Reload series by Ioka Itsuki and illustrated by Kunisawa Tomo
Reload, Truth, and Grow Back are in a series by Ioka Itsuki and illustrated by Kunisawa Tomo about a police detective and a guy who works in a police lab. This series is supposed to be a seme vs. seme who will win type of situation. Kawatou Kazuma, the police detective, is straight. jinguu Satoshi, the lab dude, is gay. They both have fucked a ton of people. They meet, they snark, and they become attracted to each other. But who will top? I didn't realize this was the gimmick of volume 1 because I read volume 2 first so I knew who got to be seme in the first book. Each volume is set up around a case (or various incidents that turn into a case). The cases don't suck, per se. I just don't care much about them. This series is heavy on conventions, both of the genre and series-specific type. Some conventions desperately need to be ditched, but they are not so irritating that they'll keep me away. What attracts me to this series and keeps me looking forward to the next book is the interaction between the two. They are macho guys who initially have an antagonistic relationship. Even after they acknowledge their attraction they are still at odds because they both want to be seme. Even after it's more or less settled, the guy who gets the dick up his ass (I was going to write "gets the short end of the stick" but...) is not satisfied. He wants his turn, and they argue about it quite a bit. I'm hoping either the author has them switching OR the uke decides that he can take control from the bottom instead of stubbornly holding onto his ideal of what he should be doing (fuck not be fucked). It's not like he doesn't get a lot of pleasure from being fucked. Despite his stubborn pride, in the end he loves having sex, in whatever form, with the guy he'd fallen for.
I've been meaning to summarize these books but have come to realize that I can't be bothered to do it. So...I share the pics instead. XD They are quite nice.
Reload
Kazuma is the black haired one. They've just kissed and tells Jinguu he'll let Jinguu off with just a kiss for now...
Bad first impression. Kazuma is always demanding lab results yesterday, while Jinguu is a cynical sarcastic ass.
Kazuma happens to see Jinguu making out with some guy in a public bathroom while trying to pick up a girl at a bar...
Kazuma catches Jinguu looking through some files. Jinguu decides he needs to have blackmail material to keep Kazuma quiet, so he gives the very straight Kazuma a blow-job. Jinguu had joined the police lab to try to solve a friend's "suicide" while he is sure is actually a murder.
Mutual admission of attraction and follow-up mutual hand-jobs.
Kazuma helps Jinguu out in his private investigation by using the power of the state.
Kazuma is captured by a bunch of guys who like to drug victims and do nasty things to them. Turns out Jinguu's friend had been a victim.
Jinguu rescues Kazuma, but Kazuma needs to get a vibrator still in his ass out ASAP so they duck into a nearby hotel. Kazuma can't get himself to stick his fingers up his ass to pull it out, so Jinguu offers to do it for him.
Which Jinguu does, but he takes advantage of Kazuma's drugged confusion to fuck him as well.
Kazuma is not happy about Jinguu's underhanded method, but has to admit that he have done the same if their positions had been reversed.
Kazuma to the rescue! Jinguu confronts his friend's killer and is almost killed himself. The friend's killer is arrested by another detective to whom Kazuma had supplied all the evidence Jinguu and he had collected.
Jinguu tricks Kazuma into being bottom again.
Truth
The two men are too busy to meet privately, so they have a quickie in the restroom...
Kazuma, experiencing much sexual frustration, comes on to Jinguu at work.
Kazuma tries to ambush a sleeping Jinguu in bed but is unsuccessful. Once again, fucked real good in the ass.
Kazuma is assigned to be a bodyguard for an eminent French scientist who is so important the Japanese government has him watched all the time. He is flabbergasted when the scientist slips away from his other bodyguards (the real ones who do it for a living, not a detective pulled from his work because the scientist had happened to see him do a spectacular capture of a suspect at the airport and had specifically requested him) and follows him to his room in the bachelor dorm. He calls Jinguu over since Jinguu can at least speak English. Turns out Jinguu can speak French as well. Jinguu later gets roped in to act as translator for the VIP.
Jinguu pulls Kazuma to the community restroom for some making out once scientist goes to sleep.
Kazuma notices a suspicious dude following them when he, Jinguu and the scientist go to a matsuri. Turns out the dude is a yakuza boss.
Scientist turns out to be gay and comes on to Kazuma. Kazuma unwillingly receives a blow-job, but refuses to do anything more with scientist.
Some yakuza try to kidnap the scientist but get Kazuma instead. They know the scientist is gay and think that Kazuma is his boyfriend. They want the scientist to do as they say, and decide that messing with Kazuma is the best way to show they mean business without actually harming Kazuma. (Notice a pattern here?)
Kazuma is saved by the yakuza dude who'd been following them earlier.
Turns out that Kazuma's savior yakuza is scientist's boyfriend. Also turns out that scientist is fluent in Japanese but had feigned ignorance. He claims he wanted to give Kazuma and Jinguu an excuse to have some quality time together. Scientist whispers to Kazuma that he'd shown an interest in Kazuma in his conversations in French with Jinguu, in response to which Jinguu clearly had staked his claim on Kazuma.
They retreat to a private room at the hospital the yakuza had been admitted to. Kazuma once again fails at trying to top.
More sex in the shower as they "clean up."
I was going to scan in the pics from Grow Back but can't find the USB cord for the scanner. :( There are some great sex scenes in that one, too...