SerpentNoir: A Fan-Written Story Inspired by My China Mafia Obanai Photos.
This article introduces a fan-written story by Lemon-san, inspired by my China mafia Obanai photos.
The original story is written in Japanese and published on pixiv.
Here, I am sharing selected excerpts, summaries, and translated passages alongside my photos, so that overseas readers can also experience the world of SerpentNoir.
This is not a full translation of the original work.
For the complete story, please visit Lemon-san’s pixiv page linked below.
Her words gave another life to the man I tried to portray: a beautiful, untouchable king standing between blood, power, loneliness, and the city of night.
Original Story: Lemon-san
Original Story Page: https://www.pixiv.net/novel/show.php?id=28172126
Cosplay / Concept / Character Portrayal: Naso | The Serpent
Character: Iguro Obanai, Serpent Hashira
World Concept: SerpentNoir / China Mafia Obanai
Article Editing / English Translation: Naso
Update: The full story on pixiv is scheduled to become publicly available on June 5, JST.
This article is currently open as an early preview, featuring photos, summaries, and selected translated passages from the world of SerpentNoir.
This article contains references to organized crime, violence, coercion, drugs, exploitation, and mature themes.
Explicit scenes are not quoted in full.
The excerpts and summaries are shared with the author’s permission.
About This Fan-Created World
This article introduces a fan-created story inspired by my SerpentNoir photos.
It is an unofficial modern AU interpretation of Iguro Obanai, created through cosplay, photography, and Lemon-san’s writing.
The story is not official canon, but a transformative fan work born from our shared admiration for the character.
For me, this is one of the most beautiful things about fan creation:
a photo can become a scene, a scene can become a story, and a story can open the door to another world.
SerpentNoir is my modern China mafia interpretation of Iguro Obanai.
In this world, Obanai is not simply a young boss.
He is a king standing on the border between blood, country, culture, power, and loneliness.
He is quiet, sharp, and almost impossible to approach.
But in certain moments, the mask slips, and something wounded and human appears beneath the crown.
The photos were taken during my actual trip to China.
Night streets, neon lights, old walls, local restaurants, cigarettes, black clothes, a hat, and scenes that looked like meetings with local informants.
Those images became the seed of Lemon-san’s story.
The story begins with Sanemi, still young, being dragged into the underworld because of his father’s debt.
There, he meets Obanai for the first time.
Not as a gentle savior.
Not as a beautiful stranger.
But as a mafia boss sitting above him, dressed in black, with mismatched eyes, a white serpent, and a smile that gives nothing away.
Sanemi is beaten, humiliated, and still refuses to lower his pride.
Obanai looks down at him and sees something useful.
Not obedience.
Not innocence.
Sanemi, in turn, feels something he does not yet understand.
He wants to defeat this man.
He wants to be acknowledged by him.
He wants to stand above him someday.
That first impulse is not love yet.
It is defiance.
It is hunger.
It is the first spark of devotion disguised as rebellion.
The King Who Does Not Destroy Children
One of the strongest parts of Lemon-san’s story is that Obanai is dangerous, but not careless.
He could have used Sanemi as a disposable pawn.
He could have thrown him into the dirtiest parts of the organization.
Instead, he gives him cleaning work, errands, and the care of Kaburamaru.
Most importantly, he tells him not to neglect school.
“I have no intention of employing an idiot.
If you want to work under me, graduate from high school at the very least.”
That line defines this Obanai beautifully.
He is not kind in an obvious way.
He does not comfort.
He does not soften his words.
But his protection appears as conditions, rules, education, and controlled distance.
The story also reveals that Kyojuro is connected to Obanai’s past.
He is not simply a police officer.
He is someone who knew Obanai before the crown, before the tattoos, before the night swallowed him.
Kyojuro represents the life Obanai might have had.
A clean uniform.
A safe home.
A name spoken without fear.
A future under the sun.
Sanemi sees Kyojuro and realizes that Obanai has a past he cannot touch yet.
This is where jealousy begins.
Not because Sanemi understands love.
But because he understands that someone else already holds a place inside Obanai that he cannot reach.
The Night Behind the King
Tengen appears in the story as a man from the night world.
He is not written as Obanai’s true lover.
He is the man who taught Obanai how to survive in a world where beauty becomes a weapon.
He taught him the language of desire, power, performance, and control.
For Obanai, the night was never romance.
It was education.
It was armor.
It was a way to turn his own body into a bargaining chip before someone else could use it against him.
The more Obanai entered that world, the more piercings and tattoos appeared on his body.
They were not only decoration.
They were marks of transformation.
A way of painting over the boy named Obanai, until another persona could walk through the city in his place.
Among the darker scenes, one of the most beautiful moments is when Sanemi asks for a reward.
He does not ask for money.
He does not ask for a woman.
He does not ask for Obanai’s body.
“Show me a place you like.”
It is such a simple request.
But for Obanai, it reaches deeper than any demand.
He takes Sanemi to an old town, somewhere ordinary and nostalgic.
A place with small restaurants, old shops, a river, and sunset.
There, the mafia boss disappears for a moment.
Standing in the orange light, Obanai looks almost like an ordinary young man remembering a life that was taken from him.
Sanemi realizes that he wants to see the same view Obanai sees.
Not the throne.
Not the organization.
Not the mask.
The person behind all of it.
The peaceful moment does not last.
Sanemi moves before thinking and shields Obanai with his own body.
The wounds he receives leave scars that will never disappear.
For the organization, it proves his loyalty.
For Sanemi, it was never that noble.
He did not protect “the boss.”
This is one of the important turning points in the story.
Sanemi’s feelings are no longer only desire, jealousy, or admiration.
He wants to become strong enough to protect him.
Obanai, however, sees the scars and chooses distance.
He believes pushing Sanemi away is protection.
He pays off the debt.
He cuts the connection.
He tells him never to return.
It is also Obanai’s version of love.
The Empty Space He Left Behind
Sanemi does not disappear.
He works under a false name at Tengen’s club, keeping himself close to the edge of Obanai’s world.
He watches from a distance.
Not beautifully.
Not nobly.
Almost like a stray dog that refuses to stop returning to the same door.
Obanai tries not to look for him.
He tells himself that Sanemi is better off in the ordinary world.
But in quiet moments, he remembers the complaints, the cleaning, the coffee, and the annoying voice telling him to rest.
Obanai had believed that he had thrown Sanemi away.
In truth, he had only created an empty space shaped exactly like him.
When Obanai is abducted by a dangerous rival organization, the story becomes darker.
The enemy wants to break him, use him, and take the organization from him.
This part of the original story contains violent and mature themes, so I will not quote it in full here.
What matters most is not the cruelty itself.
It is what the scene reveals.
Even when trapped, drugged, and stripped of control, Obanai is still calculating.
Still watching.
Still refusing to surrender the core of himself.
Not as a boy anymore.
Not as a discarded subordinate.
He comes back like a storm.
“Come Back, Shinazugawa.”
After the rescue, Obanai wakes in a hidden clinic.
The distance Obanai tried to build collapses in that quiet room.
He asks why Sanemi keeps coming back.
Why he would throw away an ordinary future.
Why he would choose the underworld, scars, blood, and danger.
Sanemi’s answer is simple.
Obanai understands then that this is not a passing obsession.
Not a childish fantasy.
Not a desire that will burn out once denied.
It is foolish.
It is stubborn.
It is terrifyingly sincere.
So Obanai finally gives him the words he had withheld.
“Come back, Shinazugawa.”
That single sentence changes everything.
It is not a confession in a soft language.
It is permission.
It is acceptance.
It is a door opening back into hell.
And Sanemi chooses to enter.
In a later spin-off, Obanai receives a call from China.
He has been summoned by the Don.
He tries to refuse by using Kaburamaru as an excuse, saying that his serpent cannot board a plane.
The Don answers by sending a private jet.
Obanai asks Sanemi if he will come with him.
Not because he is afraid.
Because he knows he has not yet earned the position to stand beside Obanai in front of the Don.
He does not want to go as a servant.
He wants to go one day as Obanai’s recognized partner.
That restraint is important.
Sanemi’s love has changed.
At first, he wanted Obanai.
Then he wanted to protect him.
Now, he wants to become someone worthy of standing beside him.
Before Obanai leaves for China, he entrusts the organization to Sanemi and Tengen.
It is not a romantic speech.
But for Obanai, trust is often more intimate than tenderness.
Before separation, Sanemi admits that he will be lonely.
Obanai laughs, because almost no one in the world would dare say such a thing to him.
But he does not reject it.
Instead, he lets Sanemi come closer.
The original scene becomes intimate after this point, so I will not quote it in full here.
What matters is the meaning behind it.
Obanai is leaving for a city he can survive, but does not love.
A city of business, bloodline, power, old debts, and family chains.
Sanemi cannot go with him yet.
So he leaves a mark behind.
Even in that distant city,
even under the Don’s eyes,
even in the world where you must wear the crown again,
you are not entirely alone.
By the end of the story, several seasons have passed.
Sanemi finally gains the position he once longed for.
Not behind him as a stray dog.
Not below him as a subordinate.
Not outside the door as someone discarded.
Obanai turns back with the same dangerous, beautiful smile he had when they first met.
Wherever Obanai goes, Sanemi will follow.
Not because he was ordered to.
The destination may be hell.
But if it is beside Obanai, then Sanemi will walk there willingly.
Lemon-san’s story showed me something very important.
The photos I took in China were not only images of a costume.
They became a door into another life.
A man standing in neon light.
A king who learned to survive by turning beauty into a weapon.
A boy who became strong enough to walk beside him.
A city that feels both real and unreal.
That is what I wanted SerpentNoir to become.
Not only a visual concept.
Thank you, Lemon-san, for giving words to the night behind these photos.
Naso | The Serpent
Iguro Obanai Specialist
Serpent Hashira / SerpentNoir / The Serpent Castle
