably be living in company housing; this is probably a nice internship. He hasn’t even graduated yet. He doesn’t have his degree yet, but he’s already leaving.
“Jin,” Yamapi is saying nervously, “Jin.”
“Yeah,” comes the answer. Jin licks his lips.
Yamapi reaches for Jin’s hand, squeezing it in his own as he gazes steadily into Jin’s eyes. “Is it okay if I never pay you?”
It takes Jin a whole minute to process that one statement, but when he does, his eyes widen slightly before he pulls Yamapi in for a tight hug. “Yeah,” he says into Yamapi’s ear. “God, if you never…yeah.”
He feels Yamapi’s lips curve into a smile on his neck and looks over the boy’s shoulder to see Matsushima beaming at them, and he knows that this is all he’s ever wanted.
2007.08.03 - 10.16
“He’s great,” Ryo would say with relish. “You know, they train them for at least three years? Uchi does whatever I want him to, and he feels so good.”
Jin shows the invitation to his driver - “Annual Auction” is all the white card says, in black script, with the address on back. The driver nods once and Jin leans back, adjusting the lapels of his black tuxedo. It takes twenty minutes for them to arrive at the location, an almost out-of-place looking English-style house. A man steps out of a car already in the arced driveway, dressed almost as sharply as Jin, who checks his watch. The two-hour reception began thirty minutes ago, but he knows that more people will follow.
A young woman greets him at the door, bowing and nodding politely when he shows her his invitation. She smiles at him when she looks up again, and Jin takes a second to smile back. She is probably in the family.
Kamenashi greets him a few moments later: he has been Jin’s inside man, the one who secured his invitation. Originally recruited as a prospective slave, Johnny had adopted him after seeing that the boy had a good head for leading the company. After going through training himself, he thoroughly understood the system in ways Johnny’s daughters could not. “This year’s group is sure to please,” he says, but Jin knows that every year’s crop is of superb quality. A high-class affair assures the finest.
“Any recommendations?” Jin asks, and Kame seems to sparkle - after all, this is his element.
“Number ten, in the master bedroom,” Kame says immediately. “He’s a lovely thing, really. I’ve been with him many times - tight, smooth, docile. He can take anything, do anything you want - compared to the others, he’s really something special.”
“I’ll be sure to stop by,” Jin says smoothly, turning to ascend up the spiral staircase. At the top, he accepts a glass of wine from a waiter, who inclines his head respectfully before briskly heading to collect a woman’s empty glass.
Jin steps in each room for a bit, looking for something that catches his eye. Each room is relatively the same: a few men and the occasional woman looking on as the slaves are presented, one to a room.
“Wonderfully tight,” one of the presenters says, pushing number four back onto the bed. He applies lubricant to two of his fingers and slips one inside the naked boy’s entrance.
“Go ahead and kiss him,” number six’s presenter says encouragingly, waving his hand at a spectator in front. This man must be in his middle thirties; the auctions draw a fairly large range of men and women, though the boys are all from twenty to twenty-five years of age. This man is new to the scene, Jin thinks anyone could tell - he steps up awkwardly, but the boy smiles gently at him and suddenly they are kissing. They break away after a few moments, and the man looks breathless - “How was it?” the presenter prompts, and the man licks his lips. “Fantastic,” he says dazedly.
He’d like to have number five, Jin thinks as he strides down the hallways, but he has yet to come across anyone truly special. However, he trusts Kame, and when he enters the master bedroom, he sees what Kame was saying for himself. The last boy is most certainly the most handsome of all, almost pretty, and he lies naked and exposed for all to see - for Jin to see. Kamenashi has switched roles at this point; now he is the one presenting number ten. He smiles when he sees Jin enter, and pushes the boy up lightly so that he sits.
“More than just a pretty face, though what a pretty face it is, with these eyes and lips” - he gestures to the boy’s dark, deep eyes and traces his heart-shaped mouth with a finger. “Speaking of lips, these are fine ones to have wrapped around you” - he shoves fingers into the boy’s mouth, and the boy sucks them hard and hungrily. Jin knows he is not the only one imagining those pretty pink lips around his cock.
“He’ll do anything for you,” Kame continues, sliding wet fingers down the boy’s stomach to palm at his growing erection. The boy closes his eyes, jerking his head back and hips up with an involuntary moan. “He’s very responsive,” Kame commentates.
It’s different, so different, and Jin doesn’t know why - all of the boys are good-looking and trained to be fantastic in bed, but this boy - Jin has to have him.
“Bondage,” Kame is saying when Jin tunes back in, “works quite well with him.” He holds up a silk scarf and the boy lets him bind his wrists together and secure them to the headboard. “Beautifully soft skin,” Kame murmurs just loud enough for those in the back of the room to hear him, before kissing the boy softly on the cheek.
“I’d like to invite you all to touch him,” Kame says more loudly, stepping away from the boy. “See how soft his skin is, how nice it is underneath your fingers.”
By this time, the room has drawn a larger crowd than Jin has seen in any of the previous rooms. The men and women crowd around the bed, marveling - “Oh, his hair is so soft!” one woman cries, while a man Jin’s age traces the boy’s abdomen. The hands start to creep lower, and lower, and Jin steps up and wraps a manicured hand around the boy’s cock. He hears a gasp of surprise, and when he looks up, he meets the boy’s eyes, large and dark; they look at each other for an endless moment until a hand gently pushes the boy’s head back down again. Jin strokes the cock in his hand once, languidly, before releasing it. Yes, the feel of it had been just right in his hand; the boy was hard and good. He was big, too, but Jin knew that the boy wouldn’t be inside him any time soon.
“Thank you,” Kame is saying, and the room falls silent at once. “This brings the reception to a close; please begin to make your way down to the hall. The auction will begin in fifteen minutes.” He unties the boy’s bindings as people begin to file out of the room. Jin knows that the boys need to be cleaned and dressed for the auction, but as he hovers at the door after it’s been closed (Akanishi Jin is never in a hurry), he hears the unmistakable sound of a zipper being pulled and the rustle of clothing, and he assumes that Kame needs to make his last goodbyes.
Sex is Jin’s foremost pleasure in life, but relationships are hard for him to keep up with, as a man who walks to the beat of his own drum. Though he ends up reaching out of his budget, he puts down the winning bid, calling out in a strong voice that cuts across the tittering crowd. The guests begin to disperse soon afterwards, since the auction has ended, and Jin goes to collect his prize.
“Thank you for your patronage, Akanishi-sama,” the auctioneer says politely, after the payment details have been discussed. He nudges number ten towards Jin, and the boy bows crisply. He is dressed in a tuxedo as well now, but Jin can’t wait to rip it off. He doesn’t see any reason why the boy needs to wear clothes ever again. Throughout the drive home, he looks out the window to avoid looking at the boy, because he knows one look will uncontrollably spike his desire, and he’s been waiting too long for this. He wants the first time to go slowly. He wants the first time done right. When they arrive at Jin’s western-style mansion, the older man lets the boy follow him obediently to his bedroom. Only then does he turn around and look the other boy in the eyes.
The look that the boy gives him in return doesn’t show any emotion at all; it is resigned, yet loose. His lips are parted the slightest bit and he looks into Jin’s eyes as if he is waiting and ready, and all of him is simply composed of smooth lines, gentle curves, lines gently curving under Jin’s lips - he’s nuzzling the contour of the boy’s jawline before he knows it, lips pressing smoothly up until they meet the other’s, barely touching and the boy applies light pressure to Jin’s bottom lip between his own, eyes closing just the way Jin likes.
Jin doesn’t know what he’s waiting for - even so, he takes his time removing the boy’s jacket and then his own, dropping each carelessly onto the ground - his cleaning lady will take care of it later. He guides the boy to the oversized bed, pushing him down on his back, and resumes undressing him, unbuttoning the pinstriped dress shirt from top to bottom, licking the golden skin he reveals as he progresses. If the boy moves at all, it’s only to settle himself solidly on the bed - he seems to understand that Jin wants full control, to savor this experience, and that no one should interrupt him. Once the boy’s shirt is gone, Jin starts on his pants, looking up briefly to swell at how the boy’s head tips back, exposing his throat. The pants come off rather quickly, and Jin strips off the socks on the way down. He peels off the boy’s Dolce and Gabbana boxers slowly to reveal that beautiful penis - the best part of his new favorite toy, and all his. There’s a red ribbon tied into a bow on the half-hard cock, slightly stretching, and Jin would have laughed if he weren’t so goddamn turned on. He pulls it off instead of untying it, stroking his hand along the cock, feeling it stiffen in his hand. Someone had told him - he couldn’t remember names now - that undressing the boys the first time was promised to be a real treat.
He realizes that he’s still fully dressed and scrambles to fix that. Once the two of them are naked - the boy looks at him steadily, breathes out steadily - Jin goes back to leaning over him, swipes his tongue over a smooth cheek and kisses the boy again, loving the way the boy’s lips are sweet, reaching into the other’s mouth with his tongue. He pulls back for an instant, ‘you’re beautiful’ on the tip of his tongue, but then the boy pushes his own body up just enough so that their chests brush and Jin’s nipples touch the boy’s hot skin, and those words are lost in a low moan. Things go faster from there; Jin doesn’t think that he needs to control his want as much. He runs hands over the boy’s chest, softening him up, loving the way he relaxes and tenses at the same time. He works his hands down quickly to tug and tease the boy’s cock, stroking fast and then slow, savoring the look of the boy’s flushed face as he starts to pant. Abruptly, he pulls away to pull lubricant out of his bedside table drawer. The boy doesn’t whine like other people would have, and Jin isn’t sure if he likes that or not, but either way this is so hot and so worth it, doing this with someone who belongs to him and no one else.
He inserts a slicked finger into the boy, who doesn’t flinch; instead, Jin sees him watching him with half-lidded eyes, dark and lustful. As Jin pumps his fingers slowly, he becomes more and more eager to know the feel of entering the boy, who is already delightfully warm around his fingers. The boy looks more than ready, and Jin feels like he’s been hard ever since he first saw him, so he applies the gel to his cock and presses against the boy’s prepared hole, eyes never leaving his face. He pushes in slowly, relishing the warmth of slick walls hugging his hardness, and when he’s all the way in he leans forward to kiss the boy again, let him know that yes, he was worth every penny. The boy places his hands on Jin’s shoulders as he responds to the kiss, and his touch feels electric on Jin’s skin. They break apart for air, and Jin pulls back and pushes in again, and again, and again, suddenly aware that the boy is moaning quite audibly - Jin thinks it’s the sexiest thing he’s ever heard; did the boy learn that, because it sounds completely natural and amazing.
Jin knows he’s close to coming, he’s been worked up for so long; so he changes his angle of entry to create more friction for himself. This turns out to be a brilliant move for the both, as Jin thrusts in and the boy gives a loud cry of pleasure. He only does this once more before his body tightens and he comes hotly inside the boy, who he watches through hazy vision, frantically stroking himself so that he can come too. Moments after he does, Jin pulls out and lies on top of him, skin on skin, the boy’s warm breath playing on his neck. “I like you,” he says, once he can, into the boy’s ear.
*
The boy gets his own room. He does not, however, get his own clothes. The tuxedo he arrived in is the only thing hanging in his closet. Jin tells him that there’s always food in the kitchen, so the cleaning lady becomes used to seeing Jin’s pet wander over to the west wing, clutching a blanket tightly around him. The boy also receives permission to use Jin’s training room, which is basically a small gym. Jin expects the boy to maintain his body, and he assumes that the boy is pleased that Jin has allowed him a way to entertain himself.
It’s not hard for Jin to adjust to his new routine. He has amazing sex any time he chooses, and it’s never quite the same, because Jin loves variation, and the boy seems to pick up on that quickly. They do it in Jin’s room, the boy’s room, and even a few times in the dining room. Jin pulls items from his stock of sex toys from time to time to satisfy his kinks. Though the sex is always great, the initial excitement naturally dies down, and Jin knows that he doesn’t need to rush anything. The boy is his and will always be his. There are days when they don’t see each other, and days when Jin has sex with the vigorous young women he likes. He brings the occasional girl home to his airy house, past the boy’s closed door, but never comes across anyone he wants a real relationship with. He loves knowing that the boy is there whenever he wants him, so it’s fine to play around with others.
Eventually, he buys the boy clothes. He comes home with a new wardrobe of handpicked items, smiling at the boy’s inquisitive look as Jin takes the time to load the clothing into his empty closet. “Make good use of this,” Jin says. “It’s so I can undress you again, and again.”
Two months have passed since Jin was able to undress the boy properly, and this time he wants to do it as quickly as possible. He presses the boy into his bed, pressing kisses down his throat until he reaches the boy’s tanned chest, licking his way across the golden expanse the low cut shirt exposes. Jin slides his hands to the hem of the boy’s shirt, but suddenly the boy pushes him away just enough to take off Jin’s shirt first. Jin hisses when the other’s hot hands explore his skin boldly; the boy never does wrong, only what he thinks - what he knows Jin will like. He slides hands down to Jin’s pants and strips those off as well, but Jin always wants to be in control, so soon enough he regains dominance and tears off the boy’s teasing shirt. The pants are more of a problem; he’s wearing tight jeans and Jin can’t think straight anyhow, so he struggles in pulling them off of the boy’s muscular legs. The younger could probably slip out of them himself, but he seems to realize that this is just working up Jin more, in a good way.
The jeans don’t get past the boy’s ankles at all; Jin only gets them past his knees and they stay bunched that way, letting creamy thighs contrast with the dark denim. And when Jin bends the boy’s knees over his shoulder and fucks him, the pants double as bondage, preventing the boy from thrashing around as his body spasms when Jin hits that certain spot over and over again.
Buying the boy clothes had definitely been a smart idea.
*
“Jin-san, you seem happier lately,” Matsushima says gently as she serves him dinner. Jin smiles at her warmly; he has always liked her. She has been in his household for as long as he can remember, as their cook when the house bustled with the activities of Jin’s father, mother, and younger brother. After his father’s death, Jin was to inherit the house upon his mother’s passing, but his mother had moved to Reio’s apartment after her husband’s death, once her youngest son had gone to study abroad. It’ll be nice to live in a smaller place for once, don’t you think, Jin? Therefore, now Jin only keeps Matsushima for her cooking, his driver, and that girl who does the cleaning. It’s less elaborate, but more private, and Jin prefers things that way.
*
“You’re coming with me to work tomorrow,” Jin tells the boy before bed one night, and he answers the boy’s confused face with a mere smile. The next morning, he dresses his toy in a sharp suit and tie before ushering him to the car. “It’s the time of year when I have to go through stacks of mundane papers and approve them,” he explains, almost like an afterthought. “It’s been the same thing for a few days now, so I thought I could use some entertainment.” He runs a hand through his hair lazily. “If anyone talks to us, just bow and nod, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” the boy responds.
They progress to Jin’s private office easily; Jin introduces the boy to a few people they pass as a representative of one of the companies their corporation has a deal with, and the boy bows as instructed. They hang up their jackets, and Jin tells the boy to sit on the couch until he’s ready. An hour and a half later, Jin finally looks up from his work, meets the boy’s eyes, and says, “I think now is a fine time. Underneath the desk.” The boy closes the book he’s been reading - Jin figures that he picked it up from the bookcase in attempt to bypass time - and comes to sit on his knees in the space underneath his owner’s large wooden desk. Jin doesn’t need to say anything further; the boy unfastens Jin’s pants and draws out his cock, giving it long strokes to harden it before sliding it into his mouth. As his actions increase in tempo, Jin presses his palms harder and harder into the hard desk, controlling his body as the sensations build. He squeezes his eyes shut as the boy increases his suction, and helplessly squeezes the boy’s head between his thighs when he comes. He knows that he boy is swallowing every last bit, making sure that no saliva or other fluid dirties Jin’s dress pants. It’s good to be president, Jin thinks dizzily. But he thinks he likes it better at home, where he can easily slide fingers into the boy’s hair and watch his expression as he works, eager to see if he’s pleasuring his master correctly.
*
As Jin holds the boy’s hips to steady him before pushing in, he notes that there is a bruise -two bruises on his pet’s skin, near the place where he usually puts his hands. He leans forward, forgetting sex for a moment, to trace the marks. He knows that they weren’t there yesterday, and yesterday Jin couldn’t have caused them himself; he had been too tired that day to do anything but comb fingers through the boy’s hair while the younger pressed sweet kisses down his chest before he’d gone to sleep. When he looks closer, another pair of bruises glare at him on the boy’s other side, and Jin knows that he didn’t put them there either.
“What are those?” he asks quietly, as the boy raises his head slightly off the bed to see what Jin is doing. He looks almost surprised to see the dark marks. “I don’t know,” he says in the soft voice he always uses. “I might have run into some equipment in the training room.”
“Is that so,” Jin replies, pushing in on the last word.
He’s not necessarily proud, but Jin does know sex. He knows what sex does to a person, how people are at their horniest; sex is his indulgence like the black market was his father’s. He knows where the bruises are most likely to show after rough sex. Most importantly, he knows that those angry marks came from a person entering the boy from behind. Someone else’s index and middle fingers were pressing into the boy’s honey skin; someone else had fucked him, hard. Jin prefers facing the boy so that he can watch his face as he thrusts, as he brings them both to climax; so they haven’t done it from behind in at least a week. Bruises like those don’t just appear a week afterwards. So a few days later, Jin takes the day off from work.
Either someone has come into the house, or the boy has actually left it. Jin realizes that he doesn’t exactly know what the boy does while he’s away at work, even though it’s been five months. After he finishes the breakfast Matsushima serves him, he bids her goodbye and quietly troops back to his room instead of to work, changing into more casual clothing in case he needs to follow the boy outside.
He slips into an empty room close to that of the boy, and waits patiently for movement, peering through the slightly ajar doorway from time to time. He hears some shuffling in the boy’s room within half an hour; he’s surprised that the boy doesn’t sleep more. He hears the shower run for some minutes; after a bit more time passes, the boy finally emerges from the room in clean clothes and damp hair, presumably making his way to the kitchen for nourishment. As the boy descends the staircase, Jin slowly exits the room and follows at a distance. As expected, the boy enters the kitchen. “Good morning, Matsushima-san,” Jin hears him say as he leans on the wall outside the kitchen doorway. “Ah! You already made my breakfast?”
“It’s here,” Matsushima says warmly; Jin can hear the smile in her voice.
“That thing you taught me to make, I have to practice it sometime.” Jin’s never heard the boy talk like this; but he’s not sure what makes it different.
“One day. But you like this, don’t you?” Jin hears the clink of a plate against the table.
“I like everything,” the boy says happily. “Itadakimasu.”
There’s a comfortable silence before Matsushima says, “Have a good day, all right? Don’t do anything dangerous.” Her tone is different too, somewhat regretful and worrisome. It’s interesting, Jin thinks, what one can observe by listening. But nothing makes sense to him. What kind of dangerous things could the boy possibly get into? He thinks about the bruises. What kind of person is the boy involved with?
Belatedly, he realizes that Matsushima knows things about the boy that he doesn’t. Perhaps developing some sort of relationship is inevitable after five months of meals together. Before he knows it, the boy is thanking Matsushima for the meal and Jin, snapping out of his thoughts, ducks behind a door as the boy exits the kitchen, heading to the doorway.
The way the boy walks is almost confident, as if he’s doing something routine, and Jin doesn’t like that. He follows, donning large sunglasses and a hat, as the boy enters a convenience store. Pretending to browse, he watches the boy waste no time selecting a package of condoms and paying for them with money from his pocket. Condoms. Jin never uses condoms with him because all high-class slaves are checked for diseases, and Jin doesn’t have any either. The boy opens the package straightaway, tucking the shiny packets into his other pocket, tossing the box into the trash as he leaves. Condoms. Jin thinks he might be pissed, if he weren’t still so curious.
He follows the boy on the bullet train to a flourishing area Jin is more or less familiar with. He’s been here a few times before, for things like shopping, food, and karaoke- does the boy have a girlfriend? Impossible, Jin tells himself. The angry marks on his hips must have come from a man, because who else could enter him from behind? A boyfriend, then? Jin wonders what that person could possibly offer that he himself could not. He looks at his reflection in a store window - and jumps at the store’s contents. Abruptly, he realizes that they’ve entered the red-light district. Though it is only mid-morning, business is already in motion. A pair of less attractive girls offers him a 6000-yen “massage” as he passes their health club; he shakes his head irritably at them. He follows the boy a bit further, until he suddenly slows at a street corner, pacing leisurely, as if waiting for someone.
Before long, an overweight middle age man in a suit approaches him. Jin creeps closer; making his movements appear natural before dropping down and pretending to tie a shoe. “How much?” the man asks lowly, and the boy smiles before telling him, 10,000 yen for forty-five minutes. Jin holds back a derisive snort- the boy is worth at least five times that amount. But Jin doesn’t need to stay and see what happens next. He follows the pair to a love hotel, but when they turn to enter the building, he continues home.
*
“Welcome back,” he says coldly, fighting a smirk as he watches the boy’s content expression quickly change to fear. Jin pushes himself off of the boy’s bed, frowning when the younger automatically takes a step back, clutching a handful of bills. “So you would let anyone fuck you, huh,” Jin continues, closing the distance between them quickly, “just as long as you get their money.” He pushes the boy again the door roughly and covers the boy’s mouth with his own in a hard kiss, biting the other’s lip so hard he almost draws blood, as his hand rubs harsh circles into the boy’s crotch. The boy’s mouth is stiff in his fear, but his cock is rapidly hardening, and that makes Jin laugh. Aided by adrenaline, he yanks the boy by the collar of his shirt and strides to the bed, the boy clumsily tripping over his own feet. He pushes the boy roughly onto the bed and proceeds to rip his clothes off, ignoring those large, still fearful eyes. Once the boy is fully naked, Jin pinches his nipples hard, liking the loud whimper that ensues. He sucks his fingers for a mere instant before shoving one into the boy’s hole. His only response to the increasingly louder whimpers is to add a second finger, and then a third one.
“What is the money for?” Jin asks smoothly, squeezing the boy’s erection in his hand as he unfastens his pants with his free hand. “Want to tell me?” Jin doubts the boy can even speak; he knows he’s squeezing far harder than comfort allows, but right now he cares more about punishment than answers. He thumbs hard over the tip of the boy’s cock before shucking off his own pants and pressing into him. The lack of lubrication and the fact that the boy has only been roughly prepared create more friction than they’ve ever had together, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing to Jin. When he looks up, the boy’s eyes are squeezed shut, so he leans forward and slaps his cheek sharply. “Look at me,” he hisses, and the boy obediently opens his eyes, full of tears. Satisfied, Jin continues stroking the boy jerkily as he thrusts.
It doesn’t take long for the boy to spill himself between the two, and Jin pushes in a few more times before he comes himself. He doesn’t look at the boy when he pulls out, doesn’t look at him when he puts his pants on, doesn’t look at him when he leaves the room. He doesn’t care. But tomorrow, he’ll get his answers.
*
“I have a present for you,” Jin says lightly, tossing the boy a white box. Startled, the boy stares at him until Jin tells him to open it, and he cautiously pulls out a shiny black leather collar. Jin beams. “Isn’t it perfect for you? There’s a chain, too,” he says, pulling a delicate yet strong-looking gold chain from the box as well. “Take off your shirt,” he commands the boy before buckling the collar around his neck. He secures the chain to the collar and to a leg of the bed; the excess chain pools on the ground, long enough to let the boy use his connecting bathroom but not much else.
“It suits you,” Jin says coolly, tracing the collar with one hand and the boy’s face with the other. He pulls the boy in close and presses soft kisses on his neck, wherever the collar doesn’t cover. The boy instinctively closes his eyes, murmuring meaningless words into Jin’s hair, and Jin smirks as he ties the boy’s wrists together before the younger can raise his eyelids. Because Jin likes bondage, he’s done this many times before. The boy helplessly lets him secure the tie to the headboard, and then connect two more cloth strips from each of his ankles to the lower corners of the bed. Jin slyly begins kissing down the boy’s slim body, from his collarbones, to his nipples, to his navel, to his slowly rising arousal. He slips a cock ring down to the base of the boy’s cock before helping it become harder, confidently stroking until it stands.
“I need to know something,” he says sweetly, breaking off all contact with the boy’s skin. “What do you need money for?”
The boy looks at him with a steady gaze. Jin smirks; he didn’t think it would be that easy. “I’m not going to let you come,” he warns the boy straightforwardly, pulling out a large feather. He lets it dance across the boy’s most sensitive places, tickling him mercilessly with the lightest touches. “You have a girlfriend?” he suggests. “Need to take her on dates?” He chuckles, swirling the feather up the boy’s cock, sweeping it over the tip. “Want to get married?”
The boy doesn’t say a word, but his breaths come shorter, and at least Jin knows that he’s off to a good start. “I didn’t think so,” he says, making to raise the bar. Abandoning the feather, he fingers the boy’s erection gingerly. “Tell me, won’t you?” he wheedles before increasing the tempo of his strokes, listening to the boy’s deep groan. “What are you doing it for?” He rubs the boy’s balls with his other hand, moving them against each other, letting them drop and holding them up again. “Just tell me.” He strokes until he feels the boy’s balls throb in his hand - then he pulls away.
Jin smirks again as the boy whines wantonly, involuntarily raising his hips into the air for more of Jin’s touch. Of course, it doesn’t come, and Jin simply looks into the boy’s pleading eyes and asks, “What’s my answer?”
He still refuses to say, and sooner or later his hips settle back onto the bed, though his cock still juts up, demanding attention. Just a little more, Jin tells himself. “You want to buy something big?” He meets the boy’s eyes with a raised eyebrow before lowering his head and licking the other’s hardness, up and down one round. The boy shivers violently, and Jin doesn’t hesitate before taking the boy into his mouth. The younger cries out before automatically bucking into the heat, and Jin smiles around the cock in his mouth. He works his tongue the way he knows will send sparks up the boy’s body, amused when the boy starts tugging at his bonds. He knows sex slaves do it too much to be able to hold out for too long, so he pulls away again when he feels the boy getting close. The younger groans loudly in frustration, tears welling in his eyes.
“Just tell me,” Jin cajoles. “You know I like to reward you when you’re good.” When the boy bites his lip hard as he returns Jin’s gaze, the older sighs. “Why are you doing this?” he demands, more sharply than ever before.
“The same reason I’m called Yamapi,” the boy chokes out desperately, before collapsing. Jin freezes for a moment, before sheer instinct calls him to take off the cock ring and pump lightly, letting the boy come. After all, having an erection for too long can damage a cock for life, and Jin isn’t about to let that happen to the boy - Yamapi. He honestly didn’t think that the boy would hold out like that; but whatever his secret is, it must be very, very important.
*
“You’ve never asked him for his name.”
Ryo’s look is incredulous, and Jin frowns at him before returning to his lunch. “I didn’t think it was important,” he says between bites.
“This is a new level of stupidity for you,” Ryo says, shaking his head, and Jin starts to feel annoyed. “What the hell have you been doing with him for the past, oh, five months?”
“What do you think I’ve been doing?” Jin says nastily. He’s used to Ryo’s sharp tongue; they’ve been friends for a long time, but he does have limits.
“Probably keeping him in a locked tower, by the looks of things,” Ryo returns sarcastically. “And of course, your strategy to find out what’s going on was to torture him. Sex actually isn’t the answer to everything, you know.”
“What’s Uchi doing right now, then?” Jin pouts, hoping to change the direction of their conversation.
“At the movies, with a friend,” Ryo says simply.
“Oh.”
*
“This is too much,” Matsushima says, hands on her hips. The look on her face is one meaning to protect; Jin knows it well. However, it’s never been directed at him before, and that’s a bit unnerving. “Jin-kun, you can’t do this.”
“What’s wrong, Matsushima-san?” he asks cautiously. She is probably the only person whom he would allow to talk to him like that, aside from Ryo.
“You can’t leave him tied up like that! Look at him, the poor thing. He missed dinner last night and I wondered what was wrong when he didn’t come for breakfast this morning, so I went up to find him, and the state of him! I was appalled! Yamapi is only a year younger than you, he’s not meant to wear a collar all the time like that.”
Jin blinks at the mention of the boy’s name. Of course, Matsushima knows something about the boy’s - Yamapi’s - secret. He’d forgotten that he could have asked her. “Matsushima-san,” he starts politely, slipping into one of the kitchen chairs, “do you know what he does every day?”
The older lady shifts, looking more nervous and less upset. “You don’t know anything about him, do you?” she asks, after a long pause, and her disappointed tone instills guilt in Jin that would otherwise never appear. “Look,” she says finally, joining Jin at the table. “I think that he would rather die than let you know, but I’ve known you since you were a child. I think you can understand him.”
Jin looks at her inquisitively, and she sighs. “That boy is just scared.”
“Of what?” Jin asks automatically. “Of me?”
“He’s scared of what will happen to him in the future,” Matsushima says slowly. “When nobody wants him anymore. Right now, all he’s good for is sex. He didn’t even graduate high school, you know that?”
“They train for three years,” Jin recalls.
“So he has virtually no education. He wants to graduate high school. He wants to go to college. That boy just wants to know that he’ll be okay in life. Most slaves end up going back to the company, you know? They end up as trainers or something like that, and in the end, all they know is the industry. That boy just wants to live.”
“So he becomes a prostitute to go to school.”
“You know how expensive schooling is, Jin. Sex is all he knows right now, and it’s all he can do right now, raise money. He wants to go while he’s still young.” She pauses. “Do you know what he does here, while you’re at work?”
“When he doesn’t sleep with random strangers?” Jin muses. “No.”
“He studies. He studies on his own with library books. I’ve lent him some of Sho’s old books, too,” she says, referring to her son, who studies abroad. “This might be hard for you to believe Jin, but sex isn’t the most important thing to everyone. I’m not sure what you’ve been thinking these last couple of years, after your father died. But really, he is trying so hard.”
Jin is struggling to process all this new information; he hasn’t been able to sort out his feelings yet. Things slowly begin to connect, like the boy reading one of his business books in his office. But he does have one question. “Matsushima-san,” he asks slowly. “Why is he called Yamapi?”
Her face softens. “It’s a nickname one of his trainers gave him. Takki, I think his name was. Yamapi was quite fond of him; he was the one who told Yamapi that he should have a way to get out of that world.”
*
“Hey,” Jin says, jiggling his key ring awkwardly. The boy - Yamapi stares at him as he unlocks both ends of the chain and unbuckles the collar. As Yamapi rubs his now free neck, Jin clears his throat. “Um,” he says. “Um, Matsushima told me everything” - Yamapi’s eyes go wide with fear - “and um, I honestly don’t mind if you go to classes while I am at work. Yes. Um, if you need to make money or anything, I can give you a job at my company, and you can file papers or something after your classes. Is that okay?”
Yamapi looks at him with big, disbelieving eyes, and half an hour later, Jin decides that he needs to come up with more plans because Yamapi’s thank-you blowjobs are phenomenal.
*
“That sounds better,” Ryo says wryly. “So you’ve finally recognized that he’s a human.”
“I just didn’t understand for a bit, okay?” Jin contradicts. “I just thought that it was a pretty cushy lifestyle, having your meals made for you and a nice place to sleep, not having to work for one bit.”
“Not having to work at all, hm?” Ryo sighs. “Of course, there are just those years of training. Once you get through those, you’ve got it made, huh?”
Jin hates having his words rephrased and thrown back at him, but that’s what Ryo does. “But you know,” Ryo adds, “no one can take that lifestyle for long, anyway. Look at you; you had to take those six months off to study abroad. And I know it wasn’t so much studying as partying. You already knew almost everything you needed for the company, and you didn’t learn much English in the end at all.”
“Shut up,” Jin says uncomfortably. He knows, he knew long before Matsushima said it. He’d been close to his father, and after he died, he’d become obsessed with sex. It was a way to forget; a few drinks and a couple of fucks had become his default comfort.
“And what about later? What is he going to do with that education of his?”
Jin shifts uncomfortably. Yamapi has already enrolled in classes to reach the level of high school graduate. “What about Uchi?”
“What about Uchi? He doesn’t have an education, but he has friends.”
“Friends, huh?”
“Akanishi, I tell you things all the time, but you’ve never listened, have you?” Ryo shakes his head. Jin understands, although he definitely won’t say why. In the past, every time Ryo mentioned his sex slave, Jin would just start thinking about sex, and how he couldn’t wait to buy one of his own. No, he had never listened.
“…but his best friend is me. What about Yamapi, Jin? Who’s going to be his best friend?”
*
‘Surprise’ isn’t enough to describe Jin’s reaction when Ryo appears at his door. His cleaning girl finds Jin and announces Ryo’s presence downstairs. “Ah- thank you, Maki,” he says, and stops short when he sees her stunned expression. “What is it?” he asks uneasily. It seems today is full of surprises.
“Ah!” the girl exclaims, clapping a hand to her mouth. “Excuse me, but, I didn’t know that you knew my name, sir.”
Jin blinks. “Of course I know your name,” he says. “I guess…I guess I just never called you by it.”
When he walks downstairs, Ryo is already lounging in one of the sitting room chairs. “Yo,” he greets Jin casually. “I wanted to meet him.”
Introducing Yamapi to someone feels weird, but Jin shrugs it off. He knocks on the boy’s door before entering, something he’s grown accustomed to only recently. The boy looks up from his books - studying is all he does in his free time now - and stands up to greet them, turning a curious eye on Ryo. “Ryo, this is Yamapi,” he says with the appropriate hand gestures, “Yamapi, this is my good friend Nishikido Ryo.”
Yamapi gives Ryo the proper greeting with a crisp bow, and Ryo smiles. “He’s very pretty,” he says to Jin, taking a step closer to the boy. “Are you sure he’s yours?” As Jin sputters, Ryo smiles kindly at Yamapi and cups his face in his hands, drawing him close and kissing him tenderly.
Yamapi automatically closes his eyes and loosely encircles his arms around Ryo’s waist as he responds to the kiss. To Jin, the two seem to go on forever, and the kiss deepens as they carry on; Ryo’s tongue is in Yamapi’s mouth and the boy doesn’t seem to be objecting to that at all. But before Jin can protest, the two separate and Ryo pats Yamapi’s hair dotingly. “You’re nice,” he compliments, letting his hand slide down to rest on the boy’s cheek. “You know, you can live with me if you want; this guy really has no idea what he’s doing.”
“Nishikido,” Jin growls lowly. Ryo laughs.
“Kidding, sort of,” he supplies amusedly. “Well, Yamapi” - he fingers the neck of the boy’s t-shirt - “it was nice to meet you. Jin, I actually must be getting back now.”
“Good riddance,” Jin mutters as Ryo leaves the room, and Yamapi laughs.
Jin stares at him, positive that this is the first time he has ever heard Yamapi laugh.
“I- I kind of like him,” Yamapi volunteers awkwardly, and Jin’s eyes go wide.
“Are- are you going to live with him, then?” he asks apprehensively.
“I didn’t know it was an option,” Yamapi answers with a smile. “But if it is, then I will have to decline.”
Jin returns his smile warmly before grasping his hand and pulling him in for a kiss on the cheek. “Good luck with studying,” he says softly into Yamapi’s ear before exiting the room himself.
He feels good.
*
They go out a lot now, Jin realizes. He’s always liked rewarding Yamapi for being good, but now he rewards him for being a good student, too. They go out on weekends for shopping, meals and movies, and Yamapi is just as fun as Ryo - or maybe more fun, Jin thinks, because Yamapi’s tongue could never be as sharp as Ryo’s. They spend time together at home, too, watching DVDs or just doing work together: Yamapi, reading for classes; Jin, reviewing proposals. After all of these months, they’ve come to enjoy each other’s company and the pleasant atmosphere they create together.
“I’ve graduated high school!” Yamapi cries one night, holding up his certificate proudly. Matsushima bakes him a cake to celebrate; and that night Jin, Yamapi, Matsushima and Maki all share a bottle of champagne.
Jin accepts that it took him forever just to begin wanting to know more about Yamapi, but the boy has been memorizing Jin’s habits and personality since day one - probably ever since their eyes first met in the master bedroom of the auction house. And soon enough, Jin realizes that all his relationship problems have nothing to do with any unwillingness on his part to commit - it was just a matter of finding the right person. He still goes out with the occasional girl because he thinks he should, but he no longer feels that twinge of fear that he might end up alone.
*
“He’s doing well, isn’t he?” Matsushima asks Jin as she serves him a cup of coffee. Yamapi has started his part-time job at Jin’s company, now that he’s entering college. “These books are so expensive,” he’d groaned.
“He really is,” Jin smiles, as Yamapi enters the kitchen with a yawn, not yet fully awake for his morning class.
*
“Yamashita-kun,” a pretty girl with long hair calls out Yamapi’s name, and Jin ducks behind a tree. He’d come to pick up Yamapi from school because he was being transferred to a different department at work, but this was an interesting development.
“Abiru-san?” Yamapi turns around to greet her.
“Um,” she starts before raising her head confidently, “Yamashita-kun, I like you. Would you consider going out with me?”
Yamapi pauses, before giving the girl an embarrassed smile, head slightly ducked down. “I’m so flattered. But I don’t think a girlfriend is right for me at this time.” He brightens visibly. “But because it’s you, I’m sure that you’ll quickly find someone who will treasure you.”
Jin can’t help feeling kind of warm; that’s one of the nicest rejections he’s ever heard. He thinks that Yamapi’s classmate feels the same; after she thanks him and excuses herself, she doesn’t seem to know whether she should smile or frown.
“Popular with the girls, aren’t you?” Jin teases, approaching Yamapi once the girl has turned out of sight.
“No,” Yamapi laughs, shrugging modestly. Jin smiles as he ruffles Yamapi’s hair playfully.
*
Everything seems to be going great; Jin muses. Yamapi is doing fine in the business faculty, balancing studying, work and relations with Jin day by day. He’s not brilliant by a long shot, but he is a hard worker and it’s his determination that allows him to succeed. On the other hand, Jin’s company is flourishing; they’ve just closed a deal with another company that will expand their reach. So Jin thinks it’s time.
“Pi,” he starts, and then hesitates. This is hard. He’s not going to pretend that it’s not hard. Yamapi gives him his full attention, but Jin doesn’t think that makes it any easier. “Look, um, I guess you just passed these first two semesters pretty well, so I thought I’d let you know.” He swallows. “I know you wanted a real life. So you probably want to get out of this place sooner or later.” He pauses again to take a deep breath, running a hand through his hair. “So, this might take some time, but I guess if you pay me half - no, a third of what I paid for you, you can-” Be free, his brain fills in, but that seems melodramatic. “You can live on your own. It might take a few years. Just - just come back and visit, okay?” He closes his eyes. It might take a few years, or Yamapi might get a loan and leave sooner. But this way, at least Yamapi knows that he’s studying for a purpose. He’ll grow, and Jin knows that’s important.
“Okay,” is all Yamapi says, and Jin is afraid that things are going to change now. But nothing does, and a small part of Jin is constantly afraid of the moment Yamapi will decide that he’s leaving. But a larger part of him feels better that at least right now Yamapi is staying because he wants to, not because he’s obligated to. Yet another part of him urges him to take every day for what it is, and appreciate the boy. He’s had him for an entire year and a half already, an amazing year and a half.
*
“In a way, it sucks,” Ryo nods, setting his coffee cup down. “I mean, you paid so much for him, but you can’t calculate a time equivalent for these kinds of things, can you?”
“It’s not so much the money,” Jin contemplates. “I just, I can’t help but feel like I bought him, so he’s mine. But it’s like,” he closes his eyes for a moment before meeting Ryo’s eyes. “It’s like buying a bird and setting it free. One of those exotic ones.” He takes a deep breath before giving a short laugh. “Does it make sense? It just feels like it has to happen.” He wishes sometimes, that he’d just become friends with Yamapi right off the bat, like Ryo had with Uchi. Then they could live together, forever, best friends under the same roof. But Yamapi has hopes and dreams-
“It makes sense.” Ryo smiles, a real smile, not one of his amused ones and nothing like his sarcastic smirks. “I’m kind of proud of you.”
“Are you?” Jin beams.
The smile morphs back into a smirk. “No, never mind, forget I said anything.”
Ryo’s eyes are still twinkling, and Jin is more than pleased.
*
Two years pass between Jin’s proposal and the fateful day. “Jin,” Yamapi announces. “I’m going to leave the company. I’ve already submitted my resign letter to my supervisor.” He smiles proudly before continuing, “Another company offered me a nice position, and it’s probably time for me to branch out and try something new.”
Something new, the words pang Jin’s heart. “I see,” he says simply, waiting for the boy’s next words. He’ll probably be living in company housing; this is probably a nice internship. He hasn’t even graduated yet. He doesn’t have his degree yet, but he’s already leaving.
“Jin,” Yamapi is saying nervously, “Jin.”
“Yeah,” comes the answer. Jin licks his lips.
Yamapi reaches for Jin’s hand, squeezing it in his own as he gazes steadily into Jin’s eyes. “Is it okay if I never pay you?”
It takes Jin a whole minute to process that one statement, but when he does, his eyes widen slightly before he pulls Yamapi in for a tight hug. “Yeah,” he says into Yamapi’s ear. “God, if you never…yeah.”
He feels Yamapi’s lips curve into a smile on his neck and looks over the boy’s shoulder to see Matsushima beaming at them, and he knows that this is all he’s ever wanted.
2007.08.03 - 10.16