The man’s nose twitches, face screwed up in concentration and restraint, but it’s no use. He sneezes away the ash. A little glob of snot lands on Hanma’s shoe. The same shoe that presses into the living Tanigawa’s chest.

They stand and lie respectively in the living room of the deceased’s two-bedroom apartment. Apart from the staged chaos, the room is homey with well-worn magazines on the table, a fraying couch, and mugs of half-drank coffee on the countertops. The living room opens into a small kitchen, where dishes from the night’s dinner sit stacked and unwashed in the sink. If the curtains weren’t closed, the windows would open out to a view of a quiet suburb, the kind with trees planted by the sidewalk and more bicycle traffic than cars.

“Try not to throw your DNA around, Tanigawa. This is a crime scene,” Hanma sighs.

Distantly, Hanma pities Tanigawa Ichigo. As Hanma slammed the man’s head into the wall over and over until the crack of bone and spill of detritus, Ichigo never once considered that his fate was not the result of mere bad fortune, a robbery gone wrong, but rather a deliberate murder. He never fathomed that his younger brother might put a hit out on him. That Toman might come to collect.

Tanigawa Iwao also never once considered that he would be brought to the crime scene to witness the hulking corpse that was once his brother, but Hanma does not feel bad for him. No, watching Tanigawa shiver and cry at the outcome of his own greed is rather funny.

Babbling out a few useless apologies, Tanigawa wipes Hanma’s shoe with his sleeves. Hanma grounds down harder with his foot. It kneads into the space between ribs. He is half-compelled to test Tanigawa’s self-control, dig until the pain trumps fear and the fool can’t resist begging for mercy. Not necessary at this point. He already has Tanigawa’s submission. A bit of fun.

Fun…Hanma remembers it fondly. For the past week, he has lived like a monk, peaceful, obedient, bored. Between you and Kisaki, he is a puppet merrily dancing along to whatever tune his masters demand sung. How much longer until he cuts the strings and becomes a real boy?

He can’t afford to piss off Kisaki, not when the prospect of Mikey is dangled before him. But you are afforded no such protections. This week, he pushed your session back to Saturday since all his focus was needed for his current assignments, but as the day draws near, his body thrums with excitement.

“What do you want?” Tanigawa weeps at Hanma’s feet, the same question he’s been panting for the last half hour.

Hanma squeezes the man’s shoulder reassuringly, and says, “No need for tears! You’re going to get everything you ever wanted. It’s only fair that you give us a little something in return.”

“Anything,” Tanigawa says.

A less intelligent man might interject that he already paid Toman handsomely for their services, but Tanigawa is a sly one. He sees the trap, how he sits in Hanma’s silken pockets. He is probably replaying in his mind the condemning footage Hanma showed him earlier. Footage that showed how involved Tanigawa was in his brother’s murder. Tanigawa is a bad brother but a good son. He can’t break his father’s heart.

“You have access to flight logs in and out of Tokyo-Narita. You’re going to look up a few names for me and share any flights they’ve taken in the last year,” Hanma says. “Not too bad, eh?”

“That’s not going to be…”

“Easy? Well, neither’s getting away with murder, but we do it all the time,” Hanma says.

Here then is the reason why Hanma is slumming it, doling out a hit on a nobody. Tanigawa is a senior IT executive at Tokyo-Narita. A useful pawn if deployed right.

Currently, Tanigawa is useless, breathing heavily and eyes rapidly shifting back and forth. He has been cresting the edge of an anxiety attack for half an hour now, and Hanma is fascinated. He wonders what will finally push the man over. Not that Hanma enjoys when his associates (read: victims) descend into a messy anxiety attack. Impossible to get anything out of them. But, it certainly is interesting.

Hanma’s never personally experienced an anxiety attack.

Loud beeping sounds from the burner in his pocket. Hanma answers when he sees it’s Hakkai calling.

“It’s loud in here. Might be hard to hear you,” Hakkai shouts over a throbbing roar of noise. “How’d things go on your end?”

Hanma tells him about Tanigawa. “I just gave him the list. Anyone who’s so much as breathed air in the same room as the Haitanis, hell anyone who’s heard of the Haitanis. We’ll know where they’ve been flying.”

“Assuming they flew out of Tokyo-Narita.”

“Assuming they didn’t take a fucking boat,” Hanma concedes.

Tanigawa peers up at Hanma with big, beseeching eyes, like he might parse some useful clues from this conversation. Irritated, Hanma kicks him in the ribs – a love tap though you wouldn’t know it by the way the idiot moans – and moves to the bathroom.

The mirror reflects the struggle of the last hour. His suit jacket is crumpled, a few scratches on his wrists from where Tanigawa-the-dead fought back, a bloody lip, and hair tangled in clumps. Tanigawa was a big guy and managed to head butt him before Hanma regained the upper hand. Hanma wets his gloved fingers and runs them through his hair, carefully styling the errant curls back into place. The building’s security cameras are all disabled, and he’s already wiped the scene of DNA evidence, but there’s no need to alarm the neighbors when he leaves.

“I found one of their accounts,” Hakkai tells him. “Only got a couple hundred million yen in there though, so definitely not all of it. Koko’s digging into where they could be laundering money. They have so many rich-boy contacts though, it might take a while.”

“I still say we grab the little one,” Hanma sighs. So much roundabout espionage when the simplest solution lay before them.

“Not even you could get them to talk,” Hakkai says, which is among the rudest comments ever directed his way. Hanma sees himself bristle in the bathroom mirror. “Honestly, we should have just brought them into Toman in the early days. Wouldn’t need all this running around now.”

“Kisaki doesn’t like them,” Hanma says.

A decade out from their delinquent days, the Haitanis remain a wildcard in Roppongi. Mikey almost extended an offer for them to join as executives, bringing their vast network of intel and experience into the fold, but Kisaki cautioned against it. To Mikey, he warned that the Haitanis would never bend the knee, would plot against him; to Hanma, he admitted that the Haitanis would accept Mikey as their king but would battle him for second place.

Forced out of the fold, the Haitanis can’t be classified as yakuza. They work freelance for the city’s elite with a small gang of hired help beneath them. Mostly bodyguard work for corporate bigwigs, silencing political dissidents, making problems disappear for spoiled trust fund brats. The older one, Ran, is stylish, charming, the kind of man who puts suits at ease and gets the job done. They accrued a small fortune sucking up to the already powerful.

Partnering with the HJK would be an out of character play on their part as it would risk the little empire they curated. Neither Haitani is that stupid…

…But it might be their only chance to come out on top of the criminal underworld once again, and Hanma doesn’t doubt they are tempted.

“Well, anyway, none of this would matter if that pisspot Sendo could keep his eyes on the pretty fuckers like he’s meant to,” Hakkai gripes.

“They’re good. Hard to tail,” Hanma says.

He doesn’t add that Sendo is torn between two jobs at the moment, answering to two masters. Earlier that day, Sendo called to let him know that he is failing just as miserably at bugging your apartment. Restricted by Hanma’s order not to break the door down, Sendo hasn’t been able to force his way in. And neither you nor your boyfriend are incautious enough to open the door to a stranger.

Frustrating, the not knowing how you spend your time when he isn’t there. At least Hanma expects a debrief about your boyfriend any day now. You act like you chose your boyfriend on a whim, as if you won him at a carnival and thought you might as well take him home. But still, there might be clues to unravelling you somewhere in his background.

Unravelling you would be fun. At night, Hanma sometimes falls asleep, imagining you are like a tangled clump of necklaces, the various strands tangling and overlapping. He imagines plucking each one, testing the tangle, pushing this way and that to see if there’s any give. Find the right strand, move it in the right direction, and the whole messy thing will unwind in his fingers.

Exiting the bathroom, Hanma spots Tanigawa bent over his brother’s corpse with a look of twisted interest. One hand hovers over the pulp of the softened skull.

Hanma rolls his eyes and covers the phone for a moment. “What did I tell you about throwing your DNA around?”

Tanigawa scrambles back and starts blathering promises to run the list through the airport database first thing in the morning. Hanma waves his hand dismissively, already halfway out the door. No neighbors spot him, which is convenient. He shoots a text to some of his men to revert the building cameras once Tanigawa leaves and exits out into the dry heat.

The sun beats down cruelly, unseasonably warm for a July day. The streets are empty. Everyone with a cool office or apartment has retreated inside to escape its rays. Hanma likes the heat, likes the hot soreness on the back of his neck as his skin begins to burn, likes staining his crisp suits with streaks of sweat for someone else to wash.

“Do you have plans on Saturday?” Hakkai asks.

Hanma swings one leg over his motorbike – parked several blocks away from the crime scene – revs the engine. “Why?”

A passing grandmother stares at the incongruous image he makes with his suit and motorcycle. He smiles blandly.

“I wanna try a new restaurant in Chiba. I’ll treat,” Hakkai says.

Frowning, Hanma says, “I’m busy.”

“Oh, okay, cool. Some other time then.”

Technically, Hanma isn’t lying. You and he have a date on Saturday. And it’s long overdue. The bike takes off, leaving the scene of the crime long behind him.

- - -

The sky is a serene blue, almost spotless. Despite the lack of shade, the humidity is manageable, and the sun is low. People flock to the streets to experience a perfect summer day. Maybe that’s why you texted him to move your appointment.

Rather than meet at your stuffy office, you told him to meet you in Fuchū, at the Tokyo Racecourse. It is the offseason, so no major races today, just low-grade horses and the low-grade losers who will bet on anything.

Normally, when he comes to the track, Hanma goes to one of Toman’s reserved boxes. Kisaki loves horses, loves the process of building one into a winner, and has had moderate success. One horse even placed in the Tenno Sho a few years back. The boxes are air conditioned with staff to serve food and party favors or take bets as needed.

You were not waiting in a private box. Hanma found you halfway up the main grandstand, precisely in the center. A spot that affords you the illusion of privacy as the closest patrons sit several rows away.

Directly below the viewstand, is the track. There is a grass course that stretches in an oblong for a mile and a quarter. Then, the slightly shorter dirt track for other races. You can see the finish line and the winner’s circle from your seats. The video screen – the largest not just in Tokyo but in the world – projects a horse stamping calmly toward the starting gates where a host of retainers wait to prep it.

For the last fifteen minutes, you both have been sharing impressions and opinions about Crime and Punishment. Hanma will not admit that the story is fresh in his mind, only finished last night in a feverish sprint to get his homework done before seeing you again. Better you think him a swot than too stupid to read a fucking book.

“Did you relate at all to the reason Raskolnikov killed the pawnbroker?” you ask him.

“Do I relate? I stayed in that sad-sack’s brain for hundreds of pages, and I don’t even know why he did it.”

“Does murder always have a logical motive?”

“Suppose you’re saying it’s for emotional reasons. You really are a shrink.”

Not that you look it today. You dressed for the track in all white, loose-fitting clothes, linen pants and cotton shirt. Something a tourist might wear to the beach. It is the most casual he has ever seen you.

With his eyes, he traces the lines of fabric, how they skate over and obscure your curves. He thinks it might be intentional, a pretense put on that you don’t even have a body. Nothing there for him to lust after. Your mistake as Hanma has a vivid imagination.

“I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer. Some people focus on Raskolnikov’s alienation from society, how miserable the city and his circumstances are. Some people focus on the psychological, on his belief in himself as special. Both are true to me, nature and nurture and all that,” you say.

The hollow at the base of your throat throbs and deepens as you speak. He might thrust his tongue into the little hole it creates, drink the sweat from the chalice of your skin, drift lower until he mouths fabric. Your outfit leaves no openings: shirt tucked into pants, sleeves tight at the wrist, neckline flat. No way to reach your skin without undressing you entirely, without tearing something open with his teeth.

Cold biting anger creeps into his stomach as his imagination encounters this obstacle. So much time and energy spent to deny himself when he should be using those resources to fulfill his desires. Anger at your continued paltry defenses against him.

“Fine then,” he bites out. “Did I relate to the reason? On the surface, sure. Stealing when you need money is as natural as eating when you’re hungry. To be fair, I wouldn’t need to murder some little old lady to get her money – people underestimate how much this is a skilled profession – but also, sure, if I had to kill her, why not? But all that garbage he spouted about Napoleon, about being above the law because you’re such a special boy who’s going to change the world? Bullshit.”

“You never justify your actions on the basis that you’re special?”

“I never bother to justify my actions at all! Why should I?” Hanma retorts. “The worst are those guys that run around talking about the strong versus the weak all the time. You see them a lot. They’re constantly talking about survival of the fittest. They might as well wear a sign: ‘I’m insecure. Please tell me how big and strong I am.’ It’s not about the strong versus the weak. The weakest motherfucker can get the jump on you. It’s just about…about want. Do what you want, what you choose. So long as you’re prepared to live with the consequences – and I mean real consequences, not those phantoms of guilt you see in the book – then the only human thing to do is act.”

You nod, piercing eyes digging into his own. They give so little away while demanding so much from him in return.

His cock twitches. Hanma can’t decide if your eyes will hold that same power when you are on your knees for him.

“Do you believe you’re special at all? Better than other people?” you ask.

“I guess I’m different, and I don’t like other people all that much. But I don’t walk around thinking how great I am all the time either. It doesn’t matter to me if other people think highly or lowly of me. I never wanted to be number one in Toman or Valhalla or school or anything else. I don’t need respect. Don’t believe I’m going to change the world. I don’t have many opinions about myself in general,” Hanma says.

“That’s surprising,” you frown. “It’s fairly uncommon for people diagnosed with ASPD to not also exhibit traits of narcissism.”

“It’s still narcissistic, isn’t it? I don’t care what others think of me. I don’t compare myself to them. Do you think God thinks highly of Himself? Because I doubt He bothers to think about Himself at all.”

“You think you’re like a god?”

An eastward breeze blows through the stands and ruffles your hair. The strands hover above your neck for only a moment before settling, but they don’t return to their previously pristine positions. There is disgust beneath your façade.

“You’re not listening, Doc. I don’t think much of myself in general,” Hanma chastises. “But I wonder if you can say the same. All that work you put into getting your fancy degree, into becoming independent, someone worthy of respect. I bet you think pretty highly of yourself.”

The way you dress, hold your shoulders at right angles, smile pleasantly with hands folded, these are all choices. You are a construction made up of an amalgamation of choices designed to project the right message, to bolster your status, to protect yourself from demons. Nothing is left to chance, to some inherent instinct at the core that is you. How could you not think highly of yourself when you had so purposefully chosen to be this thing you call yourself?

You shake your head vehemently, a strong reaction by your standards. “Not at all. You’ve got me all wrong. I don’t think I’m anything special. I’m boring, uninspiring even.”

“Oh, come on, sweetheart. You know you’re smarter than just about everyone here,” Hanma says, gesturing around to indicate the other patrons.

“What does that have to do with anything?” you say shortly. “I’m smarter than some people. Others are smarter than me.” And now it’s your turn to gesture around, first pointing to where a jockey is walking the track. “The jockeys are more athletic than me, better with animals. You’re stronger than me, better at…whatever it is you do. And, all these people, I bet most of them go home to loved ones at night, that they touch the lives of the people around them. They’ve known love all their lives and take it as a matter of course. But me? I’m a ghost. People see me, but I can never quite touch them. What’s so special about that?”

Boisterous laughter rises above the dull crest of chatter. Hanma identifies it as coming from a group of young men, university-aged but dressed like day laborers, probably coming together on a day off. They are seated not too far from you both, though he only takes real notice of them now.

Glancing around, Hanma eyes the other patrons that he didn’t bother to observe before. On a weekday, most of the track’s clientele are lone gamblers, addicts who chase after escape. On a Saturday, however, there is more companionship, more reminders that human beings are in fact social animals.

There is a father who’s brought his kids – probably a weekday addict with weekend visitation – bribing them with jelly candies to sit quietly through the race. There is a man dressed for a date, earnestly explaining how the betting cards work to a woman dressed for the office. There is a group of old men that take up an entire row, familiar with each other in a way that suggests decades of shared friendship, surviving marriage, divorce, children, hospitalization, and all the other vagaries of life. No matter how he tries, Hanma cannot picture you joining any one of these groups anymore than he can picture himself.

In short, you and Hanma are surrounded by lives that intertwine and touch each other, while your own lives stretch on in unmeeting parallel.

“I know what you mean,” Hanma says, and he intends it kindly. Neither of you feel quite of this bustling, happy world. It makes Hanma forget he half despises you. “You know, Hakkai asked me to get dinner with him recently.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he does that sometimes. It’s not work related. Sometimes he just asks me to…hang out, I guess.”

“He enjoys your company. I remember how he spoke about you in our interviews,” you say.

“Yeah, but…I don’t know…it’s weird,” Hanma says finally.

“Why?”

As a child, Hanma spent most days in the company of kids his age, but only because the games and entertainment available to children so often required a group. With every passing year, he grew more independent, more reclusive. He liked having people around for fights, then for fucking, or to serve as an audience, the reasons were endless; but there was no need to form bonds with people to achieve those things. Today, if Hanma wants an audience or entertainment, he merely walks into a new bar and the audience casts itself with whoever’s there. The players are interchangeable.

Except.

“Hakkai’s not the first person to want to hang out with me just because, but he’s the first person that…I suppose I could almost…maybe see myself saying yes,” Hanma admits.

Something slimy slips through his guts. Immediate revulsion. Here he is making a confession of unearthed truths, and he didn’t even barter something of equal value from you in exchange. When did he relax around you enough to misstep so needlessly?

“Try it,” you recommend. The cool tone of your voice only exacerbates his growing fury. “Something new is worth exploring, right? At the very least it will be novel. Treat it like an experiment and take him up on the offer.”

Hanma crosses his arms because if he doesn’t, he is going to touch you. Whether that touch will make you cry with pain or pleasure he doesn’t know. No mistakes. He promised Kisaki.

“He only wants to get dinner or drinks or see a movie. I’ve done all that before, Doc.”

“But you’ve never done it with him.”

“So?”

“Doing something for the first time with a new person can change it completely,” you say.

“Ya know, Doc, this sounds an awful lot like more homework,” Hanma says, sly.

A slight dampening of his palms in excitement. Such restraint he showed in waiting to bridge this topic, in letting you relax into your false security as authority and professional. How kindly he allowed you to pretend you aren’t a dripping little slut beneath it all. You don’t show half so much restraint with him as you carelessly prod his buttons, and it’s time he tears yours off completely.

“Tell me,” Hanma purrs. “Were you a good girl this week? Did you do your homework and pet that pretty pussy for me?”

Your eyelashes graze the soft curve of your cheek as your eyes flutter closed. More defensive posturing, now your eyes can’t give you away.

Two points swell against the fabric of your shirt, nipples hard enough to show through your bra. They draw Hanma’s eyes like savory targets, sweet little gum drops for him to chew and suck.

It’s time for you to pony up.

“That’s now how this works between us, and you know it,” you say.

The loudspeakers blare as the start of the race grows near. Hanma didn’t think to place a bet before, and now he regrets it. The way things ‘work between you.’ It’s boring how you insist on repeating yourself, insist on making him repeat himself.

He opens his mouth to snarl at you, almost certain it will be a sincere threat for once, but you speak before he can.

“We’ll bet on it, same as we always do. You win, and I’ll tell you in detail. If I win, you agree to try a mood stabilizer for the next three months. It should soften the swing you experience between depression and mania. This isn’t an official diagnosis per se, but you meet the criteria for bipolar disorder, and I want to see how Lithium impacts your daily experience,” you say.

“Trying to turn me into a vegetable, Doc?”

“No, we’ll monitor closely for side effects. Acute fogginess or mood swings, and we’ll lower the dosage or remove you entirely. You’ll need regular lab work as well. None of which I’ll conduct. I don’t want to diminish you, Hanma. But I do want to give you the tools to lead a better life. I’ve done the research and patients with a diagnosis of ASPD and bipolar depression often benefit from mood stabilizers. I think this could really help you stave off the worst of the boredom and help you manage your impulsivity when you can’t.”

As Hanma considers your suggestion, he stares out at the track. The horses are corralled at the starting gate, blinders around their eyes to soothe their anxiety. Skittish creatures horses, starting at the smallest disruption and requiring protection from the caprices of the world.

He will not be the blind horse. He will not dull his senses and hide from his own interiority because the reality is too frightening, too stimulating.

Though, doesn’t he do just that by his own volition already? Every time he takes a bump or drowns himself in liquor or pussy, isn’t he doing his best to escape a world that doesn’t hold anything for him? If he were to view it as just another pill…

You are an object of fixation for Hanma, not meant to be a person worthy of real judgment or feeling. He shouldn’t care enough to hate you, but in that moment he does.

He despises you. Despises the way you analyze and ascribe meaning to everything he does. Despises the way you confront his passive existence and reveal it as something cold and wanting. Despises that you pretend that there is an alternative out there for him to feeling this way.

“I win and you answer in detail,” Hanma says, each word slow and deliberate. “And you give me your underwear.”

The fingers on your left-hand flex, a little tell, but then they unwind. “That seems fair given how big my prize is if I win.”

After all this time, you still keep him on his toes. He can never predict when you’re going to fight him and when you’re going to submit so perfectly. Your lingerie has also kept him guessing. Not obsessively. But vaguely, between other thoughts, he would wonder what you preferred under your work uniform. Were you the utilitarian, comfortable type? Did you prefer soft silky fabrics or revel in the naughty secret of lace, the thought of which taunted your patients and kept them up at night?

Somehow, he has become no better than the sex pests that frequent your office, clamoring for just a peak at your panties.

He really fucking despises you.

- - -

The stands are quiet now, chatter dying out as the time for the starting bell approaches. Hope is so often silent. It’s dread that deafens you with the noise, so it’s no wonder that your ears are ringing.

The bet is simple. You divide all the horses in the race between you. Whoever chooses the winner onto their roster wins.

Hanma accepts your terms without an argument, though you fear you spot a hint of malice in his eyes. A glint of gold that menaces you.

Prior to this week, you knew nothing about horse racing, but you prepared for this session, reviewing the history of every horse in the race and reading blogs to determine your best angle to victory. Hanma shows less circumspection in his draft, choosing mostly based on name. You almost chuckle when he picks a horse with terrible odds named Smooth Criminal. Typical.

From the stands, the horses appear tiny. The jumbo screen somehow equally fails to capture the size of the beasts and how they tower over the diminutive men that ride them. You saw a horse up close only once on a middle school field trip to a farm, and you remember your dreams of sweet ponies crashing down around you at their sheer scope.

Unlike the sturdy, passive farm horses you once saw, the racehorses are agitated. Preening primadonnas that stomp their hooves and crane their necks toward the crowd, as if they know all eyes are on them in the breathless moments before the race begins.

You fold your hands before your chin. It doesn’t matter now if Hanma can see your nerves. Of course, you’re nervous. You spent the better part of a week debating the best strategy to convince him to try lithium after spending the better part of two weeks consulting with experts about its likely efficacy for Hanma’s case. Your entire treatment strategy rides on the results of this bet.

Not to mention, you are pretty attached to your panties.

The moment before the race begins meanders, as if your nerves have frozen time, as if the few seconds have somehow gotten lost, but then they are off.

It amazes you how much anticipation is built for such a short race. The first furlong is finished in twelve seconds. Two horses draw slightly ahead of the pack. Both – Mezuki and Hiro’s Hero – belong to your team. Smooth Criminal trails not far behind in third place. The gap between the rest of the pack is small but substantial.

The horses thunder around the first turn, tilting precariously. It looks like the jockeys might slide off and be trampled underfoot.

You glance at Hanma. Repeatedly, he fiddles with his glasses, like he might zoom in for an even closer look at the action. His eyes are gleaming. Like, when he raced his car through town two weeks ago, though you could barely bear to open your eyes to look at him then. It is the same manic glee, life returned to a man who walks through the world like a zombie. The only other time you can remember him looking half so alive is when…

Muzzles bent low, the horses focus singularly on the track as it speeds by. Beneath their hooves, it looks like a treadmill cranked up to the highest level, like no animal should be able to move that quickly without the ground assisting underfoot.

Around the fourth furlong, Mezuki loses steam, slowing so that four horses can careen past him. Places three through eight swap constantly as the jockeys lay into their horses’ sides, and they release their last reserves of energy, but Hiro’s Hero remains stubbornly in first place with Smooth Criminal trailing him.

The horses round the last corner, drawing clearly into the crowd’s line of sight. Everyone forgets the jumbo screen with its artificial pixels to focus on the real thing happening before them.

So close to the finish line, and now Smooth Criminal gains a second wind. He gallops tight to the rails, reduces the gap with each bound. The jockey bounces wildly on the horse’s back as he all but flies forward. A hair’s breadth from overtaking Hiro’s Hero.

The excitement from earlier twists into anxiety. You are going to lose after all your thought and research. And then, you are going to burn from the inside out as you tell Hanma in detail just how often you dipped your fingers into your pussy this week, just how impossibly he haunted your fantasies, how tremendously the first orgasm shattered you and your tremulous grasp on ethics. All while you squirm in discomfort, your panties in his pocket.

You can’t. You can’t. You can’t.

Wildly, your hand seizes Hanma’s. Anything to anchor yourself. Cold rings bite into your fingers, and you retaliate by digging your neatly trimmed nails into his flesh. You both sit so close to victory or loss. He squeezes your hand.

And then…

The race is over. Hiro’s Hero crosses the finish line 0.7 seconds before Smooth Criminal comes in second place.

After that, all the other horses thunder past in a matter of seconds. The stadium is loud as people celebrate or bemoan their bad fortune. There will be another race in fifteen minutes, and all the hubbub will repeat itself, but for now, the event is over.

You breathe heavy. Your heart palpitates, not having gotten the message that you won. The deed is done, and you are victorious. Laughter sticks in your throat, no deeper, stuck in your soul. You pat the back of your neck and collarbones with a handkerchief. The residue of sweat isn’t removed so easily.

Only then do you realize you are still gripping Hanma’s hand and release him.

He is aglow with the same exhilaration. Despite his loss, his mouth is cut into a crooked line that you believe is his true smile, not the shark-like one with all teeth that he uses to intimidate.

This is why you chose to take Hanma to the track. While you admit that you are spiraling now, drawn into Hanma’s web and making terrible choices, there is professional justification for this at least. You determined that he needs to develop a roster of high adrenaline and high reward activities. Then, you can work on replacing his impulses, so that when he’s in the depths of depression, he chooses to bet on the horses rather than take it out on his fellow man. You should also work on lessening the intensity of his mania, not just its outlet.

But you must admit that in the depths of his mania you find Hanma the most beautiful.

The two of you stay for another hour. Hanma helps you place more bets – this time for money – on a number of horses, and you win a few thousand yen, enough for tomorrow’s lunch. Between races, you discuss the dosage, impact, and potential negative side-effects of lithium. Hanma listens to you carefully and without resistance; he lost after all. He is not pleased when you inform him that he will need to reduce and ideally cut out drinking and drugs altogether but does not argue.

While you discuss his treatment, he almost feels like a typical patient, albeit one you’ve met at a horse track. You start to relax into the role within which you spend almost all your time. You feel confident.

The day is still young when you exit the racecourse. Flimsy white clouds layer on top of one another like brushstrokes to block out the sun and paint the day in muted blue tones.

There is no reason not to take the subway home. In fact, it would likely be faster. Still, when Hanma offers you a ride, you accept gratefully. You wish to share a few more ideas about his treatment.

The Bentley from your hellish drag race is gone, and you are reminded at its absence that you vowed that day to never get in a car with this man again. Today, however, he is not planning to get behind the wheel. A sleek black town car pulls up to curb, complete with a driver.

You have never been in a car like this one. The back is partitioned for privacy and there are two rows of seats facing each other, almost like the car is a shrunken limo. You nestle contentedly onto one side as Hanma stretches out on the other. The space is cramped, and your knees knock together.

“I know you’re going to make fun of me for giving you more homework, but I would like you to do one more thing. This one’s critically important, actually. Start documenting how you feel on a scale of one to ten. I have a phone app you can use. If you could log it three times a day at least, but ideally, whenever you feel your mood shifting. Whenever you fall below a four, add a few notes about what is running through your mind. We want to start identifying what your thought patterns look like so that we can replace them with something more productive.”

You show him the app on your phone, and he obediently downloads and creates an account. He even agrees to friend you, so that you can check his log in real time.

“Sometimes people struggle with the number scale because they question their instincts about what number they should choose. So, why don’t we do a test round? Hanma-san, what number would you give yourself right now in terms of mood with ten being the best and one the worst?”

Hanma doesn’t take more than a second to answer. “A two.”

A little puff of air escapes you like a burst balloon. You were having fun, you realize. You were having fun and therefore assumed Hanma was as well.

“Only a two?”

“Of course, I’m in a foul mood,” Hanma confirms. His arms stretch out across the seat, taking up his entire side of the car like some enormous bird of prey. “You’re a fucking tease, aren’t you? Getting my hopes up and then crushing them. Didn’t even give me a sniff of your panties to give me a reason to live. Fucking soulless of you.”

Sometimes, when Hanma flirts with you, your insides squirm and dance with pleasure at the attention. Your pancreas becomes the giggling schoolgirl you never were in your youth, your liver a blushing bride, your kidneys twin whores for the sound of his voice. But now there is the threat of meanness behind his words, and you find little reason to delight.

“I’m sorry that you lost our bet, Hanma-san,” you get out through a tight throat. “If you’re struggling with losing, maybe we should play another game. Is there…is there another game you’d like to play?”

Wildly inappropriate, but you vow that you will not bet your underwear or details about how you touched yourself to the thought of him, regardless of what he suggests next. You’ll let him win something to assuage his ego. That’s all.

Hanma smiles, feral and far too happy, and then he does something that drains all the color from the lovely day you were having. Something that leaves you wondering how you could ever have been stupid enough to get in a car with this man.

He pulls out a gun.

“Actually, Doc, I know just the game,” Hanma singsongs. “One round of Russian Roulette for the lady!”

You have only seen a gun once in your life, and that was a smoking gun, just shot into a man’s skull by the very man before you. It may even be the same weapon, though he probably replaced it. How did they even get guns into the country? A stupid question. Your brain is simply spiraling. Anything to avoid confronting the weapon before you. To avoid cataloguing its details, like that it looks like a plastic toy, not the shiny metal you imagined at all. It has a long, straight nozzle – is that even the right term for it? – resembling a stapler that tapers into a fat handle. Your eyes train on the trigger, unable to look away.

There’s supposed to be a safety, right? To stop it from just firing? Was it on now? What did a safety even look like.

The car jolts over a pothole, and you almost vomit.

Hanma opens the chamber, dumping the bullets out before reloading just two. Two death sentences and ten possible pardons.

“You look like you aren’t familiar with the rules, Doc. No need to worry. It’s easy,” Hanma says. “Look, I’ll even go first.”

Before you can summon the strength to stop him, to protest, the gun rises to Hanma’s temple, the little nozzle slotting right into the flesh, and he pulls the trigger.

You don’t hear the click as the gun engages. The sound is drowned out by your strangled little gasp. An image of Hanma but not Hanma blurs before your vision. It is an un-head, a space where a head should be, blood and gore and shattered bone fragments unlike anything you’ve ever imagined.

And then, you’re blinking rapidly, and the image is gone, and it is a smiling Hanma before you. His skull is firmly intact, his handsome face unblemished.

It is not the face of a man but a demon. Only a demon could laugh so maliciously as you slump bloodless against your headrest. You fixate on the cold – the car is frigid, air-conditioning pelting against your numbed legs – anything to protect your fragile psyche from the reality of the demon in front of you.

“You know, this is the twelfth time I’ve played this game. I should be dead now. Maybe next time,” Hanma says.

You stay stubbornly silent. He can playact this little drama all by himself, you won’t give him the satisfaction. Not that you can stop him as he drinks up every quiver of your body with glee. Not that you could speak if you tried through a mouth made of sandpaper.

Hanma extends the gun toward you, but you don’t move.

Sighing, he kneels in front of you on the floor of the car. It rocks as he moves, and you worry again that the gun could misfire.

“Do you need some help, baby? I’ve got you.”

Strange, but you don’t resist as Hanma puts the gun in your hand. You don’t resist as he folds your fingers around the handle and then the trigger. You don’t resist as he draws the gun and hand alike up to your own temple, positioning it for a clean shot.

And, you don’t resist as he presses his finger against yours and the gun fires.

Nothing happens. A great stirring stillness. You didn’t even scream.

You could have died. You almost died.

The realization is building up with the promise of earth-shattering destruction. Had you died, your last thought would have been of nothing, brain too numbed for regrets or memories. No, or rather, you had no memories worth remembering. Your life was a vast desert with only loneliness and missed opportunity to keep you company. You might have died without ever having lied.

You could have died.

Time must have passed while your brain sat on pause because you suddenly become aware of your surroundings. You are now spread across Hanma’s lap, the man almost purring as he strokes your hair in a mockery of comfort.

You know you must be alive because the anger that courses through your veins is too powerful for a dead woman. You slap him with all your strength – not because you want to spare him the pain of a punch but because you can’t wait the half-second it would take to form a fist. No, instead, you are striking him everywhere with an open palm. Twice heavily on his chest, so that he jostles a little against his seat. But you crave skin, so you slap him across the face again and again as the rage possesses you.

“Get it all out, baby,” Hanma murmurs quietly.

He sounds unaffected, like all this means nothing! The answering anger drives you to twist about on his lap, so that your thighs straddle him. Now, you can draw back and put more forth behind your blows. Bright red blooms on his cheek at your next hit.

“Oh, yeah, do that again,” Hanma moans.

You do. Again and again. A little harder each time as Hanma makes little noises and writhes beneath you. Somewhere in your consciousness, you are aware of the way his hips buck a little at each hit, and how they strike like a bullet between your parted legs, but you can only consider where you will hit him next, how to make him hurt.

The next slap is aimed higher, lower on the palm as you target his glasses. You want to shatter them in his eyes, blind him forever. He doesn’t deserve to even look at you. The force knocks them askew, though they remain unbroken.

Completely disheveled with hair tangled in every direction, bright red cheeks, and glasses dangling off his nose, Hanma decides he’s had enough. The next slap is stopped by his much larger hand capturing your wrist. You immediately default to the other, but he stops that one as well. Your hands are effectively disarmed. You struggle wildly, thrashing from side to side and bucking your hips to unseat him, but Hanma weathers it all. He isn’t laughing anymore, but he doesn’t look angry either, at least not as you now understand anger to be a seething beast that can’t be stopped. No, he looks alight with something else.

Hanma can pin you down all he likes, your anger still demands to be fed. It will have blood.

You throw your whole torso forward, heads knocking clumsily. Your teeth find his lower lip easily, a tender piece of meat beneath your front teeth. They close tight around it.

Iron floods your mouth and spills over both your lips. Hanma’s mouth is parted as he grunts loudly, and the noise is swallowed up by your own mouth.

Hanma releases your pinned hands but makes no effort to dislodge you. Instead, they firmly grip your ass, pull you closer into his lap. You tug cruelly at his bleeding lip, and he kneads your flesh in return.

The beast of your anger howls in triumph at every pained breath that escapes Hanma’s lips, and as it sates itself on Hanma’s blood, more feeling returns to you. For example, you acknowledge fully how large and powerful the hands on your ass are, how much territory they cover with spread fingers. Then, there’s the way his hard thigh drives into the core of you, sinful as only a demon could be. And, the hard hot length of him is there, too, pressing into your stomach.

You don’t only hunger for his blood.

Hanma spanks your ass with both hands, hard enough that you release his lip on a shallow gasp. Free for a moment, he rips at your clothes. You instinctively lift your hips to help him, step out of your pants and panties as they slide off, and scramble at the buttons of your shirt so that it slips off your shoulders. You work together to make quick work of his belt.

Helpfully, you arch upwards as Hanma busies himself beneath you. The head of his cock smears across your cunt. It collects wetness you hadn’t realized pooled between your legs, cuts a path through the heat of you.

He is utterly focused on the feel of you, on the feel of his own cock, staring down in concentration. You are more focused on his face. Chin and mouth are covered in blood. The wound is still oozing from how deeply you bit him.

The rigid cock between your legs finds the opening of you and spears through. You aren’t prepped, and it hurts. Despite the inflexible ring of muscle fighting against him, Hanma makes it fit anyway.

The sting is sharp. You lean forward and take the other side of his lower lip between your teeth. It breaks beneath your bite just as easily, leaving him with a second wound like a set of piercings on either side. Hanma hisses at the pain, and you both hover still and pierced by the other.

When the pain in your belly lessens, you relax, and gravity does its job of sinking you lower on his cock. It is large just like everything else on this giant of a man. It doesn’t just not hurt. It feels good.

A shiver starts in your toes and vibrates up your entire body. Ringing pleasure in your nipples. Soothing comfort from the hands that again knead your ass.

You part from his mouth to lift your hips. Deliberately, you ride him in a slow grind that scrapes your clit along his navel and pushes his cock against your back walls.

He touches a place so deep inside you it feels like a secret just discovered.

“That’s it. Use it, baby. Use it however you like,” Hanma moans out.

You accept his offer. You gratefully grip his shoulders to support your slick grind in his lap. He doesn’t try to lead you at all, doesn’t try to encourage you to bounce on his cock. Let’s you shift back and forth until your stomach is squirming and your eyes are watering.

“Use that cock to cum,” Hanma encourages. His helpful hands are wandering now. They squeeze a tit dangling out of your open shirt, tickle your upper thighs, and caress your sensitive sides. “Cream all over me, baby.”

The walls of your pussy clench tight, shutting Hanma up, or at least, transforming his words into stuttering groans. The last thing you need right now is him telling you what to do. No, you’ll cum when you’re ready.

You’ll just sink your weight down fully, so that he spears that heavenly deep spot inside you and circle your hips a few times so that no part goes untouched, raise your hips on each upward grind, so that your clit is rubbed raw, and then…only then…

You cum.

You cum and it is annihilation and it is rebirth in one. Your hips twitch and your muscles tighten around a burst of pleasure that is almost agonizing in its strength. Tears spring to your eyes. You are cumming, and it feels a little bit like heaven might, only it isn’t heaven at all, because this is living. You are alive. There is blood coursing through your veins and nerves lighting up throughout your body because you are alive. And you will live to cum again, and again, and again, whether that be by tongue or cock or your own hand. And you are so unbelievably grateful for it.

Limp like a doll, you slump into Hanma’s arms. His cock is the first anchor, holding firm inside you, and his shoulder the second as you tuck your chin into the crook of him. Spasmodic flinches of pleasure dance through your pussy even as the orgasm ends. Your body is so worked up, and your brain is so very very tired. It is a fog, not so different than how you felt when Hanma pulled the trigger. You hum in contentment.

Hanma lifts your hips up, so strong you don’t fear he’ll drop you for a second and begins to thrust up into the slick of you. Warm, wet breath tickles your ear as Hanma pants through his thrusting. Now that it’s his turn, he uses you hard and fast. Each thrust is a punch that forces the air from your lungs. In other circumstances, it might hurt, but now you just sink into the weight of him inside you, and how that means you are wonderfully and truly alive.

To be stretched and used so thoroughly! To be touched by another person, greedy hands roaming your back, pinching and prodding at soft flesh!

Hanma grunts out what a good girl you are, how well you’re taking him, how hot you feel. It is a kind of lullaby.

You are ten percent woman and 90 percent desire at this point, pent up from a month of sexual neglect. Before Hanma, you didn’t much mind the dry spell, turning to your vibrator in times of trouble. But now…every time you are about to cum, Hanma ruins it for you. His smirking face will appear right at the critical moment and your hand will freeze even as your body begs to continue. The line remains uncrossed, your orgasm remains denied, and you have run out of good will towards your patient.

A week of edging changes the way you walk, the way you interact with the world. You wear only skirts because the press of pants is distracting. You are nibbling the tips of pens, unthinkingly caressing your inner arms, seeing innuendo in every skyline.

Today is the day of your third session with Hanma, in-office this time, and you admit you need a game plan. On the train ride to your office, you stare out the window and reflect on your situation. You do what you would recommend to your clients and create a mental safe space, free of judgment and repression, where everything is on the table.

Truth #1 – You want to fuck Hanma. There is something cliché about the danger that draws you in, yes, but it is the back-and-forth that your mind summons in your dirty dreams, the way he banters back that leaves you hyper-present in your body.

Truth #2 – Repressing your desire is not working. Your swollen, edged cunt is evidence enough.

Truth #3 – You are terrified. You are terrified of the professional consequences of exploring this desire. Terrified of the power exchange if Hanma sniffs out the intensity of your desire and weaponizes it against you. Terrified of the moral implications of seeing a man commit murder and wanting to jump him hours later.

You sigh so loudly that a passenger beside you sends a concerned look your way. The hypocrisy surprises even you. You are supposed to help Hanma learn to control his impulses and consider the long-term consequences of his actions. Meanwhile, you are suffering an out of character risk-taking streak.

To jump or not to jump…

You arrive before your receptionist, flipping on the lights to the four-room office your rent for your practice: waiting area, bathroom, storage closet, and office. The rent is exorbitant given the size of the leased space because of its proximity to Ueno Station, but that’s why you chose it. You figured the moneyed elite and overworked masses alike would look for convenience and find your practice. That investment has paid off four-fold. After paying your overhead, you bring home more than you would make working in someone else’s practice.

The waiting area is cramped, but you have always found your office spacious. A twelve-tatami mat room, which is plenty for one-on-one talk therapy. When you want to create closeness with patients, you draw their chair nearer your desk. When you want to enforce boundaries, you sit behind your desk and allow its imposing weight to shield you.

The tacky yellow sofa now taking up the east half of the room makes the room feel significantly smaller.

Three days earlier, two non-descript men barged into your office, arms loaded with boxes. They demanded to know which room you used to see patients, and when answered, set to work unboxing and building the sofa then and there. They wouldn’t answer your questions, but something in the width of their shoulders warned you shouldn’t try to stop them.

You know damn well who is behind the unwanted gift. Like Hanma’s face floating before your mind’s eye before you can cum, it is an intrusion. An unwanted one.

The hours pass swiftly as you debate how to present yourself to Hanma when he arrives. You decide the most important thing is to conceal your conflict of interest. You cannot let him suspect what plagues you.

Would forced casualness throw him off the scent of your desire? Going on the aggressive? What if he baits you with sexual overtures again? What would an unaffected person do in response?

At the exact strike of 4 PM, your receptionist informs you that Hanma has arrived for his appointment. He walks into your office, and you can’t resist a quick glance up and down to take in the full breadth of him. He is breathtakingly tall.

Hanma confirms every one of your suspicions when he disregards the chair reserved for patients and lays down on the sofa. Annoyed, you momentarily forget why you find him attractive in the first place.

“You really don’t have to lay down, Hanma-san. It makes no difference,” you say.

“It makes every difference. It’s helping me get into the mood. And hello to you, too, Doc,” Hanma purrs.

“Well, your comfort is most important,” you grit out.

“Exactly!”

In just a few words, Hanma twists your entire life’s work into a big joke that exists for his pleasure. Years of self-restraint are all that prevent you from scowling at him, from chasing him from the room under a hail of paper cuts.

The session kicks off easily at first with the typical exchange of pleasantries. He is playing nice, and you almost wish he wouldn’t, so you had an excuse to take your temper out on him.

After some thought and research, you have concluded that cognitive behavioral therapy is the best fit for Hanma’s issues. Common to address struggles with depression and anxiety, there is research that suggests it can also be effective for patients with ASPD. The general concept is that problems can be traced back to inciting patterns of behavior. If the patient can learn to recognize those patterns as they are occurring, the patient will be able to write new patterns over time that are more helpful to daily life.

To start, you instruct Hanma to walk you through his day so far with a focus on any times he was atypically bored or engaged.

“Got up at six, went to the gym and then the dojo for a bit. No one was there to spar, but I kept myself busy. I’m never bored really when I’m exercising or fighting, even if I do wish for a better opponent. Took a shower, got dressed, ate breakfast. Standard stuff. Boring, but didn’t want to blow my brains out,” Hanma explains.

Not so different from how you would answer the same question.

You follow up, “What do you think about while getting ready?”

“Well, I jerked off in the shower,” Hanma sneers, and you visibly recoil. All your mental coaching did not prepare you for the brutal impact of hearing those words said aloud, “But then mostly the itinerary for the day.”

“Do you think to yourself, ‘this is going to be a boring day,’ as you think through your plains?” you ask.

“How could I not? Though I did have some hopes for a problem I went out to address in Ginza.”

“Tell me about it.”

The joke of lounging on the couch like a talk-therapy patient in the movies does not last long. Hanma is a surprisingly engaged conversationalist. With each question and answer, he slowly angles his body more towards you, liking to make eye contact as he speaks. By the time he begins to tell his story about Ginza, he is seated upright and leant towards you with his elbows balanced on sharp knees.

“First thing is to understand that we have the racket all over the city, including Ginza, but it’s trickier there. Too many billion-dollar multinationals: Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton, Nike. Even the local stores get a better-than-thou attitude, so sometimes they resent paying for protection, think they can handle themselves without paying their mikajimeryo, and we have to remind them of the dangers of going it alone in this hard world.”

“So, you needed to threaten some shop owners,” you summarize.

“Not quite. You’ve gotten be patient,” Hanma scolds. “The last few years, we’ve run into fewer problems in Ginza because of the gaijin swarming the district. Used to be Ginza was a classy place, but the foreigners bring money, and the money brings out the touts. You can’t spit at night without hitting one tout or another. The business owners in the area don’t care for that, so many have started paying extra for us to take care of the problem and keep their clientele to a high standard.”

“Businesses pay you to scare away people they don’t consider good enough?” you ask, surprised you can be surprised.

“Oh yeah, big global names. See, the police can’t do anything because it’s not a crime to stand on the sidewalk. We do everyone a favor and keep the streets clean.”

“Wouldn’t a squad of yakuza enforcers be worse than the touts?” you ask skeptically.

“Some of our guys clean up nice. Anyway, Doc, stay on topic. I know the criminal underbelly is interesting to your virgin ears, but this is my therapy.”

Chastened, you gesture for Hanma to continue.

“Last few weeks, some of the touts have been organizing. We’re getting reports that they’re armed and putting up a fight when our guys try to send them packing. There’s a new generation of kids coming up in Shinjuku, probably one percent our size, but they’ve got promise and have yet to bend the knee. Thought this might be an early power grab from them and wanted to investigate. So, I went out to Ginza to crack some heads,” Hanma says.

“And?”

“And nothing. Just some drunk idiots trying to make a dollar and not realizing who they were messing with. No evidence that the Shinjuku brats are involved, let alone making a play against us.”

“Smart of them to not challenge the Tokyo Manji gang,” you comment.

“Smart but dull. There was a time in the early days, when we were vying for the crown, where there was a new contender every month: Terano, the Haitanis, Senju, not to mention all the older families we had to displace to carve out our spot. It’s probably been three years since there was any real challenge domestically,” Hanma says.

“When you realized that the Shinjuku gang wasn’t involved, did you do anything in frustration? What happened to the touts you were interrogating?”

Hanma has unsettling eyes. A light brown that almost looks yellow through the reflection of his glasses. Right now, they are equal parts predatory and playful, almost feline as he sizes you up.

“There was a moment, when I contemplated making my turf war happen. I could head to Shinjuku, find some of their upper-mid-level guys and break their spines. Send a message. Get them angry enough that they forget caution and come at us with everything they have. I was halfway to my car when I decided against it,” Hanma says.

“What stopped you?”

“I would have missed our appointment.”

You can hear the drip of the fountain in your waiting room. There are high school boys walking on strong legs, unparalyzed today, because Hanma wanted to see you. There is an awful power that thrums through your veins. You uncross your legs because the slight pressure against your pubis is suddenly overpowering.

“And the touts? Are they still walking free?” you ask to diffuse the tension.

“They’re all on Toman’s payroll now. Did us the favor of unionizing, so an easy matter to swoop in and take ownership.”

“So what? You’ll put them to use in another part of town?”

There is no professional basis for this question. You are speaking to Hanma like this is a casual chat between friends. Your curiosity is pinged, and now you simply want to know what comes next.

“You’re very innocent, you know that?” Hanma says, and he sounds both amused and disdainful. “No, they’ll keep working in Ginza. Send people through to our establishments.”

“But the stores are paying you to keep the touts out,” you protest.

“And they’ll keep paying. The touts become a double revenue stream. They drive business to our businesses. Then, we pretend to drive them out just enough to collect our fee. Millions of yen go to Koko, and the yakuza keeps on turning,” Hanma explains.

Always so strange to consider the second world that operated just below the surface. How often do you visit a bar or walk down a street and the signs of the yakuza are plain to see for someone in the know, yet you continue on none the wiser? When your time with Hanma inevitably comes to a permanent end, will you be able to go back to your previous ignorance? Or will you always see the stain of organized crime on your city? Maybe you should move to Kyoto.

“I’ve asked you to walk me through a time you were bored before, what you felt, what you did. Because my hypothesis is that you react impulsively when bored, you…lash out for a lack of a better term. I want to narrow in on what exactly triggers you, but I’d also like to better understand what ‘lashing out’ looks like for you. What’s something you do that you later regret?”

Hanma folds his hands in front of his chin, crossing the fingers together and sliding them back and forth. The movement draws attention to those terrible tattoos.

“Depends on what you mean by ‘lashing out.’ If it’s by my standards, by Kisaki’s, or by society’s.”

“Your entire lifestyle is unacceptable by society’s standards, and I’ve spoken to Kisaki-san at length,” you say dryly. Perversely, Kisaki is largely unbothered by Hanma’s violent outbursts so long as he punches down in their organization or against civilians. He is most bothered by Hanma’s tardiness from important meetings and sloppiness with crime scenes. You continue, “I know his concerns. I want to know yours.”

“See, that’s the thing, doc. I don’t regret anything I do. Yeah, I don’t always think a thing through before I do it, but I never feel guilty about it afterward. It’s just something I did.”

You narrow your eyes in displeasure. It’s a straightforward answer in line with the research, yes, but you think he ought to feel a tad guilty for what he has reduced you to. A little shame for ruining your nights. So, a hint of malice colors your professionalism at the next question.

“Have you ever wanted to learn a skill? Something that you can’t learn in a few hours, something you have to actually study for?”

“I learned to fight.”

“As an adult.”

“I hope you’re not suggesting I learn to code. Hoping I switch careers?”

“I wonder if you could learn to code, even if you wanted to,” you say, too combative. “It requires that you sit down and focus on one thing for hours at a time, that you have the discipline to return to it day after day, even if it gets boring. Do you think you could do that?”

The hollows of Hanma’s cheeks grow stark as his face sours. His mouth twists and then opens, teeth bared. The mien of an animal.

“Think you’re smarter than me? Got yourself a degree and a second-rate office, and you think that makes you any more than one of a hundred other prissy graduates just like you?”

Dry enough to hurt, you try to will saliva back into your mouth. The insults bounce right off, but the intensity! Hanma’s body arcs from the couch, primed as if to lunge for your throat at any moment. Those white teeth are menacing when on display, when focused on you. A slight misstep, and you think he might actually hurt you.

He might actually want to hurt you.

Fear seizes you up, and you forget why you felt bitter towards him in the first place.

“I’m not trying to insult you, Hanma-san. I only want to help you reflect on what limitations you may experience because of the symptoms we’ve discussed,” you say.

It is a feat of self-control, the way you meet his amber eyes, almost yellow like a serpent. One by one, the coiled muscles unlock and sink back into the waiting couch. You are not relieved. His relaxation appears unnatural and forced. You know how quickly he can move.

“Contrary to how it may sound, I don’t think you have no self-control. I suspect that you actually exercise a great deal every single day. How many times a day are you bored or frustrated or want something and yet manage to stop yourself from ‘lashing out?’ Dozens? Hundreds? That doesn’t suggest someone with low self-control.”

Each word lands carefully, chosen so as not to provoke him further. Someone honks twice on the street below. It’s the only sound over the hum of the air conditioner and your forced steady breathing. The stubborn silence reminds you of your first session with him.

Gingerly, you attempt a return to questions. “All the times you do manage to stop yourself, how do you do it? What do you feel or think to yourself in those moments?”

“I’m done answering questions for nothing, doc. I’ll answer if you agree to play a game with me.”

Moments before you contemplated if Hanma would strange you where you sat. Alone in the office, it would be hours before your corpse was discovered. You should not be entertaining games.

“What kind of game?”

“Oh, a game you’ll like. I promise,” Hanma grins, too many teeth like a shark. “It’ll be a game of truth and deceit.”

You were a lonely child. Isolated from your neighbors by your mother’s erratic behavior and too studious to be popular in school. When the other children gathered to play oni gokko or juggle otedama, you typically sat out on the sidelines and watched. Your world was too cruel to embrace such light-hearted children’s games.

To this day, the prospect of a game makes your heart clench a little. That age old insecurity that you would not know the rules.

You nod your agreement.

“Yeah, I think about ‘lashing out’ all the time – cute term, by the way. Very euphemistic. When I don’t, well it could be for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes I’m tired or hungry, and I just can’t summon up the energy. Other times, it’s because I want something else more. I can play the long game when the prize is good enough,” Hanma says.

“Like when you spared those touts because you didn’t want to miss our session,” you say. A mistake.

Hanma purrs, “Exactly.”

You cross your legs at the ankle. Then, recross them at the knee. The band of your stocking pinches into your thigh. The long game sounds ominous.

“It gets boring for me, just answering your questions. I need a bit more of a challenge. So, here’s the game. It’s called two truths and a lie. Heard of it?” You nod, and Hanma continues. “I’m going to give you three answers to every question. One will be a lie, but you won’t know which one.”

“That’s not very conducive to your therapy,” you say.

“No, but it’s very conducive to my fun. Besides, we’ll both enjoy watching you struggle to sort fact from fiction. Maybe you’ll learn all my tells!”

When you interviewed Hakkai, he told you Hanma was one of the best gamblers in Toman. He excelled at poker, games where concealing your emotions and reading others’ were advantages. You know he’ll make it near impossible to read him. What he doesn’t know is that you are an excellent poker player yourself.”

“Alright, I’m sure you’ll make this interesting.” You are rewarded by Hanma’s smile, a little less mercenary than the last. Only now, with this concession of power, do you feel the threat of imminent harm fade away. “Are there any long-term goals that you would like to work toward but have struggled with because of your impulsivity?”

“Yes…no…I don’t know.”

Right, then.

“I’d like to know more about your attention span to things that you might find boring, and I have an idea. Kind of homework. Would be open to that if I gave you some?”

Hanma groans, the game temporarily forgotten. “Fuck, I’m still barely surviving the sexy doctor thing. You can’t go adding sexy teacher to the list, too. I’ll rub my dick raw.

Raw clit, tensed thighs, unsatiated need. You know exactly what he means.

“We’ll save the homework for before you leave…Why don’t you miss our sessions? Why aren’t they boring to you?”

“One, they are boring to me. Two, because I think you can make me better. Three, because I want to fuck you on that desk.”

The worst part of this game is that you can’t afford to take your eyes off him for a moment, no matter what degrading, ugly, exhilarating words drawl from that red mouth. The lie is there, and you must study him as he studies you in turn. You should be flattered, either he thinks you’re excellent at your job, or he thinks you’re attractive. You are not so delusionally flattered as to believe the former.

You decide questions with brief answers are a waste of the game format.

“Share with me your two happiest memories from the past year that don’t involve any fighting, violence, drugs, or sex.”

A silver tongue may lie but concocting complete memories out of thin air is a stretch. Hanma’s brows pinch together as he thinks through this challenge, searching for truths and lies that can dupe you. You tell him to take his time, take out your phone, and pretend to scroll through your messages instead.

Your mid-day message from Takashi sits unread. He says his clients have finally confirmed when they’ll fly in to meet, a few months from now, but he wants to clear that he’ll have to stay at a hotel with them ahead of time. He is so considerate of your schedule.

“I went to the Sumida River Fireworks festival this year. Or, I didn’t go to the festival itself, didn’t even remember it was happening. I was on a boat out on the river. Sometimes we do business on boats because it’s easier to sweep for bugs. I was the last one onboard, just standing up on the deck, and then boom. The first firework took me completely by surprise. I thought it was a gunshot. I remember it was gold and purple. The colors of god’s power and a samurai’s strength. I used to pickpocket at the festival as a kid, but I never much enjoyed the fireworks. Too crowded. Out on the boat, the only person for miles, and I felt the meaning of the festival for the first time ever.”

“What meaning?”

Hanma bends closer again, avid. His voice as he describes the night is gentle, so deep you strain to hear the words. “It’s a celebration of death, isn’t it? All those fireworks to send off those that have passed. The magnitude of it! It’s how it feels to kill someone. I imagine it’s how it feels to die. And, we all stand looking death in the face by the million, celebrating it. I was…touched.”

The precursor to the Sumida River Fireworks festival, or the first depending on your perspective, was held to memorialize the victims of the Kyōhō famine. You attended the festival in July as well, though actively mingling among the street vendors, lovers, and gaping children. Takashi bought you dango like you were a little girl – not that your mother ever spoiled you with sweets – and you marveled at the pretty pyrotechnics in the sky. The connection to death and remembrance felt far away as life swirled all around you in the crowd.

A pretty idea, an even prettier picture: him in the boat, alone at night. A man drifting on a river lit up by fireworks. You want to believe it’s true, which makes you instantly doubt him.

“Or maybe, I’m lying,” Hanma says in a frank tone, and the pretty spell is broken altogether. “Who can really say?”

“Give me another story, Hanma-san,” you order.

“Hmm, well there is another great memory…I was indicted, what was that, eleven months ago now? Judge said I represented an exceptional circumstance and might destroy evidence or intimidate witnesses – no idea where he got that idea – and didn’t grant me bail. I spent the full twenty-three confinement period in jail. You want to talk about boring? There are only so many fights I could pick in the prison yard before even that lost its shine.”

Hanma’s voice sails above the story like the whole ordeal is beneath him, emphasizing a word here or there to play up some inside joke or humor about his situation. What strikes you is the distance between this voice and the one he used to describe the fireworks. Even his speech patterns have changed.

“It was a bullshit charge, and the prosecutors knew it. I mean, you can lock me up, but I have plenty of friends to destroy evidence and intimidate witnesses for me, so they had to drop the indictment. The best day was when they let me out. Doing all that boring old shit on the outside felt like rediscovering religion. Or pussy. Actually, I literally rediscovered pussy that day. But it was also the city, the bars, my own fucking bed. It was a damn fine day.”

You flip through your mental rolodex of interviews about Hanma. Kisaki vaguely mentioned that Hanma had been arrested while opining on how Hanma’s sloppiness was going to take down the lot of them. All before jumping to assure you that you needn’t fear criminal prosecution for your participation as they were more than proficient at making such nasty business disappear.

Once again, Hanma’s story paints him as an almost romantic figure.

“What was your charge?”

“Oh, DUI.”

“…A DUI?”

“Not easy to get a top Toman exec, so when they could put some bullshit on me, they did. I learned my lesson not to drink and motorbike, cross my heart and hope to die.”

There is something brown and dusty stuck to the bottom of Hanma’s shoe. The sole is flipped up toward you, and you can see it clinging there. Maybe it’s dog shit, just like what he is trying to sell you.

“Last one,” you venture.

“Last one,” Hanma agrees.

This time, his voice is almost flat, conversational by a normal person’s standards versus his typical goading. An actor who can take the shape of any character at a moment’s notice.

“Hakkai’s birthday is in September. Can’t remember the exact day, but he convinced a few of us to celebrate. His sister owns a hot spring up in Hokkaido, so we all traveled there for a few days to get away. I like a hot spring in theory, but there’s not much to actually do when you’re soaking. But, I like Hakkai well enough. He’s funny. And, his sister is exactly like him but tougher. It was the rainy season, so we had torrential rains most days and didn’t use the hot springs as often. But the air tasted like autumn itself, and we would stand under the umbrellas and look out at the town below, just talking for hours. What made it really special was when dinner came around though. I’ve never tasted such fatty salmon in my life. Every bite tasted better than the last: ikura, sashimi, grilled, mountains and mountains of delicious salmon. I plan to go back every September until I die.”

A sting and you realize you have been worrying your lip without realizing, such a rare tell for you. Meanwhile, Hanma remains inscrutable. His body language, posture, and voice transformed between each memory, but none read as falser than the other. He constantly shifts around during conversation, playacting different identities and abandoning them a moment later. The truest moments with him have felt defined by their intensity rather than any specific behaviors on his part.

Unsettling to realize even those moments with him where reality came into sharp relief may have been nothing but illusions.

“Well, what do you say? Did you spot the lie?” Hanma asks.

Guarded, you drink slowly from your water bottle. Your lips are still dry from the abrupt terror you experienced earlier. Hanma watches you, but you look elsewhere, not so obvious as to signal your discomfort, just to the blank patch of plaster above his right ear. It is a welcome break to be able to look at something other than him for a few moments. When you watch him closely, it feels like the world shrinks around you until he encompasses the entirety of the universe.

And, just like the universe itself, he is unfathomable.

“I never agreed to share my guesses,” you say.

Hanma tuts. “That’s no fun. I put so much thought and effort into our game. You should reward me for it.”

“You should reward yourself by just telling me the real answer. Your treatment will be helped by honesty.”

There isn’t much time left in your session if your internal clock is to be believed, and you shouldn’t waste these final minutes arguing. Yet, you hesitate to just answer the damn question.

“How about we make one more deal?” Hanma offers. You doubt there will ever be an end to deals and bets and games and tricks with him. “You tell me your guess, and you agree to give me two truths and a lie to a question of my choice. In exchange, I’ll tell you honestly if you’re right or wrong.”

Another timewaster, but he wants it badly. You can see the kinetic energy in his hands as they gesture around the room. Those long arms sweeping stale air in your direction.

You suppose there isn’t much time left if he’s going to insist on this dramatic two truths and a lie format anyway.

“The first one. You’re lying about the first one.”

“Interesting. Why do you think that?”

Because a sick romantic part of you wants the first to be true.

“Because it doesn’t make sense that you’re the only one on the boat. Why didn’t you get off with your colleagues? Whose boat is it? Why are you driving? Too many unanswered questions.”

“Technicalities,” Hanma waves off.

“Does that mean I’m wrong?” you insist.

“’Fraid you lost. Try again next time,” Hanma says.

Talking to Hanma always sends your limbic system into a tailspin. Often accompanied by twinges throughout your body. A pain in your chest when he threatens you. A swirl of nausea when he hurts someone else. A shameful, secret pulse between your legs when he…well, it doesn’t take much. This is the first time you feel something around your heart, light and airy.

Your eyes are open to the office in front of you, yet your brain focuses on the imagined image of Hanma on that boat. Hair windswept to the side. Sky lit up by falling stars. Black water lapping the edges of the boat. Awe on his face? No, tenderness. So much tenderness.

“Tell me the three dirtiest, kinkiest, nastiest things you’ve ever done in the history of your prissy sex life.”

You were delusional to ever think the words ‘tenderness’ and ‘Hanma’ together.

“Absolutely not!”

“You know it’s getting boring, reminding you every time that you have to play fair. I’ve kept my end of the bargain, and now you need to keep yours,” Hanma goads.

“Why does my end of the bargain always cost my dignity? “you snap back.

Hanma appears to really think about it for a moment, and then, “Learn to negotiate better.”

“Learn to take no for an answer,” you shoot back.

“You know, I like this part. The part where you put up a little fight, like you don’t want to follow my orders like a good girl –”. Shame, hot cunt, and swollen pride – “It’s adorable. But you know, doc, I don’t think you’re strong when you put up a fight. Nothing strong about resisting what you want. The weak cower. The strong take.”

A couple hours on transference in a seminar your fourth year of school did not prepare you for this moment. The guidebooks did not detail so sophisticated a trap. To play along would be to submit to his whims, to cede professional distance. To deny now would be to accept the label of weakness, to cede power. (And yes, to deny what you yourself want.) You don’t think you could convince him otherwise.

Less than a quarter hour left in your session. In half an hour, you will be locking up and boarding the train home. You might stop in at a bar a few blocks from your apartment. The clientele is friendly, and you always feel a little less lonely after drinking up the conversation around you for an hour. Then, it will be an empty apartment, a few papers on recent medical studies, cooking an elaborate meal that will go mostly uneaten just to fill the time. There will be no distracting you from replaying this session with Hanma on repeat until the moment your brain slows to a sleep tonight.

Usually straight-backed, you make a show of slumping into your own seat, matching his posture – minus, naturally, the spread legs – and smile.

“Right out of university, I had a roommate, a year older than me. She had this boyfriend, who was constantly coming over. Sometimes I caught him looking at me, and I liked it. I encouraged it a little. It felt dangerous but turns out they both liked it, too. They would invite me to join them sometimes, and I would,” you say.

Hanma smiles so big you could drown in it. “Oh yeah, and what would you do? Kiss your little girlfriend all over?” You nod. “Hmm, and then you’d let her boyfriend take turns on your pussies, too?” Again, you nod. “Now, that’s a damn good girlfriend. Think most girls would be too jealous to share a pretty slut like you. Too worried that he wouldn’t be able to give that pussy up.”

You blink rapidly. You cling to your conviction, pretending that you are offended even as your body is on fire. It is criminal that Hanma is gifted with a voice deep enough to penetrate every barrier you erect, foul enough to wilt your self-control.

Pretty little slut.

“Then, during university, money was so tight. My mom didn’t have any savings left, so I was responsible for rent, food, prescriptions, and tuition. I had a job working as a receptionist at the campus clinic, but that wasn’t enough to cover everything. And, I needed something with evening hours to work around my school schedule,” you say, voice dipped low as if the struggles of a student were something forbidden. “I got lucky with a job as a phone sex operator. A couple hours a night, and the calls weren’t nonstop, so I was able to study in between them. Then, just fifteen minutes telling a lonely man on the other line how bad I wanted him, how hot he sounds through the phone, how hot he makes me. The money was good.”

“Oh, that I could see – hear. You have the voice for it alright, all husky and slow. Bet you still have a mouth on you. Did you like hearing all those men touching themselves just to the sound of you? Did you ever play cutesy for them, little girl voice and ‘oh daddy, I want it?’”

The questions come fast, stream of conscious. But, you are more focused on Hanma’s hand. It grips his left thigh, only a few centimeters above the knee. The fingers are spread wide and press into the stiff fabric of his suit. Subtly, you place your palm on your own thigh in the same spot, dig in just a little like his hands might when they grip you. The position is low enough, not too unprofessional to give you away, but the feeling! Your nipples harden, almost sore with the desire to be plucked.

There is a hard bar just visible along his left thigh. The tailored pants work well to conceal it, but you can tell it’s long.

“The money was good,” you repeat just a little breathless. “Lastly, I sometimes go out with my boyfriend for dinner. He likes fancy places. I’ll dress up a little for it, and I’ll put a…a little vibrator in my panties before we leave. He’ll take the remote at the restaurant and just tease me with it all through dinner. Get me worked up, so that I can’t wait to get home.”

Hanma whistles, and for the first time you understand why it’s called a ‘wolf whistle’ in English. “You can’t be that worked up if you wait to get home. Never gets you so hot that you can’t wait. You could sit on the same side of the table, lead his fingers under your skirt, or take him to the bathroom and get railed then and there. Give me that remote, baby, and I’d make you cum three times there at the table for anyone to see. When you can’t take it anymore, I’d have your small hand on me under the table, my fingers stretching you open. Mmhmm, yeah, I can just picture it.”

You can picture it, too. This is nearly the hottest you have ever been in your life. You blame the week of edging. Just the idea of cumming three times makes your cunt clench, a sorely missed pleasure. He’s surely all bluster, but what if…

“That’s a…quite the imagination you have, Hanma-san. But now you have to tell me the lie,” you manage, and your voice is a thousand times stronger than your treacherous body.

It is Hanma’s turn to consider you at length, eyes affixed to your body and expressions. His attention is far less clinical, far more lecherous. Resisting the urge to squirm, you pretend to check the time on your phone.

“The last one,” Hanma says. “Your boring boyfriend who gets you off sometimes but not always? No fucking way.”

Ah, and here is the moment you hoped for before your libido spiked and took over your mental faculties. A cruel little smirk twists your lips.

“Wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“That’s not the lie.”

Only a moment or two passes before Hanma is laughing and smacking his knee like you are the funniest joke he has ever heard. “Not the lie! Oh, you naughty little cheater!”

Your smirk deepens. It feels like a victory even if he did make you in only a moment. And that victory feels just as good as the slick that collected in your panties.

“Three lies just to get me hard as a rock. Where did you learn to be such a sneaky liar? Such a bad sport?”

“You shouldn’t overstep a lady’s boundaries,” you say.

If you had to guess – and after his performance earlier, you realize all you have are guesses – you would warrant Hanma is delighted at your deceit. He repeatedly shakes his head like he can’t believe your gall, but the smile is only thirty percent shark now, and the rest appears to be genuine humor.

“I get it. I get it. You like to top, too, doc,” Hanma giggles. “But cheaters do need to be punished. Can’t have you lying to me. Therapy is built on trust after all.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Ah, I don’t need luck because you may like being a disobedient brat to rile me up, but you love being told what to do even more.” Hanma’s voice deepens, that unhinged giggle replaced by pure man, and you no longer remember what was funny in the first place. “I’ll forgive you, baby. All you gotta do is rub that little pussy for me every night. Want you to think about me taking you out to dinner with a vibrator taped to your clit, just like you fantasized. Want you to know I’d be merciless with it, until you’re crying and shaking at the table. You can picture whatever you like from there. If I take you to a secluded corner and use your mouth, or I bounce you on my cock right there for all those scandalized eyes, drinking up your ruined little body. Mmmm, whatever makes you cum for me, baby. Do that every night until our next session, and I’ll call us even, okay?”

Goosebumps rise on your arms, and for one moment, you forget yourself, clutching at your own elbows for warmth. The room is so cold, but your body is a furnace. The conflicting feelings suffocate all reason. He is giving you permission to do what you have wanted all week. To cum. To cum to the thought of him and his unpredictable, powerful, menacing, masculine presence.

In that moment you know you are lost.

“Good luck with that,” you say, so coldly but only because your chest is pinched tight. You won’t be able to stop. You won’t be able to stop. You won’t be able to stop. “That’s a good reminder though that I promised you homework.”

He smirks, so confident that he has you.

Happy for the excuse to escape that knowing look, you search your desk. Returning to your seat, you present Hanma with a translated copy of Crime and Punishment. At an intimidating 600+ pages, the book is heavy with crinkled, curling pages, the result of being turned time and again in your own rereads.

“Try to read this before our next session. It’s good practice at sticking to something for a long period, even if it bores you. And, I think you’ll enjoy the subject matter. It might spark some interesting ideas for discussion,” you explain.

Hanma opens the front cover and wrinkles his nose at the first several pages of tiny type. “What the fuck?”

“I told you it would be homework.”

Those yellow eyes drift up and down your body, considering. Maybe weighing if you will complete your own special homework if he does the same. They are not the same at all.

“Got anything a bit shorter?” Hanma finally asks.

You shake your head. “I thought you’d be interested given your tattoos.”

“What?”

“Your hands,” you say, gesturing to the over-sized kanji inked on both hands. The choice of sin and punishment struck you as unexpectedly literary, a piece of dramatic irony for Hanma to snicker over as he beats his victims, like Hisao.

Eyes filled with pus. The mournful death gurgle. That smell of iron and sick. And no no no no no no no.

You don’t think of Hisao.

The almost panic attack passes unobserved as you deploy your best techniques for disassociating from ugly things. The tried-and-true tricks that helped you survive your mother’s house. There, Hanma is in front of you, studying his own hands, and there is no danger here. None at all.

“Huh? I’m a dropout but not a complete idiot. I’ve heard of Dostoyevsky. But these,” Hanma gestures at his tattoos, “I got these because of that Nintendo game.”

“A video game?”

“Yeah, one of those shoot-em-up games, player versus alien. Used to play it in elementary school. I was really good at it. It was called Sin & Punishment,” Hanma laughs.

“So, you aren’t tatted up for one of the Russian literary giants?” you tease.

“Maybe if I like the book, I’ll start saying that’s what it’s for,” Hanma banters back.

Your evening will go much as you expected after this session ends. The train ride back will be cramped and miserable as rush hour strikes. The press of the crowd will sweep you up into that sense of community that comes with living in a city. Hopefully no one will grope you, a marked success.

At the bar near your apartment, it will be busy and you’ll sit at the counter nursing a bottle of beer for the better part of an hour. There will be another football game on TV, and you will join in the chatter about the Tokyo Blues’ success so far this season and speculate about how hosting the 2020 Olympics will impact the city, weigh the cons of increased foreign direct investment versus the frustration of tourists flooding the city.

At home, you will make soba noodles and fry a few bowls of veggies, hungry for salt. The ritual will be steadying, and you will almost manage not to think about Hanma – the voice, the eyes, the hands that promise discipline and pleasure in turn – but he will be there in the back of your mind as you move between stove burners, as you plate your side dishes, as you pour a glass of wine.

The game you are playing is a dangerous one. You are manipulating him as surely as he is you. For profit or sexual gratification, it does not matter. There is something sick inside you, broken, for you to even entertain this quid pro quo.

And what awaits you at the end? Because surely there is an end. Something violent or humiliating to greet you when you make your inevitable fall.

Those considerations feel close yet small in the face of Hanma’s words. He is going to read the book. He is going to read the book because you asked him, and that makes you feel more alive than the last thirty years of your life combined.

Maybe once the dishes are done, and the night stretches long before you, you will download the ebook for Crime and Punishment onto your phone. You are overdue for a reread.

You wonder what Hanma will think of it. Wonder if he’ll tell you.

 ---

When he was a young boy, Hanma would stare up at the sun, like a test. He would count how many seconds he could stand to keep his eyes wide against the blinding glare. His longest count was thirty-six seconds before the burning was so intense his body betrayed him. Afterward, he would close his eyes tight, watch the little ball of cloned light that remained behind his eyelid. There is a pleasure in discomfort, almost as sweet as the pleasure in pain if you know how to look for it.

The discomfort of an oak and projector board room, however, yields no pleasure.

Hanma takes up two seats in the stuffy board room of Toman execs, ankles propped on the second. Anything to bring a little impropriety into the monotonous affair. Inupi sits opposite him, looking for all the world, like he belongs in this environment, scar be damned.

Seated around the long table, only Hakkai looks out of place. Something about his too long neck and perpetually stupid face. Kokonoi, Kisaki, Inupi, Muto, they all look born for it. Mikey would strain and buck against the pretend civility if he were here, too.

Damn, does he miss Mikey some days.

In the last six months, all the last vestiges of Mikey’s Toman have been eliminated. Gone are the little boys playing at gangsters that clung to Toman’s coattails for a decade. Draken and Hayashida are in prison with no hope of a release in this lifetime. They’ll join in death Mitsuya, Kawata, Matsuno, and Hayashi. The only relic of the old admin is Muto, and then only because his viciousness proved an inspiration even to Kisaki.

“We have confirmation that the Kagns will be sending an envoy on December 7th. We’ll be hosting them for the final negotiations. Every detail should be decided beforehand, but we’ll need to concede at least one point for them to feel they’ve gotten a good deal,” Kisaki says to the table of men.

“And they’ll need to give us two concessions in turn,” Kokonoi laughs.

“Exactly,” Kisaki says with the dark pride that practically oozes off his skin at any reminder of his successes. “They are sending their number two, Kang On Sing, so their security is going to be immense. We cannot afford to let anything happen to our honored guests in our territory.”

“Any signs yet of how they’re going to try to screw us?” Inupi asks.

Kisaki shakes his head. “Hanma is interrogating any potential leaks but no evidence that the HJK have infiltrated us so far.”

“Only a matter of time,” Inupi says, sounding far too pleased at the prospect.

“We’re going to need a few new fronts. That money is going to be hot and lots of it. I have a few ideas,” Kokonoi chimes in.

Hanma tries to listen as Kokonoi begins to drone on about crypto and offshore accounts, but it’s like his brain can’t hook onto the words enough to retain them. The flick of a switch blade between his fingers grounds him, and he swings the knife leisurely between his knuckles as the others plot.

Hanma thinks back to his disappointment after your session. He so hoped that you would be unable to resist dropping your panties and petting that pretty pussy after all his teasing. Immediately after he had exited your office, he had pulled up the app on his phone connected to the listening device hidden in that hideous yellow couch – how naïve of you not to check for bugs, sweet girl you are – and listened as you puttered around the office.

Maybe you are the quietest masturbator in history, but Hanma pegs you as a loud bitch when really riled. You are too quiet in your professional guise for anything else.

There had been nothing, and now, he berates himself for not pushing just a bit further until you broke into a wet puddle for him. Maybe if he had stroked your cheek all soft and tender, like you are something precious to him? He bets you would gag for someone to treat you softly between slaps.

Maybe you waited to get home?

Hanma texts Sendo instructions to stake out your office tomorrow, find your address. He needs to bug your apartment, too. Hearing your bland boyfriend sex won’t be good for more than a laugh, but he wants to know if you are following his orders.

“The Kangs suggested we host them in the Ritz Carlton in Roppongi,” Muto says. “Need to make sure we can secure that building down before we accept. It’s tall, which is a bitch, and the Haitanis still have a grip on that part of the city, so we should be extra cautious.”

Mention of the Haitanis gets Hanma’s attention.

“The Haitanis are a relic. They’re not a threat to us,” Inupi snorts.

“The Haitanis alone, yeah, they’re losers. But the Haitanis plus the HJK? That’s what I’m worried about,” Muto insists.

“Hanma and Hakkai will look into it and make a recommendation,” Kisaki interrupts, always with the seemingly snap judgments that conceal he has thought long and hard about the issue before you even broached it.

Now, that’s an assignment Hanma won’t reject. The little Haitani is a decent martial artist in his own right, and the two together can put up a fight worthy of him. If they need to be neutralized to ensure business goes smoothly, Hanma is more than happy to oblige.

Another hour of discussion follows as they discuss revenue streams, liabilities, and personnel decisions. Except for when Kokonoi blathers on, Hanma manages to follow all of it without drowning himself in a pit of boredom. He is almost proud of himself when the meeting wraps up.

“Hanma, stay back,” Kisaki orders.

As the other execs file by in an unofficial runway of Prada and Comme des Garçons, they shoot him sympathetic or vindictive looks. Like he’s a child held back for a scolding by the teacher.

Tetta – his oldest but never quite friend – pours two fingers of whiskey into a glass and pushes it across the table in Hanma’s direction. He pours himself a much smaller portion and sips at it daintily. Time has not been kind to Kisaki, but he doesn’t realize it yet. While maturity smoothed out his awkwardness, all that youthful intensity streamlined into sleek elegance, there is already something of the old man in his face. A squint and Hanma can see how Kisaki will look in thirty years. How sad to live that long.

“This deal with the HJK is big for us. Very big,” Kisaki tells him, like they haven’t discussed nothing else for the past six months. “We finalize this, and we will have a complete monopoly on all drugs smuggled not just into Tokyo but Japan. And, we’ll have it on the cheap. We can’t afford anything to go wrong.”

“Sure, sure,” Hanma says agreeably.

“You’ve been going to therapy for what, three weeks now? How’s your progress?”

Hanma just wouldn’t be Hanma if he didn’t play a little. “Major progress. Hypnosis has helped me remember all those times the babysitter gave me the bad touch. I feel myself becoming stronger every day.”

“You fuck this up for me, and it will be a bullet in the back of the head,” Kisaki says.

Not the first time Kisaki has threatened to kill him, probably not the last. Hanma pretends to care because people get upset when they confront how little he values his own life. Nods along. The whiskey is too smooth, pleasant oak dripping down his throat. He prefers the cheaper selections that burn.

“A war with the HJK would be painful for Toman. While we would have home field advantage, they are in every way our equal in power. I know the…temptation this presents for you. If you stay my loyal dog for just a little longer, just until this deal passes, I’ll give you the gift of a lifetime. You just need to control yourself until then. That’s why I want you seeing that woman. Need you to be able to look out for your own best interests,” Kisaki says.

“Woof woof.”

Kisaki offers him a cigar, real chummy like a couple of regular gentleman. Hanma prefers being his dog but accepts the cigar anyway. It tastes better than the whiskey. The smell clogs up the room, black pepper and cinnamon seeping into the wooden table to linger for hours to come.

“Don’t fuck around with me on this one. Is the woman helping you or not?” Kisaki demands.

A long drag on the Padrón as Hanma considers if you have “helped” him so far. He thinks of your little game today, how you had looked shell shocked at his happy memories, like you couldn’t believe him to be so sentimental. Yet you had still fallen for his act. Silly bitch. It had never occurred to you that he could lie about all of his memories just as easily as you did. You acted so cautious, but you were too trusting despite yourself.

Fucking around during your sessions is one of his favorite pastimes of the moment, a real highlight of his week. He delights in watching you maneuver around the obstacles he throws at you, how your brain spins behind that cold exterior to keep up with. Somehow you repeatedly surprise him, and somehow you repeatedly play directly into his hands. The unpredictability is fun.

Staying on schedule and following orders is always easiest on the days before your sessions. He doesn’t want to risk missing your little dates. Hanma supposes that counts as improvement.

He started on your homework already, too. Just twenty-four pages into the behemoth you call a classic. The main guy is a pussy, and Hanma is already sick of being trapped in his miserable head, but he thinks the way the city is described is interesting, the poverty, the whores and drunks and screaming kids, the smell. All of it could describe the slums of Tokyo today as well as the St. Petersburg of the 1860s.

He is a little embarrassed that he found himself checking his phone every other minute – scrolling internet porn and downloading music – as if you were right about his attention span. Still, he is reading. Maybe that counts for something.

He isn’t going to tell Kisaki that though.

“I’ve gone to three sessions now. That’s two more sessions than you thought, right?” Hanma says instead.

Kisaki’s eyes narrow a little in understanding. “She did have nice legs.”

“And nice tits, too. What does it matter? It’s a distraction to keep me busy, and so far, it’s working,” Hanma counters.

“A distraction to keep you busy…” Kisaki murmurs the words.

Hanma figures Kisaki should understand. After all, he dedicated his entire life to a skinny little girl on a pedestal of his own making. Women have a way of wrapping a man’s brain up in knots that can only be untied by a taste of their cunt. So long as you keep him thirsty and wanting, he’ll keep coming back for more.

The glass is empty, Hanma realizes as he tips it back again. He wishes he had more, eyes the decanter by Kisaki’s briefcase.

“Do your job and play with your distraction because, Shuji, if you can do this, if you can stick with us and not betray me one last time…”

Hanma’s stomach flips before Kisaki can finish the sentence. Whiskey sloshes around in his belly. Somehow, he knows that whatever he hears next will change everything.

“Stick with me this one last time, and I’ll tell you where you can find Mikey-kun.”

Peals of celebratory laughter echo down the halls to the elevators as Hanma embraces this last wonderful promise of fun. Yes, yes, yes! Find Mikey. Kill Mikey. Die by Mikey’s hand. Oh, how wonderful.

The price you charge for his treatment is obscene; more importantly, if you’re successful, it will unlock a new revenue stream with the Tokyo Manji gang. Their organization must be rife with degenerates, neurotics, and depressives, all with blood money to burn. Ten years of catering to the criminal class, and you may well reach your savings goals. When you think about it at night, you fall asleep with a smile.

Your happy dreams assume, of course, that Hanma doesn’t sabotage you at the get, which is not looking promising.

He’s late.

At the office, you change out of your rain-soaked clothes, blow dry your hair, and read your case notes three times over. Your eyes stray repeatedly to the time on your phone as Hanma’s lateness makes the move from possibility to definitive reality. Arriving a few minutes late seems like Hanma’s style, and arriving fifteen minutes late as a power play might be his m.o. as well, but half an hour? He doesn’t plan to show, and you know it.

You walk to the empty reception room. There are a couple other patients on your case load right now, but you are scheduling their therapy around Hanma’s, clearing entire days just to focus on your golden goose. You even gave your receptionist the day off to ensure his privacy. An hour-long train ride here and an hour back would be for nothing if Hanma ghosts you.

Frustrated, you hover over his name in your contacts. Calling and begging him to participate in his own treatment will cede all authority you have.

While your office is disturbingly minimalist – designed to keep your most distracted patients engaged – the reception room is livened slightly by large windows that overlook central Tokyo. The rain beats against the pane thunderously, but you can still see the activity on the street below. It’s an office district, so mostly fellow professionals leaving for meetings or a working lunch. The street is more active than typical as the Samurai Blue are playing a match at the stadium, and your office block is a well-known detour to the venue. You can make out the blue jerseys as lucky fans stream toward the game and unlucky fans look for a bar to catch the match on TV.

It sparks an idea, and you press Hanma’s name before fully processing it.

“Hello, who is this?” Hanma greets, voice twisted with mockery.

He knows exactly who is calling and why. Your number is already saved in his phone. You ignore the flame it alights in your gut. Hanma likes to play games, and you can oblige that.

“The Samurai Blue are playing right now. Are you near a TV?”

“Hello to you, too. Hide has been resurrected from the dead and is giving an impromptu concert at Tokyo Tower. Are you near a radio?” Hanma says, mirroring your bizarre introduction.

“That’s funny. You’re funny,” you say, momentarily surprised into laughing before you remember you are angry with this man.

“Mmhmm,” Hanma hums. It’s a filler noise. He’s waiting for the inevitable chastisement, to see you plead for his cooperation. He will be disappointed.

“I’m not going to waste your time asking why you are late for our session or if you’re coming in. if you were a typical client, I frankly wouldn’t care. I’d bill you for the session anyway and treat myself to pork belly on your dime. But Kisaki-san has impressed the importance of working with you upon me, so I want to keep this appointment. Rather than beg for you to have mercy and come in –”

“I wouldn’t mind hearing you try,” Hanma interrupts.

A spark of memory from your last session. Standing at full height, he was mountainous, easily one of the tallest men you have ever encountered. His wide-legged stance, so much space between to settle at his feet, legs lolled out because spaces weren’t designed to contain a man of his stature. The hint of tenting, possible erection. Predator’s eyes.

You ignore him.

“How about a wager?” Silence. You think that’s a good sign, so you bully on. “If the Samurai Blue score within the next minute and a half, we keep our session today. If not, I start looking for flights out of town for when Kisaki-san sends someone knocking on my door.”

“Kind of funny to imagine it might very well be me that he sends in that eventuality, huh?” Hanma says, though it’s not funny at all. “Fine. You’ve caught my interest. Ninety seconds. They score, we meet, and you can try your psychobabble on me.”

“Perfect.”

There’s a flatscreen to entertain waiting clients, mounted above a gurgling water tank. The remote is missing, so you manually press the power button and scroll until you find the match. On the line is silence as you assume Hanma also finds the right channel.

“Starting now?” Hanma asks.

“Time it.”

You watch as the match unfolds. The Samurai Blue are already down one, and their opponent, red jerseys, have possession of the ball. Blue streaks of activity as the national team tries to defend and retrieve.

You don’t have any special affinity towards football, but only the most stubborn could avoid watching the World Cup or Olympic matches, when the radios blared the action from the open door of every convenience store or market stall. In university, most of your fellow students were men, and you would join them semi-regularly at the student bars to watch a promising match; you would call it “making an appearance.” Your boyfriend keeps up with the international leagues, catching the scores on his phone and commenting on coaching decisions without ever bothering to actually turn on a match.

This wager is a shot in the dark from a gun that may not even be loaded. You have no insider insight to guarantee Japan scores, and probability is against you.

That’s why when the center forward retrieves the ball, barreling past the center circle, your heart rises in your chest. The impossibility of it, this quick drive down the length of the field, from winger to striker and now nearing the goalpost, is a pure shot of adrenaline.

What are the odds? Are they as impossible as winning the Nenmatsu Jumbo, a New Year’s miracle?

The goalie lines up to block, and you will the striker’s attack to land. Millions may be watching, singularly concentrated on this very play, but in this moment, you are on the field. Your will is all that matters.

When the ball connects with the net, Hanma roars on the other side of the phone. He doesn’t groan in disappointment; he’s celebrating the goal. Like you, the adrenaline has drugged him. You stare at the players taking their victory lap in disbelief. Your own celebration a quiet closing of your eyes, a silent prayer.

“How’d you do it, doc?” Hanma whistles into the phone. “Did you bribe the goalie in advance?”

“Pure luck,” you say, a little breathless at how true the words are. You have never been lucky, and it stuns you. You have to will yourself back to professional reserve. “You wouldn’t have been interested enough to take me up on a wager if the odds weren’t completely stacked against me. That’s what makes it exciting.”

While the Tokyo Manji gang runs underground casinos and Mahjong parlors across the city, no one reported Hanma as a gambler. Under the right circumstances, you speculate he would thrive on gambling. The moment of tension, when both the loss and the win feel equally possible, is an adrenaline high, and the kind of thing to electrify a bored misanthrope. You did not plan to test this hunch on Hanma so early, hoping to save it for future sessions, but you are happy to see your suspicions proved accurate.

“Smart, and a coin toss wouldn’t have worked because you couldn’t trust me to be honest about the results, and I wouldn’t trust you in return. You know, you’re pretty manipulative. Are you sure you’re not a sociopath?” Hanma says. It’s the first compliment he’s spared you, followed immediately by an attack.

“If manipulating someone occasionally was all it took to meet the diagnostic requirements, everyone would qualify,” you disagree.

“That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking. Yeah, you say all these things about me being a risk-taker, unempathetic, manipulative, whatever, but am I really all that different than anyone else? In my experience, people are plenty self-serving when anything half important is on the line?” Hanma says.

Sampling bias, you think. Hanma’s line of work exposes him to society’s desperates, the people drowning beneath the weight of their previous mistakes and dying to breathe again.

“That’s a good topic of discussion for when you come in. I’d wondered what you thought about my assessment last week, especially now that you’ve had some time to process.”

“Oh, I’m not coming in,” Hanma says. You hear the slam of a car door and the beep of a lock. Now, the sound through the phone is distorted as Hanma walks through the rain to wherever he’s going that isn’t your office.

“Hanma-san, we had a deal…”

“I know that, and I won’t reneg. You can have your 90-minutes, but I never said I’d come to your office. You can come to me. I’m down by the Port. I’ll text you the address.”

“My office is in Ueno. That’s…over an hour away by train,” you say, knowing as you say it that your logistical concerns will be met with indifference.

“And I have a meeting that can’t be missed. I know, I know, self-care, put yourself first, but I think I might be a workaholic, doc. Work, work, work. They don’t even give me holidays off!” Hanma jokes.

Even as you negotiate with Hanma, you know it’s futile and start preparing to brave the elements once again. You zipper your wet clothes into a plastic bag and hang them in your closet. Your receptionist will take them for dry-cleaning when she stops by to lock up for the night.  Your raincoat hasn’t dried off from before and wets your clean clothes as you pull it on again.

“If I come to Koto-ku, will you still be there?” you challenge, imagining making the trek only for Hanma to move onto some other distraction.

“You have my word. I think it’ll be good for you to see me in action,” Hanma says.

You choose not to think about what that might mean.

“If I take the train out to Telecom Center, you need to pick me up. I’m not walking down to the port in this rain, and I doubt you want a random taxi dropping me off at your important meeting,” you say.

Reasserting some boundaries, not allowing Hanma to control the terms. It’s part of your role as therapist, but it feels seedy with him. Maybe because these power plays are standard for his job. Normally your clients are less aware of how you subtly maneuver them.

“I’ll send someone to pick you up,” Hanma concedes.

“We have a deal.”

“I love hearing you say that,” Hanma moans, and then a beep as he unceremoniously hangs up.

As the rain beats down upon your head once again on your walk to the station, you half hope a tsunami strikes the city and carries Hanma Shuji out to sea. But only half.

- - - True to his word, a yakuza decked out with a neck tattoo and everything picks you up from the station and delivers you to a warehouse by the harbor. The grey sea is frothing and angry. Here, the wind is twice as strong, tangling your hair and tripping your feet.

You enter the warehouse, off-kilter and a little afraid.

In the movies, these criminal warehouses are always empty, perfect for a drawn-out battle, but this one is in active use. Rows, stocked with packages, stretch up to the ceiling. A line of cranes sit powered off by the entrance. A couple yakuza stand off to the side, smoking and playing dice.

Your guide leads you past them to a row cleared from merchandise. Amid the narrow row are two folding chairs, in one sits Hanma, and in the other sits a man who is handcuffed and chained at ankle and wrist to his seat.

You swallow.

The bound stranger is in his thirties. He wears a satin button-up, probably a fellow yakuza or at least someone who works in the entertainment district. Freshly shaven, which means he hasn’t been hostage for longer than half a day. The man sports a black eye, but no other obvious signs of struggle.

“You made it, doc!” Hanma calls out. In contrast to his prisoner, he’s the picture of casual comfort. He sits backwards in his chair, chin propped against the backrest with plenty of room for his gargantuan legs to stretch out.

“Thanks for sending someone to pick me up,” you say primly, deciding not to rise to the bait and comment on the other man. You glance around and realize your guide has disappeared in the few seconds it took you to get your bearings. Apparently, this is Hanma’s show alone.

“I want you to meet Fujimori Hisao,” Hanma says, gesturing at the bound man. “I’m afraid I can only give you half my attention here. You can ask me your questions, but I need to ask Hisao-kun some questions of my own.”

“And if I don’t like your answers, can I do whatever you do to Fujimori-san to you, too?” you ask.

“Funny! I keep forgetting that you can be funny when you want to be,” Hanma giggles. “I promise to be completely honest in all my answers. I need to set a good example for Hisao here. Don’t want to have him thinking he can pick and choose when to answer me. Honesty is the best policy and all.”

Hanma likes to hear himself talk. Sometime during his monologue, Fujimori starts to silently weep. With his hands restrained, there is nothing to catch the tears until they streak past his chin and collect in the column of his throat.

The scene is unlike anything you’ve ever witnessed. Sometimes you hear about violence in the past tense in a clinical setting, but never before your own eyes. Criminal acts are hypotheticals to you, who has never even noticed a shoplifter in action. Your boyfriend always tells you that you’re naïve in the ways of the world. Innocence must cling to your skin, despite your best efforts to conceal it, because Hanma smells it on you, too.

The surprise reveal, the casual greeting, all of this is an act, a performance to frighten you. He wants to see you break.

You decide to get comfortable, shrugging off your coat. There is no third chair, so you lean against the shelves. You situate yourself close to Hanma. The other man is in your periphery, but you can ignore him with effort.

“May I begin, Hanma-san?”

He grunts.

“We could have scheduled for later this evening when your…appointment wrapped up. Why did you want me to see this?”

“You’re gonna cure my boredom, right? I thought you should see one of the last things that still gets me hot and going,” Hanma says.

“You’ve thought about what we discussed last session. Do you have any thoughts or questions?”

“I told Inui that I was officially a sociopath, and he said everyone already knew. Go figure,” Hanma sneers, and the other man goes deathly silent at hearing his captor self-describe as a ‘sociopath.’ “I stand by what I said on the phone though. I don’t see what’s all that different about me from your average guy. Take Fujimori-san here, he betrayed his friends, giving information on Toman to the HKJ – that’s a triad we’re in business with – and for what? Money!”

“NO! I didn’t. I swear! Hanma-san, I swear I would never –”

The way Hanma bursts from his seat is violent, knocking his chair to the ground with a clang. The way his fist connects with Fujimori’s chin is something worse than violent. Fujimori’s neck snaps back, so hard, you fear it broken, before his head falls limply forward. Frantic denials turn to drawn out moans of pain.

“Don’t lie to me!” Hanma hisses.

Your heart thunders in your chest, as if the threat is directed at you. Rather than return to his seat, Hanma prowls around Fujimori’s limp body. A victory lap or another intimidation tactic.

“People can be self-serving, especially where money is concerned. That’s not enough for a clinical diagnosis,” you say as calmly as possible. “To be diagnosed with ASPD, you need to meet additional criteria. For example, right now, I’m having a physiological reaction to seeing you punch that man. I feel for his pain and wish it would stop. A sociopath wouldn’t have that kind of empathy for someone else’s suffering.”

Hanma drops large hands onto Fujimori’s shoulders, massaging them and getting into the beaten man’s face. “You hear that Hisao-kun? She feels for your pain! It’s true that I don’t, but you should just confess and tell me who your contacts in the HKJ are, so that I don’t have to hurt you anymore.”

Before Fujimori can answer and earn Hanma’s wrath again, you forge onward, “I’d love to know more about how you feel about other people, too. Have you ever felt something you would describe as love? Does spending time with your favorite people make you happy? And while we’re at it, why are your favorite people your favorites? What makes them special.”

“You’re asking too many questions at once, doc. Rookie interrogation mistake!” Hanma chastises.

“That’s because I’m not seriously asking those questions yet. We’ll save them for another day. But I wanted to answer your question about what makes sociopaths different than the general populace, and the answer probably lies in how you’d respond to those questions,” you say. “Here is a direct question for you. In as much detail as possible, since we last met, when were you most bored?”

Hanma seriously considers the question, “Last Thursday was collection day, where all the men who report into me, bring their cash for the week. I just have to sit there, watch people count bills, and threaten to split a few heads if they come up short. No one was short this week, so I just sat there until four, then dropped the cash off with Koko. I called Kisaki, but he didn’t need me for anything. So, I decided to try one of our new nudie bars, where the girls are all pros. Nothing worse than seeing the show and finding out they’re all amateurs that can’t deliver, right? Well, I get there, have a few drinks, and as I’m looking around, I realize, I’ve already fucked every girl in the place. A real drag, right?”

You note Hanma’s verbal tick, the tacking on of ‘right’ at the end of his sentences. Is it to make you complicit in whatever vile things he says or a bid for validation? The former seems more likely.

“You never sleep with the same woman twice?” you ask.

“Where’s the fun in that, am I right?” Hanma says, giving a comradely clap to his prisoner’s arm. “Anyway, that was probably the moment, when I realized there wasn’t a girl in the place to interest me and nothing better to do with my night.”

Like you hypothesized on day one. He craves novelty.

“This is a hard question for most people to answer, but please give it a try. What does your boredom feel like in the moment? Can you find the words to describe it?”

Once again, Hanma takes the question seriously, allowing a long pause to collect his thoughts. You find it impossible to watch him as he ponders because to look at him requires you to look past Fujimori. He has regained some of his wits, mouth shaping around silent pleas for you to save him. You, this strange woman who doesn’t appear interested in torturing him, appear like a guardian angel, but there is nothing you can do. You lack the leverage with Hanma, and you would find a bullet in your skull before you finished dialing the police.

There is a sheen of sweat about Fujimori’s lip that strikes you as especially pitiful, and you look away.

“Cold,” Hanma says, at last. “It feels like that one night in winter, the coldest night of the year, when your bones freeze from the inside. Rationally, you know it’s only a few hours until the sun comes back, but instinctually, some part of you thinks, ‘this is it.’ That all you’ll ever know again is the bone deep cold and the dark.”

A phantasm of cold slices through your gut. You didn’t expect such evocative words. A high school dropout with abysmal marks to show for his public education, you didn’t expect Hanma’s intelligence, but his words move you. They are so uniquely human and familiar to the worst days of your own life.

Softening against your better judgement, you continue your line of questioning, “When I’m cold, I usually grab a jacket, an extra blanket, warm up by the kotatsu. My instinct is to do something to get warm. On Thursday, when you realized there were no girls to seduce, what did you do to warm yourself?”

“This is damn poetic what we have going here,” Hanma laughs, breaking a bit of the spell his words cast upon you. “Let me see…Thursday, I took a bump, and then decided to wander around the city. See if I stumbled on something more interesting.”

“Did the change of scenery help, or were you still bored while you walked around?”

“Still bored. I’ve been walking these streets since I was eleven,” Hanma says.

“And did you interact with any people during this walk?”

“Some juvenile delinquent bumped into me. Literally. Landed on his ass. Then, he wanted to pick a flight like it was my fault. I had to shut him down,” Hanma says and then scoffs when a fissure of concern ripples across your face. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I didn’t kill the poor kid. I just flashed a gun, so he understood I was the real deal, and suddenly it was ‘a thousand sorries, sir.’ J.D.s in my day weren’t so quick to back down, but anyway. I ended up at my tattoo parlor. My artist was working on someone else, but she kicked him out when I came in. had her do a color touch up on one of my tattoos.”

“Do you have many tattoos?” you ask, thinking Hanma would fit the profile for a tattoo addiction.

“Not by yakuza standards. Wanna see it?”

Hanma undoes the lower button of his dress shirt, rolling the material up above his abdomen. You can’t see clearly around Fujimori’s shaking frame, so Hanma releases his victim and walks closer to show you. In this suit, Hanma appears deceptively lean, but he’s filled out beneath his clothes. Clear lines cut across a chest and abdomen of defined ridges and dips. Your tongue wets your lips.

A dragon winds around his side, roaring face toward the front and tail trailing to his back. The green ink is fresh and vibrant with an undercurrent of red as the skin is still inflamed from the touch up. The work on the scales looks intricate and must have taken dozens of hours to complete. It is the only tattoo you can see on his chest.

“Pretty,” you admit. “Dragons are associated with the Tokyo Manji gang, right? Do you feel pride in being a lieutenant? Many gangs operate almost as families with people willing to commit unspeakable crimes against outsiders because they’re so invested in protecting the sense of belonging they feel with their in-group.”

“I know what you mean, and it’s what guys like Hisao here should be willing to die to protect. But, for me, not really. I feel pride in how far we’ve come. I’ve been with Kisaki since the early days, and I was part of making all this happen. And, I have a…fondness for some of the top guys, but we don’t feel like a family. I followed Kisaki all those years ago because he promised me a more interesting path than what I could picture for myself, and that’s why I’m still here,” Hanma says.

Something electric is lighting you up from your intestines. The immediate transparency that Hanma offers is not typical of clients. You sense nothing but honesty from his words. There’s a speed to your back and forth, testing your ability to think of the next question and draw connections. The mental strain plus your muted fear on behalf of Fujimoto makes you feel hyper-present, more present than you have felt in weeks as you commute between work, home, and dates with your boyfriend. You don’t want the session to end.

“You don’t feel any loyalty? But you must have had so many opportunities to betray them over the years, and you never took them,” you point out.

“The opportunity never felt worth it,” Hanma shrugs. “But speaking of loyalty! Hisao-kun, I think we’ve neglected you too long.”

Two-pronged annoyance shoots through you. Are you more upset at the promise of pain coming Fujimori’s way or how easily Hanma drops your conversation? The magnetic aura that made you feel as if it were only the two of you in the world must have been one-sided.

“Hisao, I did my research before collecting you. Unmarried, no kids that you know of, parents in good health. No loan sharks breathing down your neck or out of control gambling addiction. So, tell me, what made the money worth betraying your family? Risking your own neck for a couple million yen. If there was some big reason, maybe I could understand it, but without one…you’re hurting my feelings,” Hanma teases.

He keeps his hands tucked in his pockets, almost like sheathing a sword or holstering a gun, but you know he will be quick on the draw. Fujimori suspects as much as well, eyes darting between Hanma’s face and pocketed hands. The purple silk of his dress shirt is stained almost black with sweat at the pits.

“I swear I didn’t do it, Hanma-san. I swear!”

There is no immediate retaliation. Instead, Hanma drops to his knees in front of his captive. You stare in awe at the submissive position. Even on his knees, Hanma’s impressive height puts him at eye-level with Fujimori, who senses nothing good from this change in posture. Unconsciously, Fujimori strains against his bonds. Your fingers flex and twist as if you too were bound.

“We’re both Toman, Fujimori, and that makes us brothers in a way. We both promised we wouldn’t lie, and an oath to a brother is not something to break casually. Do not look me in the eyes and lie to me,” Hanma says lowly. He leans forward so their foreheads are touching, spectacled eyes drilled into Fujimori’s own. You can’t see their faces, just the white column of Hanma’s arched neck. “Now, tell me who was your liaison from HKJ?”

“I didn’t do i–”

Lightning fast, Hanma’s hand darts forward. The attack is soundless. Rather than a blow of force, Hanma plunges a finger straight into Fujimori’s eye. The choice is so startling that Fujimori gasps rather than screams, and then reality catches up to him and he starts to bellow.

“I can’t stand when people look me in the eye and lie,” Hanma sneers.

He stands up to his full height and wipes his hand against his pants. Eyeball juices. His pants are wet with eyeball juices.

The screaming stops. Wait, no, you see Fujimori’s mouth still open in a wail. Above it, blood stains his cheek, and above that…No, the screaming continues but you aren’t processing the sound. You are in shock and dissociating from the stimuli around you as a method of self-defense. Looking at Fujimori’s battered face is impossible, so you look at his legs instead. Panic has set in, and the man is using all of his weight to thrust up against his bonds, arcing the legs of the chair into the air and back down. It’s futile; the chains holding him are too strong.

Eventually, you look to Hanma and realize he’s been observing you the entire time. There is a smile on his face, too obvious to be anything but performative. Like when he threatened to masturbate in your office, he is looking to unsettle you. This time he has succeeded.

“You okay, sweetheart?” Hanma asks.

Even under the traumatic circumstances, there is a fierce streak within you that refuses to back down. Hanma is watching you with a sympathetic expression as fake as the blonde streaks in his hair. You don’t want to reward his bad behavior, or worse, provoke more of it.

“What did Fujimori-san do?” your voice shakes through the question.

“We’re negotiating a deal with the HKJ, big opportunity for us to expand our slice of the Meth trade. If we can secure entry through Hong Kong and replace our current suppliers, we’ll cut our costs by 5% and mark up our prices by 10%, free money. It’s a good deal for everyone involved, but that doesn’t stop greed from setting in. everyone wants to walk away with the sweetest deal. That’s why we think the HKJ will try to infiltrate Toman, plant a few moles. If they can cause a problem for us – say an unexpected police raid or losing our current supplier – they can then swoop in, play the heroes in clean up, and then demand the better cut. In general, we keep a close watch on our subordinates’ bank accounts to make sure everything is on the up and up, and an offshore account wired Hisao-kun ¥5,000,000. Payment for services rendered, perhaps?”

The last question he directs to Fujimori, who sits paralyzed in fear. Denials could lead to another outburst of violence but staying silent doesn’t bode well either. Against your better judgment, you catch a glimpse of his eye. It isn’t dislodged from the attack, but the eyeball is swollen with blood, thick like the juices of a passionfruit.

You shake your head in disbelief, like the gesture might change things.

“That’s it? One suspicious deposit in his bank account is all you have to go on? All you have to justify…this?” you gesture helplessly at Fujimori.

“Uh huh.”

“But that could be anything! Maybe a relative died and willed him some money! ¥5,000,000 is a lot, but it’s not a yakuza-only level of money!”

You know that the Tokyo Manji gang tops police wanted lists not just for their role in organized crime but their penchant for violence. It’s rare to see a yakuza gang in the news for murder these days with so many yakuza fighting to keep their government-granted legitimacy, but Toman bucks the trend. Of the top lieutenants, Hanma is the guard dog, biting any hand that would near the leaders. If Kisaki directs the madness, Hanma executes it with extreme prejudice. You know that.

But you always imagined the violence unleashed against those who had “earned it.” The triviality of Hanma’s evidence, enough to condemn a man, shocks you more than his aggression.

Hanma flings himself back into his chair and says, “Hisao-kun, did someone die and will you the money? Mind I’ll have someone verify before we leave her, and if you’re lying to me, I’ll gouge the other eye out completely and make you eat it.”

“No! No one died!” Fujimori swears quickly.

“Welp, there goes that theory. Got any others, Doc?” Hanma waits for you to answer, but you shake your head. “No? See the truth is it doesn’t matter. Hisao-kun is hiding something, or he would have explained where the money came from already. Maybe he’s not in league with the HKJ. Maybe he’s taken a bribe and not given us our cut. Maybe he’s skimming off the top. Or maybe, he’s our little rat. Regardless, he doesn’t get to keep secrets from his masters, and so here we are.”

It makes sense in a cruel way. Maintaining a criminal enterprise requires absolute silence. You sign your secrets away at the doors. The way the movies depict it, you would have thought gangs were all about freedom and rebellion against society’s rules, but really you just trade for a whole new set of restrictions and far more dire consequences. Gangs are about money. And, if someone would try to steal hundreds of millions of yen from you…you might find yourself capable of gouging into a man’s eye, too.

The way the human brain can rationalize in moments of trauma is truly remarkable.

“You said this got you hot earlier? Are you aroused by this?” you ask, slipping back into therapy-mode.

“Nah, I mean hot as in the opposite of what we were talking about earlier, with the cold boredom. Now, if your skirt rides up any further, that might get my dick up,” Hanma leers.

Startled, you find that your skirt has risen up your thighs, so the dark band at the top of your stockings peeks through. You quickly pet it down into place, and Hanma play scowls at you.

“May I sit down?” you ask meekly.

“Sure, princess,” Hanma says, standing to offer you the seat he was occupying. “But we won’t be here much longer.”

You take it gratefully. Not until you’re seated, do you realize your legs are trembling.

Hanma returns to questioning Fujimori. You watch the back of Hanma’s head as he works, tuning out the particulars. You don’t like knowing so many details about a major upcoming yakuza alliance. It could make you a target. Even without carefully listening, you realize Fujimori has confessed and is starting to share whatever intel he can, like offerings to a malevolent god that demands human sacrifice.

Your stomach growls. Your eyelids lower. In the aftermath of a trauma, your body doesn’t know what is wrong and is cycling through possibilities to fix the problem.

There is plastic-wrapped melon pan in your bag, stashed away from a visit to the convenience store earlier that day. Would Hanma mind if you have a snack?

You are about to risk it when a pop rattles your ear drums. Ears ringing, you take several moments to process Hanma turning around and tucking away a gun. Behind him, blocked from sight by Hanma’s height, Fujimori has been shot. Somehow, you know it was aimed to kill.

Hanma approaches you, continuing to block out the dead man. He grips the chair you’re seated on and spins it around, so that you’re facing away from the body. The gesture of kindness pierces through your shock. You can’t thank him though, gaping like a fish at his blank expression. A smattering of blood and a chunk of something you won’t consider have landed on his clavicle, just above his heart.

“I’m going to take a shower and then take you out to dinner. You can sit near the entrance and wait for me. My men will be outside. Nine rows to the right and twelve up to reach the exit, okay?” Hanma intones slowly, making sure you process the directions through your shock.

You nod.

Hanma walks off in the direction of Fuji– no, in the direction of the body that was Fujimori. You ought to run. Flee the scene. While he’s in the shower, you could race out of the warehouse altogether, trick his men into letting you through, and then what? It’s a two mile walk to the station, and Hanma has a car. Unless he likes a lingering shower, he will catch you. Plus, he knows where you work. You promised him a degree of professionalism, a hardened mob-therapist who could roll with the darker sides of the job. He expects you to do just that.

But dinner?

Part of you understands. The back-and-forth before he lost interest in you had been intoxicating, and you still want to return to that. Like an abuse victim, who reminisces about the early days of love bombing and will ignore the abuse that just occurred. For a few minutes there, Hanma’s attention felt like magic.

Slowly, you limp toward the exit, following Hanma’s instructions. Plenty of time to think about whether you run screaming out the door once you’re there.

Reaching the exit, you stare at the unlocked doors that represent your chance at freedom from the day’s monstrosities. From your interviews with Kisaki and other members of the Tokyo Manji gang, you know Hanma has no history of violence towards women that fell outside the basics of his job. He doesn’t rough up the working girls or ape the girlfriends of his enemies. There is no reason to expect you are the exception. He wants to scare you, yes, but if you don’t give him cause, he won’t kill you.

You can’t forget the money on the line. The life-changing, Nenmatsu Jumbo-level miracle money to which Hanma holds the key. It is your dream, and you have come too far to abandon it now.

While you explain to Hanma the particulars of your credentials – blah blah, top university, blah – he sizes you, his shiny new therapist, up and finds you lacking. You are young, probably overeager to prove you can rehabilitate one of Tokyo’s most wanted. An impersonal office to match your bland, impersonal clothing; conservative, probably to appease the sex freaks that frequent your office. Over-groomed with bobby pins digging into your scalp and threatening a migraine, nylons that would never dare tear, manicured nails with clear polish. You are pretty despite your best efforts to hide it. Still, there is something about the way you move, performative in your restraint.

You are either the most confident person Hanma has ever encountered or the most wildly insecure.

If you would just nibble on the damned pen, he would have his answer.

“I prefer to speak with the friends and family of my patients before sitting down with them for the first time,” you say – maybe the fourth time you’ve impressed this fact upon him in his brief time in your office. “And Kisaki-san told me that you haven’t been sleeping well. Have you ever visited a doctor for insomnia?”

“No.”

One-word answers. Just enough that Kisaki can’t accuse him of refusing to cooperate.

“Do you take anything prescribed for insomnia?”

“No.”

“What about self-medicating? Or…does your trouble sleeping correspond to the use of any stimulants? Maybe Methamphetamines?”

Hanma refuses to give you credit for a lucky guess. The meth could be classified as a pleasant mistake. The temporary brain bliss is almost as pleasurable as feeling his fist collide with skin, or the rush when a person’s skull turns concave under the force of his knuckles. It’s why he started using.

It also happens to make him trigger happy, neurotic and perpetually late to meetings. Hanma suspects the latter was the last straw for Kisaki. Overkill is one thing but tardiness? Kisaki is running a business after all.

“Mostly meth but also cocaine, Diazepam, weed, LSD. I could go on. I sell it by the kilo, might as well dip a finger in on occasion,” Hanma says.

You raise an eyebrow at his use of the word ‘occasion.’ The vast undersell of his drug use is visible in the effects from just last night’s bender. A suit and coiffed hair may fool the average person, but the telltale signs are there. Even now, he feels a stab of alertness from a popped Ritalin downed with vodka to dull out the edges.

“What about appetite? I heard mixed opinions from your colleagues. Some swear you should be dead from starvation at this point, others that you eat like a horse,” you say.

“You’re an educated woman, so you know the proverb: ‘eighth-tenths full keeps the doctor away,” Hanma says, only realizing afterward that he’d intended not to respond to your questioning.

“And methamphetamines suppress the appetite,” you say dryly. “How often do you drink?”

Hanma notes that you haven’t written anything he says down in the notebook resting on your knee. The pen is not just unchewed but unused. Paranoid, he does a quick scan for any bugs that might be recording this session instead. That would be a fatal mistake on your part.

“I drink as much and often as you think,” Hanma says.

You don’t comment at Hanma’s lack of answer or at his strange behavior as he pats beneath his chair to confirm a bug isn’t glued to the bottom. Satisfied that there’s no other place to hide in your practically empty office, he relaxes back in his seat.

“How would you describe your sex drive?”

The barrage of questions bring to mind a flood memories. Remembers his cheek bruising against a police desk and wrists chafed raw from handcuffs as his freedom is dangled like a toy. Hanma despises the arrogance and ritual of interrogations; the interrogator asking the wrong questions, smug on a god-complex that promises Hanma will break and spill his guts under glaring lamplight. Shut up and lawyer up is what Toman advises. Except, Hanma always leans into his interrogations, snapping and seething at the police and prosecutor until their questions trip frightened off their tongue and the power is thoroughly reversed in his direction. Therapy, it seems, will be no different.

Hanma adjusts his long legs wider, a manspread that immediately drew the eye straight to his groin and grins.

“Looking for a first-hand demonstration, doc?”

Your eyes flicker briefly to his crotch, and Hanma’s cock answers with a twitch. The victory arouses every part of him. It does not hurt that you are a meal for the eyes either. If he saw you at one of Toman’s many clubs, Hanma would not hesitate to press you to your knees for him. Cold as your eyes are now, Hanma suspects they would liven up when pooling with tears and panic.

“It’s a basic diagnostic question,” you respond coolly.

“See, but I don’t appreciate you wasting my time on questions when you know the answers. You spoke to Kisaki before, yeah? Which means you know full well that I fuck and kill and shoot up and all the rest,” Hanma drones, unfeeling even on the verge of speechifying. “You have a rulebook you’re following. I get it. You’re young. Maybe Kisaki should have found someone more experienced because I have better things to do than cry to you about how hard my childhood was. I was a bad boy, and now, I’m a bad man.”

“My age bothers you?” you say, glomming onto the question of your competency and leaving the rest behind as if it means nothing. Typical. “I’m only one year younger than you are. Do you believe you need another dozen years’ of experience to excel at your job?”

“I’ve left a trail of cold cases to prove just how good I am at my job, sweetheart.”

“And I’ve left a trail of happy patients to show how good I am at mine. Hanma-san, tell me, why do you think we’re here today?”

The clock above your desk shows another fifteen minutes in the day’s session, and Kisaki will be up his ass if he leaves early. None of the staples of a therapist’s office – bonsai tree, swinging balls, abstract art – are present to distract him. For the next quarter hour, Hanma will be trapped in a room as bland as a prison cell with a hot but painfully boring therapist.

And Hanma hates to be bored.

There’s nothing better to do than lean into the cat-and-mouse game, see if he can lure his sweet therapist into a trap.

“A trick question? The mind games are beginning already, huh, doc?” Hanma sneers. “I suppose I’m here so that you can finally put a diagnosis on what everyone already knows. Name what makes me such a monster to polite, tax-paying citizens like you.”

“Except, you’ve been working for more than a decade with Kisaki-san and never once has he suggested you see a therapist before, correct? I’ve heard in depth from your colleagues about your behavior. They call you belligerent, impulsive, manipulative, cold. Basically, they sing your praises. Say you’re a natural at your job, one of the best in Tokyo. Why would your boss decide those traits are a problem now?” you counter.

“I’m blushing,” Hanma says, mostly to save time as he thinks through your analysis. There is a reason he saw such immediate success when he joined the delinquent world, and even as Kisaki led Toman into the realm of organized crime, the skillset remained the same. “If you have all the answers, then share them with the class. What is wrong with me?”

“Wrong with you? Well, I suppose that’s a matter of perspective. It’s too early to diagnose you with anything, but informally, I’d say you’re a closed and shut case of Anti-Social Personality Disorder.”

“You’re diagnosing me with psychopath?”

“I’m leaning sociopath based on the interviews I conducted with your colleagues. But the distinction isn’t as relevant as the TV shows pretend. I’d say you meet the criteria if ASPD, just about a text-book case,” you say, matter of fact in a way that other patients might appreciate hearing bad news.

The label followed Hanma throughout the years. A rotating retinue of losers have called him a psychopath and then met the unlucky side of his gun or the punishment of his knuckles. The appellation doesn’t offend him, but neither does it resonate with him. Hanma never did care for TV or movies, but the serial killers and stalkers that haunted the public’s collective imagination are familiar to him, and he can’t relate. He has never once considered dismembering a civilian just for the sake of it or stalking a co-ed for the thrill of her screams. What he loves most is a fight against an opponent worthy of him, the risk to his own life that gets his blood rushing.

Still, Hanma knows that he sees the world differently than other people. It is almost like he walks through life wearing sunglasses. He and the average person see the same shapes, same sizes, but there is a distortion to the color, something only Hanma can see, and others miss. In his darkest hours, he admits it could be the reverse. Maybe he is missing what others find so obvious.

“The clinical definition of someone with ASPD has changed significantly over the years. How I like to think of it is sociopaths have a muted ability to empathize with other people. Not necessarily a complete inability – and in fact, your colleagues seem to believe you do hold care for a select few – but you don’t feel it as intensely or in the same way as most people. As a result, you engage in behaviors that make you struggle to fit into society. That’s actually a part of the diagnostic criteria. Criminality, manipulation, risk-taking or other behaviors that make you struggle to become say an office worker but make you excellent at…whatever you’d call your job. The destructive becomes constructive. We could spend weeks in this office trying to lessen your violent impulses, but for what? So you can be slower to kill for the Tokyo Manji gang? I don’t think Kisaki-san would thank me for that.”

Broadcast news and preschool teachers delude the masses with the promise that violence and criminality are the playground of a small, chronically ostracized group of poors and crookeds. The button-ups that go to the office every day, the housewives, and store clerks, they all trade in empathy and love and rainbow kisses or some shit. Hanma knows this is a lie. He has seen time and again the sadism of the everyman.

So, your mercenary assessment of sociopathy does not surprise Hanma, but it does intrigue him. He wonders how you would score on a psychopath test. Whether there is any feeling harbored behind your icy veneer.

If he slid his hand beneath your blouse and kneaded his finger over your breast, would you have a heart?

“So, I’m a high-functioning sociopath, and you wouldn’t change a thing about me. I’m flattered. That still leaves us with the mystery of why I’m here.”

“Is it really a mystery? You seem to have an idea.”

“Well, there was an…incident four months ago. I don’t want to sully your pure ears with the details,” Hanma purrs. He hopes your imagination fills in the blanks with the most savage scene imaginable. Even then it probably wouldn’t be as gruesome as the damage he left behind. It was sloppy and cost Toman a fortune to bribe the right officials to ignore.

“Anything you say to me here is covered by doctor-patient confidentiality. I am mandated to report if you present an immediate danger to yourself or others, so I would prefer you not tell me if you intend to leave her and commit a murder presently. That said, these walls don’t talk and neither do I, regardless. It’s just a preference,” you say, pointlessly.

Hanma knows full well you won’t talk. He will personally make sure of it.

“I’ve heard of mob lawyers, now get ready for mob therapists! How very new millennia of you,” Hanma guffaws. “Without going into the details, I saw an opportunity to win a negotiation with a powerful business partner. They had offered a deal that Kisaki accepted. The terms were set. I saw an opportunity with a little candid discussion to further sweeten the terms. I was right, of course. Our deal today is far more generous in our favor. But the aftermath of the conversation was a bitch to clean up and attracted some unwarranted attention from our friends at the Tokyo police department.”

To your discredit, you don’t react with a hint of fear to this confession. So far, his only success provoking you was when he questioned your credentials. He won’t forget that useful information.

“Impulsivity and risk-taking are typical in people diagnosed with ASPD. The research is actually interesting on the subject. It suggests that you could feel regret for the choice, especially if you face negative consequences, but you likely couldn’t use that regret to prevent yourself from making the same mistake again.”

“Like a toddler that burns his hand on the stove Monday and is dumb enough to do it again on Tuesday?” Hanma demands.

You don’t realize how closely you’ve danced to the edge with him. He meets people like you every day. You aren’t half so interesting as to excuse an insult, and he would have you crying for your life before you insulted him again.

“In over-simplified terms? Sure. There are two primary theories to explain the impulsivity and risk-taking behaviors of someone diagnosed with ASPD. The first is that your brain is just wired differently. The same brain rewiring that damages your empathy is also dampening your self-control.”

Hanma scoffs.

“I see you don’t care for that theory. My feelings exactly,” you agree. “I think there’s a simple explanation, and it’s why we’re here today. I think people diagnosed with ASPD – I think you, Hanma-san – are bored.”

Eagerly, you lean forward. Here, at the big reveal, you tip your hand and show your excitement. Your eyes are brighter than he’s ever seen them. Professional victory has thawed you and revealed the young woman, the human.

“Bored…is that a professional diagnosis?” Hanma asks.

“Funny,” you say, and it sounds like you mean it. “The other side of the boredom coin is depression. We’d need to run through the diagnostic criteria before I can diagnose you officially, but I bet you qualify. In fact, I bet that when you wake up on a lazy day, one where you have no morning appointments, nothing to organize your morning, you lay in bed for minutes at a time, unsure what to do. Should you take a shower? Watch porn? Make breakfast? Shoot up? Call someone? Who? How do you decide what to do with your day, when every option promises the same yawning boredom as the next? How am I doing so far?”

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Follow me, Kisaki had promised. Follow me and I’ll make your life exciting. At fifteen years old, Hanma had almost given up on life. A high school dropout, he watched boys his age jerking off to cartoons and crowing over the trials and tribulations of their school club, and wondered what universe they were living in. Hardly anyone could reach him. Even the other delinquents offered only the occasional challenge.

Kisaki entered his life and presented something valuable: stimulation. He taught Hanma to slow down and appreciate the build up to the big moment. The calculated staging of a plot to destroy someone else, culminating in the delicious high of battle, the last-minute pivot as your enemy reacted in ways you couldn’t predict. It kept him alive and entertained for years. But now…

…Now, Toman sits atop the criminal world as the uncontested conqueror of Tokyo. All of their enemies have long since been crushed. The occasional upstart contender is defeated within a month of entering the ring. Their work is focused on fine-tuning an already smooth criminal operation, optimizing profits.

What is the point?

There are so many hours in a week, in a day! And there are so few activities that bring the rush he needs.

Hanma doesn’t care for money. Stealing something feels better anyway. He doesn’t stake his pride on the success of Toman. Time has made him fond of a number of the top executives – Kisaki and Hakki particularly – but their company only interests him for a few hours a week.

Sex helps. Drugs help. Underground boxing rings help. But none of these things inspire him to get out of bed every morning.

He is unanchored. He is an addict whose supply is dwindling. Or, more accurately, who has adjusted to the product and can no longer achieve the same highs as before.

Sitting across from your pretty, blank face, and confronting the truth, Hanma feels split in half. He wants to slap you for seeing him so clearly when no one else has ever dared look.

Yet another part roars in celebration. He feels hyper-present. The fog of boredom is in retreat.

“Well, I’m certainly not bored now,” Hanma drawls with a smile. “You know, I’ve read in the papers tragic stories of some poor sap falling out of bed, bumping his head, and waking up a full-blown psychopath. Is that true? Do you think that’s what happened to me?”

You shrug. “Have you ever suffered a traumatic brain injury?”

“Sure, dozens,” Hanma smiles. His fighting style is all offense. Getting concussed is a non-event to him.

“Has there ever been a significant change in your behavior, personality, or perspective following one of these brain events?” you clarify.

“No.”

“Well, then, I’m inclined to put this more on your childhood,” you say.

“Spoken like a true shrink, though you might be onto something. Mommy was an alcoholic, Daddy was a diddler, and all the neighborhood kids picked on me. It was real said,” Hanma intones in a tragic whisper.

“We can save your childhood confessions for when we’ve built up more of a rapport,” you say, leaving the bait untouched.

“Boo! Who’s boring now? Actually, going back to that brain injury thing. I think that would be pretty entertaining. Could I take a decent citizen, no a step beyond, a monk, bonk them on the head and turn them into a violent psychopath? That would be pretty fun to watch. I may just have to try it out.”

Hakkai’s sister owns a spa outside Tokyo, in the mountains not far from a shrine. There ought to be one or two stray monks he could abduct for an experiment. All in the name of science, of course.

Again, you prove unbaitable. You don’t chastise him for his evil ways or wiggle in your seat. Instead, you ponder the logistics of the scenario every bit as seriously.

“Hmm…let me think about that for a moment. The challenge is it’s common for people to change dramatically after a traumatic experience, not from brain injury but from the adrenaline and the psychological impact. So, if you attacked a temple of monks, you would expect drastic behavioral changes, even if their brains weren’t rewired to psychopathy. You’d have to know about their daily patterns beforehand as well for comparison, so you’d have to surveil the place for weeks if not months. And even then, it’s more of a one in one thousand chance.”

“That’s not a problem. One thousand monks it is!”

“I’ll be on the lookout for that headline. One thousand monks mysteriously bashed on the head,” you banter.

Hanma isn’t joking. In fact, he’s trying to unbalance you, but you laugh like what he’s said is genuinely hilarious. In that brief moment, everything about you relaxes. Your posture slackens, ankles crossing to reveal a scandalous sliver of ankle. Modestly, your hand flutters to cover your mouth, but he can still see the stretch of your lips. Best of all, you tap your pen briefly to your lips, a second short of a little nibble.

Hanma sees the real you in a burst of unrestrained honesty. The same way you saw him earlier.

There is a temptation to let the moment linger with this foreign version of you, but your momentary flash of vulnerability is too valuable to pass up. Hanma leans forward to mirror your posture.

“Let’s say I agree with your hypothesis, and say yes, I’m bored. What then? Do you teach me how to appreciate the little things in life?”

You sober, resuming the professional veil.

“No. There may be some medications – a mood stabilizer or anti-depressant – that help. And, we could certainly work on developing some tools for when you are bored, so that you don’t do something destructive to break the monotony, but the main priority would be to help you find things that stimulate and entertain your need for an adrenaline high. That way, you don’t wake up wishing yourself or others dead. Instead, you would go out and stimulate yourself. Something like…car racing maybe? I will have to think on it a bit.”

How…droll. Disappointment crashes into Hanma like said racing car – of which he already owns two. After teasing him with your uncanny insight into his brain, you followed up with mundanity.

He despises you. Yes, he hates people like you. You could offer him no more than a monkey dancing on a string. Well…you were pretty. You could have one additional use.

Vindictive at having his hopes dashed, Hanma snaps back, “Car racing? Your cure for me is car racing? You know there are plenty of other ways I could start getting my kicks. What do other sociopaths do to get off? I could start stalking women, maybe start with a pretty, little therapist? That could keep me plenty entertained. I wonder how you’d scream when I’m breaking through your window.”

“Loudly. I live on the eighth floor. Regardless, you already get the thrill of holding power over others as part of your job, and you have plenty of sexual stimulation. I don’t think terrorizing me would offer you much novelty. My scream would sound no different than anyone else’s,” you say, brutally dispassionate.

“Spoil sport,” Hanma mutters.

There are a handful of people in the world who could rebut him so casually. He senses no fear in you, and against his better judgment, his interest piques once again.

“You wanted to scare me, and you didn’t. How does it make you feel when you don’t get the reaction you want?” you ask.

“Hard.”

For good measure, Hanma thrusts his hips up. Your eyes dart down before you remember yourself and redirect your gaze to your notepad. You scribble something down. Maybe too ashamed to meet his gaze?

“Our time is up,” you say. “I think this was a strong start. We’re agreed on the problem, which is always the first challenge. Now, it’s just a matter of coming up with a therapeutic solution. Can I show you out?”

Something hisses through Hanma’s brain, not quite angry but close. With the session over, he realizes how effortlessly you controlled the tone and topic even as he tried to disrupt or stonewall you at every turn. He had been reduced to a naughty schoolboy throwing paper airplanes at the teacher’s back.

Hanma can’t let you end this session on your terms as well.

“You’re just going to throw me out into the cold after making my cock hard like this? You’re in the services industry. My service should end with a happy ending,” Hanma mocks.

He palms his own thigh, drawing attention to the magnitude of his person. The threat is ninety percent air, but Hanma thinks he might cum immediately if you watch him touch himself. Or better yet, if you jerk him off with your delicate, moisturized hands. He loves putting a woman’s manicure to good use.

“I need to speak to Kisaki-san for a few minutes about your therapy anyway. Feel free to sit here as long as you like,” you say dismissively.

“You tease.”

As your heels click out the door, Hanma sinks further back into the plush of the armchair and thinks. He has always been excellent at picking out others’ weaknesses. So, while it could be his imagination, he believes his gut when it tells him your parting expression at his antics…it was fond.

When you close the door behind your office and Hanma, it’s not like you breath some great sigh of relief, but you can’t deny your breathing comes easier. The air in the room had been oppressive, like Hanma took three great gulps of oxygen for every one you managed to steal.

There is no time to celebrate, however, because in the waiting area awaits yet another predator.

“Kisaki-san! I apologize for keeping you waiting. Can I offer you anything to drink?” you say in your softest voice. You pegged Kisaki as a man with limited expectations of women and no appetite to expand his worldview.

Possibly the most dangerous man in Tokyo sits in a narrow, plastic chair in your waiting room. It feels wrong to greet him from a position of height, and you wait for him to stand before drawing closer. Like Hanma, he is dressed well, though with less flare than your potential patient.

“No, your receptionist handled that,” Kisaki waves away your drink offer. “You’ve had the opportunity to meet him now. Will you take on his case?”

Unbeknownst to Hanma, that had been less therapy session than interview. Work like this pays well but presents particular risks, and you never rush into a potential mistake. You would rather gather information until you saw every angle, and then act accordingly. Today’s meeting with Hanma is the final step in your risk assessment.

“I think I understand him and how to help him. That said, he showed more aggression towards me as a person than I expected,” you said, taking special care in your choice of the word ‘aggression.’

“He can be intimidating,” Kisaki says on a ghost of a smile.

“If I’m going to take on his treatment, I’ll need double.”

There. The final piece in your negotiation. Naturally, you intended to raise your prices at the last moment, but double is a legitimate reaction to Hanma.

You hadn’t expected him to be so…charismatic. His voice did half the work, deep in a way that made your gut clench and teasing in a way that made your pussy clench with it. He showed less of the superficial charm you expected from sociopaths, likely because he didn’t seek your validation. He toyed with you, yes, but like you were still on the shelf, a toy he hadn’t committed to buying. In his disinterest, he held nothing back, bantering so fast you struggled to keep up the entire session. Clinging to your professional script, you could barely keep up with his questions.

It excites you.

Then, there is the threat from the end of the session. Even now, he remains in your office. Is he actually jerking off? Or was that a taunt to strike fear into you? Probably the latter. If the former, you ought to hire a locksmith to add a third set of locks to your door.

Transference is always something you guard against and shut down at the earliest signals. You are not a friend, lover, or mother to your patients, and you can be callous in knocking that reminder into the deluded.

Yet with Hanma, how are you supposed to make any progress if you can’t engage his attention? He repeatedly tried to introduce a tit-for-tat into the conversation, showing the most interest when the conversation turned back on you. A little transference, just a little, might make him more susceptible to therapy.

All of this plays out in your head as you negotiate terms with Kisaki. Finally, he concedes to your price.

“I expect results,” Kisaki says. Unlike Hanma, he doesn’t need theatrics to make the threat heard loud and clear.

You hold his murderous gaze unflinchingly and reply, “My professional career would be destroyed if word ever reached the psychiatric board that I took this case. So, you have collateral in the event you’re unhappy with my work. But you won’t need it. You’ll see results.”

“I better.”

“I always work up an appetite after work,” Hanma comments, casting his eyes slyly to you, “And you look like you could use a drink.”

The sun has fallen, and the city is lit up by man’s inventions. You stare straight out the front window of his car, watching the traffic pass as if you are the driver. There’s a moment, where you look to summon your strength – a purposeful breath out and a fidget – and then you slip back into your role.

“I shouldn’t drink anything. I’m working,” you murmur.

“You’ll be better once you relax a little. Half a bottle of sake, and you’ll be back to the endless questions.”

“I do have some questions,” you admit.

“So, you’re not quitting on me just yet?” Hanma asks.

“No.”

You both share a long look. There’s iron strength behind your words that tells him you’re not joking around. Cute in the way your lips are pursed tight. Of course, Hanma knows that iron, though hard to break, melts. How long until your sanity leaks away under the pressure of playing with the most dangerous men in Tokyo? Would you still be beautiful when you were broken, or was your beauty a function of your strength?

A car horn forces Hanma to return his eyes to the road, swerving quickly to avoid swiping a parked bike.

Most days, Hanma ferries around the city in a discrete black Toyota Venza. Best not to draw attention at the scene of the crime. A driver picks him up and drops him home at the end of the day.

The Bentley – a 2018 Continental GT – is for his personal use. Unlike some of his colleagues, Hanma doesn’t pick his luxury car to signal his wealth and access to onlookers. He chose based solely on the drive. At peak performance it tops off at 337 km/hr and torque of 664 at 4500 rotations per minute. Designed for agility, so that he could barrel towards corners and barriers without slowing, the transmission shifts faster than any car he’s ever driven. In the 3.6 seconds between 0 to 100 km/hr, the stomach drops away, left behind at the starting line, and Hanma’s guts and nerves soar far beyond. He’s addicted to the feeling.

All drivers who love the rush of speed and skill, despise the stretch of road he enters now. Tokyo is designed to prevent men exactly like him from tearing rubber on the pavement, and this road is specifically prohibitive: six red lights, each with a long turnaround cycle, five pedestrian cross walks, and endless foot traffic headed to the trendy shops and restaurants.

“You know, before we go back to twenty questions, I have some questions myself,” Hanma says.

“What about?”

Hanma pulls a stop in front of a red light and twists in his seat to face you head on. “You.”

“Questions about me in a professional capacity?” you sigh.

“You expect me to spill my guts to an automaton? This will work better if I get to know you first, like a conversation,” Hanma says.

“Some people find it cathartic to share their innermost feelings with a stranger. That way they don’t have to worry about what the other person thinks.”

“And that’s what keeps bartenders in their tips. I’m well aware. The number of people that want to put a bullet in my head is in the hundreds, doc. I don’t trust easily.”

“Do you trust at all?” you ask, suddenly all professional curiosity again.

Hanma is saving his final opinion of you for a later date, but when you banter back and forth with him, he hazards he likes you. Stupidly brave without realizing it, dancing around his questions and cutting through his obfuscations. Still, you know when to back off, never pushing past a point of no return. You have judgment.

You also love risk, just like him. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have manipulated him this afternoon. You wouldn’t have travelled alone to an abandoned warehouse to meet a yakuza.

“Nu-uh, doc. No more freebies for the rest of the night. I get to ask you a question for every one you ask me. Quid pro quo,” Hanma says.

“No.”

“No?”

“It’s a full sentence,” you snap back cheekily. “There’s nothing for me to gain in that exchange.”

“Sure, there is. My candor for one.”

“At the cost of the professional distance I need to keep my job? Not likely,” you say firmly.

Hanma marvels at you. The pedestrian crossing is blinking; any moment now, the light will turn green. Whenever he’s faced with a hardass like you in negotiations, Hanma has a litany of tactics at his disposal. Some you would enjoy less than others. For, you, he thinks something altogether different will do the trick.

“Then, how about a wager? You like those. We’re going to meet at a restaurant that’s coming up on the left in a couple blocks. There are four more traffic lights between now and then. The likelihood that I can make it through all of them without hitting a red light is what? One percent? Maybe less. If I can make it, I get to ask you a question for every one you ask me.”

You suck in a breath, appearing deep in though. There is no time for you to debate the pros and cons because any second now the light will turn green, and the race will be on. Hanma taps the pedal with his foot a few times, enough to rev the engine to life, but not enough to lunge forward.

5…4…3…2…1

“Fine, you have a deal.”

The V-8 engine roars to life, almost drowning out your little gasp as the car slams forward and your body is propelled back hard into leather seats. Hanma’s weight is already positioned back to brace for the impact. All of his focus is on the obstacles that lay before him.

They shoot through the first several hundred meters at 80 kmh before drawing up behind a Nissan, slow to get out of the way. There’s a narrow gap in the right lane, and Hanma dares to maneuver over, blaring his horn all the while, so that the car behind slammed on the brakes and let him squeeze in. They only stay in the right lane for a moment before he’s passing the Nissan and barreling past the first green light.

The light up ahead is still red, but the pedestrian crossing is ending, so Hanma slows to the speed limit to ensure it will turn green by the time you approach. At the reduced speed, he can glance your way. You have curled your limbs around your body into a tight ball and there are crescent marks on the flesh of your upper arms. So adorable.

Spotting that the light ahead is green, Hanma accelerates up to 120 km/hr to close the remaining distance. He honks repeatedly on his horn in warning and several cars up ahead rightly take it as a threat, swerving into the other lane, so that he can breeze past.

One Suzuki misses the memo, continuing at a clip barely above the speed limit in Hanma’s lane. Irritated, he pulls forward to hover less than a meter from the little car’s bumper. There is no room to move right for either car, however, and the Suzuki continues on in blissful ignorance. Up ahead the light turns yellow, and Hanma sees his victory slipping away.

With a curse, he crosses the yellow line and breaks into opposing traffic. Bright lights from the opposing cars’ headlights nearly blind him. They blare their horns and swerve to the side, though the lot of them aren’t as loud as your immediate shrieks of terror in the passenger seat. You make a desperate grab for the door handle, and Hanma has to spare the concentration to flick his child locks on, so you don’t leap out in a fit of terror.

One car nearly collides with another in a bid to get out of his way. Meanwhile, he effortlessly curves the wheel to the right, reentering his original lane ahead of the Suzuki and making it through the light a moment before it turned red.

“Do-do-don’t…Don’t…do…that,” you hyperventilate. Two lights to go, and already you are tapping out.

“Close your eyes, baby,” Hanma laughs, and then just for the hell of it, veers back into opposing traffic. You scream some more, and it’s just as funny as the first time.

He plays chicken with one of the cars up ahead, driving close before returning to his lane, but at this point you have taken his advice and stopped looking, so there’s no fun in it. Behind him, the Suzuki is catching up, somehow the driver – a bespectacled man, shaking his fist in fury through the windshield – has figured out how to speed all of the sudden. Amazing what anger can motivate a man to learn. He tries to ride Hanma’s ass, give him back a taste of his own medicine.

So, naturally, Hanma brake-checks him.

The Suzuki’s brake mechanics are not near as sophisticated as a Bentley’s, and the driver can’t stop in time, colliding with their bumper. His neck swings with a jolt. First forward, then back. Not unlike taking a punch. The only reason the air bags don’t deploy is Hanma had them disabled for exactly these circumstances. He didn’t want to break a knee every time he had a little accident, though the seat belt is sure to leave a mark on his chest.

Before Hanma’s even fully registered the damage though, he is already speeding back up through the third light. In his rearview, he can see the mangled hood of the Suzuki, half the size it was before as it was crushed under the power of their collision. Should be totaled. Any damage to the Bentley could always be repaired. Or if not, fuck it, he could buy another.

He starts to laugh and laugh and laugh. He rolls a window down to feel the air whip through the car; it fills up his lungs, rich and heavy like smoke. He can barely breathe through the intoxication. It’s the lights and the speed and the poor bastard who won’t be driving home tonight and your petrified whimpers and the air so sweet he can taste it.

High off the victory, Hanma flexes his foot on the accelerator, testing how fast he can go on such a crowded street. The answer is about 130 km/hr.

He makes it through the last light and obstacle.

Barely slowing, he swings a left into the covered lot by the restaurant, flipping off the cars that honk as he cuts them off. A parking spot is open in the front, and Hanma can see his men parked around it; security told to wait for his arrival. The car lurches to a stop, sloppily on the line of the parking spot.

“Well, that was close,” Hanma says, hardly breathing through the high. “I win.”

You don’t acknowledge his gloating smile.

One by one, you unfurl your fingers from the car handle, where you clung for dear life. Ever the gentleman, Hanma leaps out, so that he can open your door for you. No thank you, but you look like a ghost, so he lets it pass.

As he guessed, the Bentley is barely damaged. The Suzuki had managed to slow down before the crash and had taken the brunt of the impact. Just some scuffs to the paint and a little denting on the bumper that could be repaired in a few hours.

He throws his keys to one of his men and tells him to take the Bentley back to the garage before the police come looking. He’ll drive one of their cars home instead. If the Suzuki-loser managed to get his license plate, there is no need to worry. The car isn’t titled in his name, and they have a roster of backup license plates in storage.

Catatonic, you don’t react at all when Hanma places his hand on the small of your back and guides you into the restaurant. Pliant like a little doll.

The restaurant is in the western-style with individual tables, so that Hanma can ensure no one hears your conversation. Low-lighting and a discrete maître de that knows who and what Hanma is ensure you are seated immediately at the best table in the house. A waiter promptly arrives to take your drink order and explain the menu. The restaurant specializes in wagyu beef, the best cuts in the country.

Hanma orders a place of choice cuts – tongue, heart, loins – along with kimchi and whiskey to wash it down. Your eyes don’t even move over the menu, so Hanma starts to order a second of the same, when you finally snap awake.

“My appetite’s not all there yet,” you say softly, before ordering the tartare appetizer and a beer. You must remember what Hanma told you about loosening up a bit.

You sip at a glass of ice water and a little life returns to your eyes. Hanma undergoes the opposite effect, losing the intoxicating rush that had possessed him moments before and returning to his base state, like the colors had been leeched from a world once neon and shining.

“Have you ever tried wagyu before?” Hanma asks, hoping to spark some conversation before he dies of boredom.

“No. Is that one of your questions?” you retort.

“No, I’m just making conversation,” Hanma parrots. “I figured you for the trendy restaurant type. Thought you’d have tried all the Michelin three stars.”

“My boyfriend likes fine dining, so I go sometimes, but I prefer to not spend so much money on a single meal.” You stop suddenly, lips pursed. “You are paying, right?”

Hanma nods, and you instantly relax. A boyfriend, huh? He controls himself from pursuing that line of questioning, no matter how interesting it may prove to be, as it would make you hostile immediately. There are better ways to exploit his power over you for now.

The drinks arrive almost immediately. Hanma knocks his whiskey back in a single gulp and then sends for another. The rich burn down his throat lights up his belly and eyes. Delicately, you sip at your beer.

“Here’s my actual first question,” Hanma says. He stares you down until you stop fidgeting and hold his gaze just as intensely. “Are you scared of me?”

He can trace the saliva as your throat bobs and swallows.

“Yes, you terrify me,” you admit lowly.

“And yet you’re still here.”

The whiskey continues to burn in his chest.

“My turn to ask a question. When you…ended the interrogation earlier,” you cast your eyes around as if the police might jump the table at any moment, “Did that excite you?”

“Not particularly. I shot him because I was bored of hearing him blathering for mercy, not because I wanted to shoot him for the sake of it,” Hanma says.

“It didn’t turn you on at all?”

Hanma snorts. “I already answered that question. I’m starting to think it turned you on. And, that’s two questions, by the way, so I get a follow up next time. No, it did not turn me on. I don’t feel anything really when I kill someone.”

“Does violence ever turn you on?” you persist, like you want him to confess to being a sexual sadist straight from a thriller.

He decides to give you a serious answer. “Yes, under some conditions, violence excites me. I’m not saying it gets my cock hard, but it does feel good. Killing someone is pointless because once they’re dead, they can’t react anymore. It’s boring. I like the audience. I like when someone realizes that they made a mistake in not falling in line and that moment when regret flashes across their face, and they would do anything to make it up to me, but it’s too late. There’s none of that when a bullet hits. I’m not obsessed with death, or what a person feels when they die. Could care less. What I love though, what really gets me going, is when I’m fighting someone at a disadvantage. Losers like Fujimori offer me nothing. The best fight I ever had was against Mikey-kun back in the day. He was stronger than me, fiercer than me, and I knew I had just about no chance. It was rapturous, every punch that landed, every kick that bruised. The give and the take between the both of us, that turned me all the way on.”

Unthinkingly while he spoke, you both leaned in, so that your heads are close over the small table. Sometimes you get this look in your eyes, like he is hypnotizing you with his words. It takes no effort to seduce you. You ought to ask if the power of that turned him on; he would say an undeniable yes.

“I thought you might have a god complex, but you enjoy being beaten by a strong opponent as much as beating them?” you ask.

“My dream death,” Hanma says conspiratorially, “Would be for someone stronger than me to beat me down over the course of hours, wrap their hands around my neck, and squeeze until there’s nothing left. I think I’d enjoy the awareness of what’s happening as I die. Much better than deteriorating in a hospital bed with doctors prolonging my miserable life for just one more day.”

Now you knock back a big swig of beer. The pretty column of your throat trembles, and Hanma wonders if you too are thinking about hands wrapped around it. He would release you before you lost consciousness, just as your eyes dimmed of panic and started to flutter. You are so small compared to him that it would take only one hand to press down on your windpipe and dominate you.

“Have you ever tried –”

“No, no, no, my turn to ask the questions,” Hanma interrupts you, “And you’ve tallied up several in a row.”

You readjust your posture, reintroducing distance – physically and emotionally – between you both and say, “Go ahead.

“You are terrified of me. You saw me murder a man today. Yet here you are. Why haven’t you quit?”

“Kisaki-san is offering quadruple what I typically charge for half the time, and if I prove myself with you, he’ll refer more work to me. The money’s too good to pass up.”

“See, that’s what I don’t get. You must have a solid little nest egg saved up by this point. Your prices are highway robbery. Yet you say you don’t like to eat at the best restaurants to save money, and you’ll overlook your ethics to earn blood money from a killer. Why the obsession with money? Are there loan sharks breathing down your neck?”

Unsaid by him and unheard by you is that Hanma would genuinely consider taking care of said loan sharks. He’s not sure why he would make the offer beyond a repulsion at sharing one of his toys with a low life.

“The answer’s kind of long,” you admit.

“We have time.”

“I never knew my father. He left before I was born. It left my mother a single parent, and she…well, if she were alive today and I was her therapist, I would diagnose her with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It’s more than just being narcissistic. My mother worked as a supervisor at a hotel, and she earned enough good money to dress well, take a nice holiday every year, pay the rent on time. Meanwhile, I would outgrow a pair of school shoes and still force my foot inside because I knew my mother would never pay to replace them. I lived in a nice apartment and went to a nice school, but behind closed doors, I liked like an urchin on cup ramen and scraps. If I asked my mom for anything, she would tell me to go ask my dad, say that he was doing well for himself, and that if he loved me, he would pay child support and help with my expenses rather than leaving it all to her, that she couldn’t be expected to take care of me. When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, while I was in university, I discovered that she had no savings. All the designer clothes she wore ate up every dollar she earned, so she couldn’t retire or take care of herself. I actually moved back home during that period, worked a night job on top of my classes, so that I could take care of her in that awful apartment I hated. Then, she died. I told myself that I would never live like her. I would earn enough money that I never burdened anyone, and I’ve lived by that.”

You quiet as the waiter nears with a tray of dishes for the table. While Hanma immediately tears into the high-price cuts presented to him, you only poke at your plate of tartare. The queerest expression paints your face, not sad or angry, not professional or serene, some unholy mask that you crafted to survive your pitiful family background.

“I’m surprised you became a therapist,” Hanma says. “I would have thought you would want to avoid people like your mother after that.”

You blink a few times. “That’s…surprisingly astute, Hanma-san.”

“What a polite way to say you’re surprised I’m not stupid,” Hanma says with a genuine laugh.

Chastened, you continue without his needing to ask the question, “Sometimes my patients do sicken me, but it’s what I’m good at. Growing up, I had to keep an eye on my mother at all times, understand her moods: where they came from, how to placate her, and so on. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have survived in that house. She could fly into a rage if she felt disrespected, destroy the few things I owned. The scariest person in the room gets to react. Everyone else has to be proactive to prevent it from getting to that point in the first place, you know? So, I was an expert at reading people and understanding what drove them before I graduated middle school. Plus, therapists make good money. I figured I could push through my discomfort for fifteen years, and then retire with enough money to live a quiet life free of worry. That’s all I want.”

“I’m sorry you went through that,” Hanma says.

“Are you really? Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess I thought it was the thing to say.”

You nod like that makes sense and quiet. Talking about your parents has put you in a reflective mood. In moments like these, you seem oddly delicate.

“Try this,” Hanma orders.

He lifts his chopsticks with a cut of tender heart to your lips. Obediently, you open and let the meat rest on your tongue. It’s tender but still beef, so you have to chew aggressively to break it down into pieces. Hanma watches the way your jaw works, the canines of a predator and nothing delicate about it. A trickle of juice crests over your bottom lip to run down to your chin.

“You had been about to ask me another question earlier,” Hanma says.

“Yes, you were talking about how you hope to die. Have you ever tried to die? Either by an actual suicide attempt or putting yourself in a situation where you suspected it would kill you?”

The taste of the heart has revived you. You sound heartier, less haunted by the specters of the past.

“I’ve never attempted suicide. The other half, that’s complicated to answer. Technically, I expect my job to someday kill me, so you could argue I put myself in that position every day. I never know how a fight will turn out or if a hitman isn’t waiting for me behind the door when I go home at the end of the day. I don’t bait it, I guess, but I don’t mind it either. Makes life a little exciting,” Hanma explains.

“Well, that’s good at least,” you say. Even without a pad of paper in front of you, Hanma can imagine you writing down your findings – suicide attempts? Negative. Suicidal ideation? Inconclusive.

“I think you’re still a few questions ahead of me,” Hanma says, “So speaking of good things. You mentioned having a boyfriend waiting for you at home…”

“What about him?”

So you live together, and he doesn’t even have to waste a question to find out.

“Well, tell me about him! What’s he do? Why’d you pick him out of all the men in Tokyo? Does he get you off?”

“I’m not answering that.”

“We made a deal, doc,” Hanma says, wagging a finger in your face.

“We agreed you could ask me questions for every one I asked you. We never specified that I had to answer,” you counter.

“You know that kind of crafty negotiation doesn’t really fly with the yakuza. There’s no need to specify. There’s something called the spirit of the terms. If I make a deal with some poor sap, and he tries to wiggle out on a technicality, I’m well within my rights to take his kneecaps home with me as a souvenir,” Hanma warns.

You tense, less at the words themselves than the deep growl that reinforces them.

“Do you want to take my kneecaps as a souvenir?” you ask.

“No, but I will find a way to punish you if you reneg. The spirit of the deal, doc. Show me you’re a serious player.”

You sigh, and then, to his surprise, launch right into the portion of the question that makes you most uncomfortable, “Yes, he gets me off. Not always but often. He’s a corporate accountant. In fact, his firm acts as the accountant for my practice. That’s how we met. He’s not on my account, so no conflict of interest, but we met in the lobby of his building. I chose him because he’s reliable, easy to read, easy to please. He has normal expectations for life and love. We both read a lot and talk politics and current events. We both think idols are vapid and public baths are a relic. He keeps the apartment clean without my having to ask and pays his bills on time and calls his parents every Sunday. A good, dependable man.”

“Wow, doc, sounds like love!” Hanma says, dropping his chin to his palm and giving you his best lovestruck expression.

“How would you know? You said you’ve never been in love.”

Though true Hanma might not recognize love, he can recognize what you have with your boring boyfriend. Hanma feels more passion towards his car than you describe towards this accountant. You want a safe, boring life and the accountant is a means to an end. Yet here you sit with him. A contradiction.

“Do you want kids?” Hanma asks.

“I don’t know. I think…you can do a lot of damage to your children without meaning to. Everyone who comes in my office has a story about how it’s all their mother’s fault. Even me. I wouldn’t like to dedicate my life to a person only for them to resent me for the ways I failed. What about you?”

Hanma blanches. “No brats for me, thanks.”

“Probably for the best,” you giggle.

In the time you’ve been talking, the waiter has refilled Hanma’s whiskey three times, and gifted you a second beer. Nearly half of the tartare is gone along with the better part of the kimchi.

“When was the last time you got off and how?” Hanma says suddenly, enjoying the way your open expression shutters closed in an instant. You were becoming transparent to him.

“Sure, I can. I can have someone drive you home by the way. Don’t want you taking the train this late.”

You scoff and look around like there might be a bystander to step in and help. It’s a cute habit. In addition to the several explicit bets you’ve made this far, Hanma thinks these moments count as little wagers as well. Hanma betting on where the edge of your patience lies, and you betting on how far you can push yourself beyond your comfort zone.

“Two nights ago,” you relent.

“How?”

“Hanma-san–”

“How?”

“With a pillow.”

Mortification breaks across your face, and you quickly turn away to rifle through your purse for your phone. Probably calling a taxi. Hanma doesn’t mind. His imagination is doing its best to construct the scene, picturing your hips grinding against the soft exterior of a pillow. The color of your sex, the curves of your body, and the way you would ride your pillow are unknowns to him, guesses, but he thinks he can construct your face well, the look of concentrated frustration as you chase an orgasm. Hanma closes his eyes to savor it.

“How was your relationship with your parents?” you blurt out, like you can see the picture in his mind and want to erase it immediately.

“Might sound familiar to you. My father was transferred on a tanshinfunin basis to Vietnam when I was six or seven. I probably only saw him twice between then and adulthood. When he returned, he didn’t find much to be proud of. My mother was fine, kind of nondescript. The thing that made her life worth living were the ladies in our apartment complex. They played cards together every evening, cooked dinner, went shopping. They were her real family. She didn’t much notice or care when I started spending all my time outside the house, and by the time she realized I was a delinquent, it was too late. She had no power over me at that point. She’s a fine woman though. I send her money every month,” Hanma says.

Compared to most of the other founding members of Toman, he is lucky. His mother never even hit him. She may be disappointed in him today, but he found an identity separate from her long before, so he never felt the sting of her disapproval.

“An only child or siblings?” you ask.

“Just me. One terror was enough, I suppose.”

“Did you show signs of delinquency early? Fighting, things like that?” you ask.

It’s not your turn, but Hanma decides to humor you. “I did all the J.D. classics – fighting, bullying the other boys and girls, taking their lunch money, shop lifting, graffiti, breaking curfew. Like I said, I was a terror.”

When he speaks of these days, fondness drips from his voice. Things were more exciting back then, new experiences abounded behind every corner. His crimes escalated because they had to, not because he found more pleasure in completing an arms sale than in pilfering a cigarette.

“And did you do any of that before your father moved?”

The question draws Hanma up short. Huh. He’s never once considered the order of operations there, but he can’t remember any misbehavior in his earliest years.

“Holy hell, doc. You know what…I don’t think I did. So, it’s all dear old Dad’s fault that I turned out this way? If he hadn’t left, I could be living a boring, average life. I could be your accountant!” Hanma jokes, but his mind is spinning over the possibilities.

“You didn’t start fighting until you were a bit older, but did you think about it a lot?”

Hanma peers over his glasses at you, like you are an idiot. “I was an elementary school boy. Of course, I did! I loved all the shonen fighting shows. I was obsessed with Battle Royale when it came out and other fight-to-the-death movies. But, you’d have to poll half the country to find a boy who wasn’t.”

Your lips quirk to the side. “I cede the point.”

Whenever you start to relax and smile at him, the impulse to twist the conversation to territory you won’t follow rises up in him. Hanma doesn’t understand why he wants to ruin it for you, doesn’t think that ruining it is the point even. He simply can’t resist pushing you a step further.

“My turn, and I have a couple questions saved up. Are you going to touch yourself tonight?”

Somehow, you are still surprised by the question, so surprised in fact, that you don’t turn away in embarrassment but just stare at him slack-jawed. There’s a brightness to your skin and a sheen to your eyes from your two beers, and the alcohol leeches the fight from you.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” you admit with a whisper.

The sound of Hanma’s chair scraping the floor as he slides closer is loud against the backdrop of silence. Long limbs encroach on your side of the table, until he’s leaning his head close to yours again.

“At any point today, doc, have I turned you on?”

Tears well in your eyes. He watches your pink tongue dart forward and then retreat. The silence stretches on and the tension is unbearable.

Finally, defeatedly, you tremble out, “Yes.”

Hanma leans back in his seat, returning the space between you and the air to your lungs. In the motion, he adjusts his pants a little. You are so beautifully distraught at the admission of your own desires, but you are also uncowed. Not once do you break eye contact or the spell that draws you both together. Unbreaking but vulnerable, obedient but fierce. If he slid his flinger along your parted lips, Hanma thinks you wouldn’t fight the intrusion, let him tease your throat here at the table.

“I think we both learned a lot today, Doc,” Hanma says through a voice like gravel. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

As you exit the restaurant, Hanma notes your darting eyes. There’s a taxi down the street that you must have texted from the table. He would have asked one of his men to drive you back, but it’s no matter. He has other business to attend to this evening.

The atmosphere of confession follows you both outside the restaurant. You could ask him any question right now, and he would answer without hesitation. Like he was injected with a truth serum at some point in the night. His bank accounts could be yours if you just thought to ask.

You take a step toward the taxi, whiff of perfume or shampoo or general musk whipping his nose. In a split-second decision – less a decision than impulse and action – Hanma decides he is not ready for you to leave just yet. He wraps a hand around your waist and spins you back into the recesses of the parking garage, finding an alcove cloaked in shadows. Your mouth parts as if to scream, but you remember yourself and close it.

Pressed with your back to the wall and Hanma boxing you in with his arms on either side of your head, you are transparent. Fright, curiosity, caution, intrigue. Hanma reads each emotion flit across your face. Your bodies are close together but not touching. To meet his gaze, you would need to crane your head up and risk physical contact, so you tuck your chin and stare into his chest; it’s a surprisingly submissive gesture that Hanma doesn’t mind at all.

“You said I frighten you,” Hanma murmurs huskily.

“Yes.”

“You said I arouse you.”

A moment as if you might argue the semantics, but then a nod. “Yes.”

“Are those competing feelings? Or do I arouse you because I frighten you?”

Unable to hide, you look up and meet his eyes. Your face answers the question, but he wonders if you’ll admit it.

“Yes,” you sigh in defeat.

Something hot swells in Hanma’s chest, similar to the triumph he feels when he traps one of his enemies. Even more similar to the feeling from when he first met Kisaki, and Kisaki made him the promise of a lifetime. A queer mixture of excitement and certainty, and dare he say, happiness?

Hanma shoves a wad of bills into your hands and pulls back from where he boxes you in. “Your ride’s on me. Get home already, and text me when you get there.”

Still numbed by the emotional assault of the evening’s confessions, you don’t think to argue his demand. He sounds like a protective boyfriend. From his spot in the garage, Hanma watches you dart toward the cab – not fast enough to qualify as a jog, but your legs stretching wide to put as much distance as possible between you both. You don’t look back.

There are about a dozen missed calls and text messages on his burner, all related to tomorrow’s business. Hanma lights a cigarette and sighs. There are still so many hours in the night to fill, and he doesn’t know where to get started.

“I always work up an appetite after work,” Hanma comments, casting his eyes slyly to you, “And you look like you could use a drink.”

The sun has fallen, and the city is lit up by man’s inventions. You stare straight out the front window of his car, watching the traffic pass as if you are the driver. There’s a moment, where you look to summon your strength – a purposeful breath out and a fidget – and then you slip back into your role.

“I shouldn’t drink anything. I’m working,” you murmur.

“You’ll be better once you relax a little. Half a bottle of sake, and you’ll be back to the endless questions.”

“I do have some questions,” you admit.

“So, you’re not quitting on me just yet?” Hanma asks.

“No.”

You both share a long look. There’s iron strength behind your words that tells him you’re not joking around. Cute in the way your lips are pursed tight. Of course, Hanma knows that iron, though hard to break, melts. How long until your sanity leaks away under the pressure of playing with the most dangerous men in Tokyo? Would you still be beautiful when you were broken, or was your beauty a function of your strength?

A car horn forces Hanma to return his eyes to the road, swerving quickly to avoid swiping a parked bike.

Most days, Hanma ferries around the city in a discrete black Toyota Venza. Best not to draw attention at the scene of the crime. A driver picks him up and drops him home at the end of the day.

The Bentley – a 2018 Continental GT – is for his personal use. Unlike some of his colleagues, Hanma doesn’t pick his luxury car to signal his wealth and access to onlookers. He chose based solely on the drive. At peak performance it tops off at 337 km/hr and torque of 664 at 4500 rotations per minute. Designed for agility, so that he could barrel towards corners and barriers without slowing, the transmission shifts faster than any car he’s ever driven. In the 3.6 seconds between 0 to 100 km/hr, the stomach drops away, left behind at the starting line, and Hanma’s guts and nerves soar far beyond. He’s addicted to the feeling.

All drivers who love the rush of speed and skill, despise the stretch of road he enters now. Tokyo is designed to prevent men exactly like him from tearing rubber on the pavement, and this road is specifically prohibitive: six red lights, each with a long turnaround cycle, five pedestrian cross walks, and endless foot traffic headed to the trendy shops and restaurants.

“You know, before we go back to twenty questions, I have some questions myself,” Hanma says.

“What about?”

Hanma pulls a stop in front of a red light and twists in his seat to face you head on. “You.”

“Questions about me in a professional capacity?” you sigh.

“You expect me to spill my guts to an automaton? This will work better if I get to know you first, like a conversation,” Hanma says.

“Some people find it cathartic to share their innermost feelings with a stranger. That way they don’t have to worry about what the other person thinks.”

“And that’s what keeps bartenders in their tips. I’m well aware. The number of people that want to put a bullet in my head is in the hundreds, doc. I don’t trust easily.”

“Do you trust at all?” you ask, suddenly all professional curiosity again.

Hanma is saving his final opinion of you for a later date, but when you banter back and forth with him, he hazards he likes you. Stupidly brave without realizing it, dancing around his questions and cutting through his obfuscations. Still, you know when to back off, never pushing past a point of no return. You have judgment.

You also love risk, just like him. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have manipulated him this afternoon. You wouldn’t have travelled alone to an abandoned warehouse to meet a yakuza.

“Nu-uh, doc. No more freebies for the rest of the night. I get to ask you a question for every one you ask me. Quid pro quo,” Hanma says.

“No.”

“No?”

“It’s a full sentence,” you snap back cheekily. “There’s nothing for me to gain in that exchange.”

“Sure, there is. My candor for one.”

“At the cost of the professional distance I need to keep my job? Not likely,” you say firmly.

Hanma marvels at you. The pedestrian crossing is blinking; any moment now, the light will turn green. Whenever he’s faced with a hardass like you in negotiations, Hanma has a litany of tactics at his disposal. Some you would enjoy less than others. For, you, he thinks something altogether different will do the trick.

“Then, how about a wager? You like those. We’re going to meet at a restaurant that’s coming up on the left in a couple blocks. There are four more traffic lights between now and then. The likelihood that I can make it through all of them without hitting a red light is what? One percent? Maybe less. If I can make it, I get to ask you a question for every one you ask me.”

You suck in a breath, appearing deep in though. There is no time for you to debate the pros and cons because any second now the light will turn green, and the race will be on. Hanma taps the pedal with his foot a few times, enough to rev the engine to life, but not enough to lunge forward.

5…4…3…2…1

“Fine, you have a deal.”

The V-8 engine roars to life, almost drowning out your little gasp as the car slams forward and your body is propelled back hard into leather seats. Hanma’s weight is already positioned back to brace for the impact. All of his focus is on the obstacles that lay before him.

They shoot through the first several hundred meters at 80 kmh before drawing up behind a Nissan, slow to get out of the way. There’s a narrow gap in the right lane, and Hanma dares to maneuver over, blaring his horn all the while, so that the car behind slammed on the brakes and let him squeeze in. They only stay in the right lane for a moment before he’s passing the Nissan and barreling past the first green light.

The light up ahead is still red, but the pedestrian crossing is ending, so Hanma slows to the speed limit to ensure it will turn green by the time you approach. At the reduced speed, he can glance your way. You have curled your limbs around your body into a tight ball and there are crescent marks on the flesh of your upper arms. So adorable.

Spotting that the light ahead is green, Hanma accelerates up to 120 km/hr to close the remaining distance. He honks repeatedly on his horn in warning and several cars up ahead rightly take it as a threat, swerving into the other lane, so that he can breeze past.

One Suzuki misses the memo, continuing at a clip barely above the speed limit in Hanma’s lane. Irritated, he pulls forward to hover less than a meter from the little car’s bumper. There is no room to move right for either car, however, and the Suzuki continues on in blissful ignorance. Up ahead the light turns yellow, and Hanma sees his victory slipping away.

With a curse, he crosses the yellow line and breaks into opposing traffic. Bright lights from the opposing cars’ headlights nearly blind him. They blare their horns and swerve to the side, though the lot of them aren’t as loud as your immediate shrieks of terror in the passenger seat. You make a desperate grab for the door handle, and Hanma has to spare the concentration to flick his child locks on, so you don’t leap out in a fit of terror.

One car nearly collides with another in a bid to get out of his way. Meanwhile, he effortlessly curves the wheel to the right, reentering his original lane ahead of the Suzuki and making it through the light a moment before it turned red.

“Do-do-don’t…Don’t…do…that,” you hyperventilate. Two lights to go, and already you are tapping out.

“Close your eyes, baby,” Hanma laughs, and then just for the hell of it, veers back into opposing traffic. You scream some more, and it’s just as funny as the first time.

He plays chicken with one of the cars up ahead, driving close before returning to his lane, but at this point you have taken his advice and stopped looking, so there’s no fun in it. Behind him, the Suzuki is catching up, somehow the driver – a bespectacled man, shaking his fist in fury through the windshield – has figured out how to speed all of the sudden. Amazing what anger can motivate a man to learn. He tries to ride Hanma’s ass, give him back a taste of his own medicine.

So, naturally, Hanma brake-checks him.

The Suzuki’s brake mechanics are not near as sophisticated as a Bentley’s, and the driver can’t stop in time, colliding with their bumper. His neck swings with a jolt. First forward, then back. Not unlike taking a punch. The only reason the air bags don’t deploy is Hanma had them disabled for exactly these circumstances. He didn’t want to break a knee every time he had a little accident, though the seat belt is sure to leave a mark on his chest.

Before Hanma’s even fully registered the damage though, he is already speeding back up through the third light. In his rearview, he can see the mangled hood of the Suzuki, half the size it was before as it was crushed under the power of their collision. Should be totaled. Any damage to the Bentley could always be repaired. Or if not, fuck it, he could buy another.

He starts to laugh and laugh and laugh. He rolls a window down to feel the air whip through the car; it fills up his lungs, rich and heavy like smoke. He can barely breathe through the intoxication. It’s the lights and the speed and the poor bastard who won’t be driving home tonight and your petrified whimpers and the air so sweet he can taste it.

High off the victory, Hanma flexes his foot on the accelerator, testing how fast he can go on such a crowded street. The answer is about 130 km/hr.

He makes it through the last light and obstacle.

Barely slowing, he swings a left into the covered lot by the restaurant, flipping off the cars that honk as he cuts them off. A parking spot is open in the front, and Hanma can see his men parked around it; security told to wait for his arrival. The car lurches to a stop, sloppily on the line of the parking spot.

“Well, that was close,” Hanma says, hardly breathing through the high. “I win.”

You don’t acknowledge his gloating smile.

One by one, you unfurl your fingers from the car handle, where you clung for dear life. Ever the gentleman, Hanma leaps out, so that he can open your door for you. No thank you, but you look like a ghost, so he lets it pass.

As he guessed, the Bentley is barely damaged. The Suzuki had managed to slow down before the crash and had taken the brunt of the impact. Just some scuffs to the paint and a little denting on the bumper that could be repaired in a few hours.

He throws his keys to one of his men and tells him to take the Bentley back to the garage before the police come looking. He’ll drive one of their cars home instead. If the Suzuki-loser managed to get his license plate, there is no need to worry. The car isn’t titled in his name, and they have a roster of backup license plates in storage.

Catatonic, you don’t react at all when Hanma places his hand on the small of your back and guides you into the restaurant. Pliant like a little doll.

The restaurant is in the western-style with individual tables, so that Hanma can ensure no one hears your conversation. Low-lighting and a discrete maître de that knows who and what Hanma is ensure you are seated immediately at the best table in the house. A waiter promptly arrives to take your drink order and explain the menu. The restaurant specializes in wagyu beef, the best cuts in the country.

Hanma orders a place of choice cuts – tongue, heart, loins – along with kimchi and whiskey to wash it down. Your eyes don’t even move over the menu, so Hanma starts to order a second of the same, when you finally snap awake.

“My appetite’s not all there yet,” you say softly, before ordering the tartare appetizer and a beer. You must remember what Hanma told you about loosening up a bit.

You sip at a glass of ice water and a little life returns to your eyes. Hanma undergoes the opposite effect, losing the intoxicating rush that had possessed him moments before and returning to his base state, like the colors had been leeched from a world once neon and shining.

“Have you ever tried wagyu before?” Hanma asks, hoping to spark some conversation before he dies of boredom.

“No. Is that one of your questions?” you retort.

“No, I’m just making conversation,” Hanma parrots. “I figured you for the trendy restaurant type. Thought you’d have tried all the Michelin three stars.”

“My boyfriend likes fine dining, so I go sometimes, but I prefer to not spend so much money on a single meal.” You stop suddenly, lips pursed. “You are paying, right?”

Hanma nods, and you instantly relax. A boyfriend, huh? He controls himself from pursuing that line of questioning, no matter how interesting it may prove to be, as it would make you hostile immediately. There are better ways to exploit his power over you for now.

The drinks arrive almost immediately. Hanma knocks his whiskey back in a single gulp and then sends for another. The rich burn down his throat lights up his belly and eyes. Delicately, you sip at your beer.

“Here’s my actual first question,” Hanma says. He stares you down until you stop fidgeting and hold his gaze just as intensely. “Are you scared of me?”

He can trace the saliva as your throat bobs and swallows.

“Yes, you terrify me,” you admit lowly.

“And yet you’re still here.”

The whiskey continues to burn in his chest.

“My turn to ask a question. When you…ended the interrogation earlier,” you cast your eyes around as if the police might jump the table at any moment, “Did that excite you?”

“Not particularly. I shot him because I was bored of hearing him blathering for mercy, not because I wanted to shoot him for the sake of it,” Hanma says.

“It didn’t turn you on at all?”

Hanma snorts. “I already answered that question. I’m starting to think it turned you on. And, that’s two questions, by the way, so I get a follow up next time. No, it did not turn me on. I don’t feel anything really when I kill someone.”

“Does violence ever turn you on?” you persist, like you want him to confess to being a sexual sadist straight from a thriller.

He decides to give you a serious answer. “Yes, under some conditions, violence excites me. I’m not saying it gets my cock hard, but it does feel good. Killing someone is pointless because once they’re dead, they can’t react anymore. It’s boring. I like the audience. I like when someone realizes that they made a mistake in not falling in line and that moment when regret flashes across their face, and they would do anything to make it up to me, but it’s too late. There’s none of that when a bullet hits. I’m not obsessed with death, or what a person feels when they die. Could care less. What I love though, what really gets me going, is when I’m fighting someone at a disadvantage. Losers like Fujimori offer me nothing. The best fight I ever had was against Mikey-kun back in the day. He was stronger than me, fiercer than me, and I knew I had just about no chance. It was rapturous, every punch that landed, every kick that bruised. The give and the take between the both of us, that turned me all the way on.”

Unthinkingly while he spoke, you both leaned in, so that your heads are close over the small table. Sometimes you get this look in your eyes, like he is hypnotizing you with his words. It takes no effort to seduce you. You ought to ask if the power of that turned him on; he would say an undeniable yes.

“I thought you might have a god complex, but you enjoy being beaten by a strong opponent as much as beating them?” you ask.

“My dream death,” Hanma says conspiratorially, “Would be for someone stronger than me to beat me down over the course of hours, wrap their hands around my neck, and squeeze until there’s nothing left. I think I’d enjoy the awareness of what’s happening as I die. Much better than deteriorating in a hospital bed with doctors prolonging my miserable life for just one more day.”

Now you knock back a big swig of beer. The pretty column of your throat trembles, and Hanma wonders if you too are thinking about hands wrapped around it. He would release you before you lost consciousness, just as your eyes dimmed of panic and started to flutter. You are so small compared to him that it would take only one hand to press down on your windpipe and dominate you.

“Have you ever tried –”

“No, no, no, my turn to ask the questions,” Hanma interrupts you, “And you’ve tallied up several in a row.”

You readjust your posture, reintroducing distance – physically and emotionally – between you both and say, “Go ahead.

“You are terrified of me. You saw me murder a man today. Yet here you are. Why haven’t you quit?”

“Kisaki-san is offering quadruple what I typically charge for half the time, and if I prove myself with you, he’ll refer more work to me. The money’s too good to pass up.”

“See, that’s what I don’t get. You must have a solid little nest egg saved up by this point. Your prices are highway robbery. Yet you say you don’t like to eat at the best restaurants to save money, and you’ll overlook your ethics to earn blood money from a killer. Why the obsession with money? Are there loan sharks breathing down your neck?”

Unsaid by him and unheard by you is that Hanma would genuinely consider taking care of said loan sharks. He’s not sure why he would make the offer beyond a repulsion at sharing one of his toys with a low life.

“The answer’s kind of long,” you admit.

“We have time.”

“I never knew my father. He left before I was born. It left my mother a single parent, and she…well, if she were alive today and I was her therapist, I would diagnose her with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It’s more than just being narcissistic. My mother worked as a supervisor at a hotel, and she earned enough good money to dress well, take a nice holiday every year, pay the rent on time. Meanwhile, I would outgrow a pair of school shoes and still force my foot inside because I knew my mother would never pay to replace them. I lived in a nice apartment and went to a nice school, but behind closed doors, I liked like an urchin on cup ramen and scraps. If I asked my mom for anything, she would tell me to go ask my dad, say that he was doing well for himself, and that if he loved me, he would pay child support and help with my expenses rather than leaving it all to her, that she couldn’t be expected to take care of me. When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, while I was in university, I discovered that she had no savings. All the designer clothes she wore ate up every dollar she earned, so she couldn’t retire or take care of herself. I actually moved back home during that period, worked a night job on top of my classes, so that I could take care of her in that awful apartment I hated. Then, she died. I told myself that I would never live like her. I would earn enough money that I never burdened anyone, and I’ve lived by that.”

You quiet as the waiter nears with a tray of dishes for the table. While Hanma immediately tears into the high-price cuts presented to him, you only poke at your plate of tartare. The queerest expression paints your face, not sad or angry, not professional or serene, some unholy mask that you crafted to survive your pitiful family background.

“I’m surprised you became a therapist,” Hanma says. “I would have thought you would want to avoid people like your mother after that.”

You blink a few times. “That’s…surprisingly astute, Hanma-san.”

“What a polite way to say you’re surprised I’m not stupid,” Hanma says with a genuine laugh.

Chastened, you continue without his needing to ask the question, “Sometimes my patients do sicken me, but it’s what I’m good at. Growing up, I had to keep an eye on my mother at all times, understand her moods: where they came from, how to placate her, and so on. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have survived in that house. She could fly into a rage if she felt disrespected, destroy the few things I owned. The scariest person in the room gets to react. Everyone else has to be proactive to prevent it from getting to that point in the first place, you know? So, I was an expert at reading people and understanding what drove them before I graduated middle school. Plus, therapists make good money. I figured I could push through my discomfort for fifteen years, and then retire with enough money to live a quiet life free of worry. That’s all I want.”

“I’m sorry you went through that,” Hanma says.

“Are you really? Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess I thought it was the thing to say.”

You nod like that makes sense and quiet. Talking about your parents has put you in a reflective mood. In moments like these, you seem oddly delicate.

“Try this,” Hanma orders.

He lifts his chopsticks with a cut of tender heart to your lips. Obediently, you open and let the meat rest on your tongue. It’s tender but still beef, so you have to chew aggressively to break it down into pieces. Hanma watches the way your jaw works, the canines of a predator and nothing delicate about it. A trickle of juice crests over your bottom lip to run down to your chin.

“You had been about to ask me another question earlier,” Hanma says.

“Yes, you were talking about how you hope to die. Have you ever tried to die? Either by an actual suicide attempt or putting yourself in a situation where you suspected it would kill you?”

The taste of the heart has revived you. You sound heartier, less haunted by the specters of the past.

“I’ve never attempted suicide. The other half, that’s complicated to answer. Technically, I expect my job to someday kill me, so you could argue I put myself in that position every day. I never know how a fight will turn out or if a hitman isn’t waiting for me behind the door when I go home at the end of the day. I don’t bait it, I guess, but I don’t mind it either. Makes life a little exciting,” Hanma explains.

“Well, that’s good at least,” you say. Even without a pad of paper in front of you, Hanma can imagine you writing down your findings – suicide attempts? Negative. Suicidal ideation? Inconclusive.

“I think you’re still a few questions ahead of me,” Hanma says, “So speaking of good things. You mentioned having a boyfriend waiting for you at home…”

“What about him?”

So you live together, and he doesn’t even have to waste a question to find out.

“Well, tell me about him! What’s he do? Why’d you pick him out of all the men in Tokyo? Does he get you off?”

“I’m not answering that.”

“We made a deal, doc,” Hanma says, wagging a finger in your face.

“We agreed you could ask me questions for every one I asked you. We never specified that I had to answer,” you counter.

“You know that kind of crafty negotiation doesn’t really fly with the yakuza. There’s no need to specify. There’s something called the spirit of the terms. If I make a deal with some poor sap, and he tries to wiggle out on a technicality, I’m well within my rights to take his kneecaps home with me as a souvenir,” Hanma warns.

You tense, less at the words themselves than the deep growl that reinforces them.

“Do you want to take my kneecaps as a souvenir?” you ask.

“No, but I will find a way to punish you if you reneg. The spirit of the deal, doc. Show me you’re a serious player.”

You sigh, and then, to his surprise, launch right into the portion of the question that makes you most uncomfortable, “Yes, he gets me off. Not always but often. He’s a corporate accountant. In fact, his firm acts as the accountant for my practice. That’s how we met. He’s not on my account, so no conflict of interest, but we met in the lobby of his building. I chose him because he’s reliable, easy to read, easy to please. He has normal expectations for life and love. We both read a lot and talk politics and current events. We both think idols are vapid and public baths are a relic. He keeps the apartment clean without my having to ask and pays his bills on time and calls his parents every Sunday. A good, dependable man.”

“Wow, doc, sounds like love!” Hanma says, dropping his chin to his palm and giving you his best lovestruck expression.

“How would you know? You said you’ve never been in love.”

Though true Hanma might not recognize love, he can recognize what you have with your boring boyfriend. Hanma feels more passion towards his car than you describe towards this accountant. You want a safe, boring life and the accountant is a means to an end. Yet here you sit with him. A contradiction.

“Do you want kids?” Hanma asks.

“I don’t know. I think…you can do a lot of damage to your children without meaning to. Everyone who comes in my office has a story about how it’s all their mother’s fault. Even me. I wouldn’t like to dedicate my life to a person only for them to resent me for the ways I failed. What about you?”

Hanma blanches. “No brats for me, thanks.”

“Probably for the best,” you giggle.

In the time you’ve been talking, the waiter has refilled Hanma’s whiskey three times, and gifted you a second beer. Nearly half of the tartare is gone along with the better part of the kimchi.

“When was the last time you got off and how?” Hanma says suddenly, enjoying the way your open expression shutters closed in an instant. You were becoming transparent to him.

You scoff and look around like there might be a bystander to step in and help. It’s a cute habit. In addition to the several explicit bets you’ve made this far, Hanma thinks these moments count as little wagers as well. Hanma betting on where the edge of your patience lies, and you betting on how far you can push yourself beyond your comfort zone.

“Two nights ago,” you relent.

“How?”

“Hanma-san–”

“How?”

“With a pillow.”

Mortification breaks across your face, and you quickly turn away to rifle through your purse for your phone. Probably calling a taxi. Hanma doesn’t mind. His imagination is doing its best to construct the scene, picturing your hips grinding against the soft exterior of a pillow. The color of your sex, the curves of your body, and the way you would ride your pillow are unknowns to him, guesses, but he thinks he can construct your face well, the look of concentrated frustration as you chase an orgasm. Hanma closes his eyes to savor it.

“How was your relationship with your parents?” you blurt out, like you can see the picture in his mind and want to erase it immediately.

“Might sound familiar to you. My father was transferred on a tanshinfunin basis to Vietnam when I was six or seven. I probably only saw him twice between then and adulthood. When he returned, he didn’t find much to be proud of. My mother was fine, kind of nondescript. The thing that made her life worth living were the ladies in our apartment complex. They played cards together every evening, cooked dinner, went shopping. They were her real family. She didn’t much notice or care when I started spending all my time outside the house, and by the time she realized I was a delinquent, it was too late. She had no power over me at that point. She’s a fine woman though. I send her money every month,” Hanma says.

Compared to most of the other founding members of Toman, he is lucky. His mother never even hit him. She may be disappointed in him today, but he found an identity separate from her long before, so he never felt the sting of her disapproval.

“An only child or siblings?” you ask.

“Just me. One terror was enough, I suppose.”

“Did you show signs of delinquency early? Fighting, things like that?” you ask.

It’s not your turn, but Hanma decides to humor you. “I did all the J.D. classics – fighting, bullying the other boys and girls, taking their lunch money, shop lifting, graffiti, breaking curfew. Like I said, I was a terror.”

When he speaks of these days, fondness drips from his voice. Things were more exciting back then, new experiences abounded behind every corner. His crimes escalated because they had to, not because he found more pleasure in completing an arms sale than in pilfering a cigarette.

“And did you do any of that before your father moved?”

The question draws Hanma up short. Huh. He’s never once considered the order of operations there, but he can’t remember any misbehavior in his earliest years.

“Holy hell, doc. You know what…I don’t think I did. So, it’s all dear old Dad’s fault that I turned out this way? If he hadn’t left, I could be living a boring, average life. I could be your accountant!” Hanma jokes, but his mind is spinning over the possibilities.

“You didn’t start fighting until you were a bit older, but did you think about it a lot?”

Hanma peers over his glasses at you, like you are an idiot. “I was an elementary school boy. Of course, I did! I loved all the shonen fighting shows. I was obsessed with Battle Royale when it came out and other fight-to-the-death movies. But, you’d have to poll half the country to find a boy who wasn’t.”

Your lips quirk to the side. “I cede the point.”

Whenever you start to relax and smile at him, the impulse to twist the conversation to territory you won’t follow rises up in him. Hanma doesn’t understand why he wants to ruin it for you, doesn’t think that ruining it is the point even. He simply can’t resist pushing you a step further.

“My turn, and I have a couple questions saved up. Are you going to touch yourself tonight?”

Somehow, you are still surprised by the question, so surprised in fact, that you don’t turn away in embarrassment but just stare at him slack-jawed. There’s a brightness to your skin and a sheen to your eyes from your two beers, and the alcohol leeches the fight from you.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” you admit with a whisper.

The sound of Hanma’s chair scraping the floor as he slides closer is loud against the backdrop of silence. Long limbs encroach on your side of the table, until he’s leaning his head close to yours again.

“At any point today, doc, have I turned you on?”

Tears well in your eyes. He watches your pink tongue dart forward and then retreat. The silence stretches on and the tension is unbearable.

Finally, defeatedly, you tremble out, “Yes.”

Hanma leans back in his seat, returning the space between you and the air to your lungs. In the motion, he adjusts his pants a little. You are so beautifully distraught at the admission of your own desires, but you are also uncowed. Not once do you break eye contact or the spell that draws you both together. Unbreaking but vulnerable, obedient but fierce. If he slid his flinger along your parted lips, Hanma thinks you wouldn’t fight the intrusion, let him tease your throat here at the table.

“I think we both learned a lot today, Doc,” Hanma says through a voice like gravel. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

As you exit the restaurant, Hanma notes your darting eyes. There’s a taxi down the street that you must have texted from the table. He would have asked one of his men to drive you back, but it’s no matter. He has other business to attend to this evening.

The atmosphere of confession follows you both outside the restaurant. You could ask him any question right now, and he would answer without hesitation. Like he was injected with a truth serum at some point in the night. His bank accounts could be yours if you just thought to ask.

You take a step toward the taxi, whiff of perfume or shampoo or general musk whipping his nose. In a split-second decision – less a decision than impulse and action – Hanma decides he is not ready for you to leave just yet. He wraps a hand around your waist and spins you back into the recesses of the parking garage, finding an alcove cloaked in shadows. Your mouth parts as if to scream, but you remember yourself and close it.

Pressed with your back to the wall and Hanma boxing you in with his arms on either side of your head, you are transparent. Fright, curiosity, caution, intrigue. Hanma reads each emotion flit across your face. Your bodies are close together but not touching. To meet his gaze, you would need to crane your head up and risk physical contact, so you tuck your chin and stare into his chest; it’s a surprisingly submissive gesture that Hanma doesn’t mind at all.

“You said I frighten you,” Hanma murmurs huskily.

“Yes.”

“You said I arouse you.”

A moment as if you might argue the semantics, but then a nod. “Yes.”

“Are those competing feelings? Or do I arouse you because I frighten you?”

Unable to hide, you look up and meet his eyes. Your face answers the question, but he wonders if you’ll admit it.

“Yes,” you sigh in defeat.

Something hot swells in Hanma’s chest, similar to the triumph he feels when he traps one of his enemies. Even more similar to the feeling from when he first met Kisaki, and Kisaki made him the promise of a lifetime. A queer mixture of excitement and certainty, and dare he say, happiness?

Hanma shoves a wad of bills into your hands and pulls back from where he boxes you in. “Your ride’s on me. Get home already, and text me when you get there.”

Still numbed by the emotional assault of the evening’s confessions, you don’t think to argue his demand. He sounds like a protective boyfriend. From his spot in the garage, Hanma watches you dart toward the cab – not fast enough to qualify as a job, but your legs stretching wide to put as much distance as possible between you both. You don’t look back.

There are about a dozen missed calls and text messages on his burner, all related to tomorrow’s business. Hanma lights a cigarette and sighs. There are still so many hours in the night to fill, and he doesn’t know where to get started.

Your next session, Hanma decides, he won’t be late.

With a steeled breath you unlock the door and the final barrier between you.

“Hanma, I didn’t know you were in Shanghai,” you say, which feels flat and shallow in the face of all the years that separated you.

“Business called. I’ve expanded into export/import. Boss man says I have a way with people in negotiations. Since I was in the city, how could I not stop in and say hello?” Hanma says.

The line is too thick with subtext to pass for a real explanation of his surprise appearance. Besides, you’re too distracted to try to parse it by the sight of Shuji Hanma for the first time in six years. Of course. he wouldn’t look the same as he had at twenty. No one did. Still, you’re taken aback by the unfamiliar man standing before you. Your eyes catalogue the changes in rapid succession. After years of nagging, he finally broke and got glasses for his abysmal near-sightedness. The crisp pinstripe suit is new too; he would have never been caught dead in something so fussy when you were younger. He’s still using too much hair gel, but now it parts his hair to the left in highlighted waves.

The most striking difference is that damned expression, perfectly matching his tone from before. Apathy colors his cheeks and smooths his lips into a flat line. He offers nothing. Even his once wild eyes don’t speak to you.

Mildly, you think that an apathetic Hanma must be dangerous.

There is one similarity, so surprising that you blurt out, “I bought you that earring!”

“I remember.”

It was a present for his eighteenth birthday, a thank you for looking out for you all that time. You spent two months of the allowance your brother gifted you to afford the thing: long and gold and dangling. Hanma had barely glanced at it, telling you he was only doing a job and you shouldn’t be grateful. Yet, here he is, eight years later, and it is the only adornment that proves the past isn’t a fiction you created in your head.

There would be a time for pretty nostalgia later. For now, there is a gangster standing in your entryway. Maybe there was once a time when you felt safest with Hanma by your side, but the man before you might as well be a stranger.

“Come in,” you finally manage, leaving space for him to slip by. “Would you like something to drink? I have soju, beer, tea. Umm, or water, obviously. If you want something else, I can maybe run to the store or – “

“Beer’s fine,” Hanma says.

“Sure thing, coming right up. So, you’re in Shanghai for…business, but that doesn’t explain what brings you to my neighborhood, or how do you even know where I live actually? Big city, could have walked right past each other, and neither of us would have ever known,” you babble as you pull the beer from the fridge.

“I would have noticed if you walked by,” Hanma says.

You think that unless Hanma starts using more than ten words per sentence, you’re not going to make it through the evening of small talk. If he had chosen tea, you would at least have something to do with your unoccupied hands. But, alas, the beer is at his lips, and the ball is back in your court.

You don’t have to tell Hanma to make himself at home. He walks around your apartment like you’ve invited him to redecorate, peering through open doors, rifling through your research docs. Revealing every one of your paltry secrets. You trail him like a puppy as he ransacks your apartment, leaving crumpled receipts on the floor and drawers wide open. By the time he moves to the toilet to inspect your medicine cabinet, you have resigned yourself to the invasion of privacy. The intrusion isn’t worth the fight it would take to stop him.

Though it does raise the question of what he is doing here again, and you ask, “Did my brother send you to check on me?”

Again, subtext. ‘Check’ could just as easily be replaced with ‘spy’ as he reads the label of each of your medications. You pretend he doesn’t smirk at the birth control tablets. There is no way he’s that childish.

“You don’t have any of the good stuff in here,” he comments as he abandons your meds.

“You’re the one who taught me not to sample the product. They don’t exactly let you work in big pharma when you ignore the use-as labels,” you say.

It is the second time you brought up the past unprompted, which should embarrass you as Hanma appears completely uninterested in speaking to you, let alone reminiscing on the good old days. What is Hanma to you though but a beacon of the past you’d left behind? Of course, it is on your mind.

You were sixteen when your brother decided you needed a bodyguard. The Tokyo Manji gang was starting to sell amphetamines and ecstasy at scale, a transition from boyish delinquency to a serious criminal enterprise. With the change would come new enemies, ones with more to lose and looser morals to limit them. Your brother couldn’t do his job if he was worrying about your neck separating from your shoulders. He needed someone he trusted to guard you, an oxymoron for your brother who hadn’t let a new person in since that girl he liked in elementary school. So, maybe it wasn’t trust, but Hanma was the best fit for the job, and he took it.

For your final two years of high school, Hanma dogged your shadow. He was there when you left for school in the morning, there with his bike glistening in the sun when you exited cram school in the evenings. If you needed to buy groceries, study with friends, go for a jog, or do literally any activity that brought you outside the solid walls of your home or school, Hanma accompanied you.

Naturally, you weren’t his only responsibility in Toman, which mean there were countless times you wanted to see a friend or take a walk but couldn’t leave. You would be stuck for hours, bored as only a prisoner can be, until he finished cracking skulls or whatever task took him away from you.

Was it any wonder then that you began to long for his return the moment he left each day?

If you tallied the hours of your life, you probably spent more time with Hanma than nearly any other human being, excepting maybe your brother or dormmates in uni. Time had a way of wearing down all things, even the most guarded and emotionally stunted delinquents. Once upon a time, you had known him. And, Hanma had once known you, too.

“Close to discovering the cure for cancer yet?” the newly well-dressed and bespectacled Hanma of the present asks as he leaves your medicine cabinet behind in favor of your bedroom.

“I’m not working in Oncology. I’m in Hematology. Specifically, I’m working on variants for the thrombolytics currently on the market. See, the current rate of patients that redevelop clots is around twelve-ish percent, so we’re trying to reduce that,” you explain and feel your confidence return at the familiar topic that dominates the better part of your days and nights.

“Not all of us went to university, sweetheart,” Hanma says, which you think is a fancy way of admitting he doesn’t know what you’re talking about.

“Blood. Hematology means the blood.”

“Yum,” Hanma says before licking his lips.

“Yum? Hanma, men in 10,000 Yuan suits should not say ‘yum’ at the word blood!”

“What should they say? ‘Icky?’”

That’s all it takes really to finally alleviate the unbearable tension that has been rising ever since you saw him buzz to be let into your building. He’s smiling, genuine, a little feral in the way that all his real smiles are. Facing him before, you’d felt frozen in time, like you hadn’t changed at all since you left him and Tokyo behind at 18 for university. But maybe he hasn’t changed as much as you thought either. It makes you bold.

“You still haven’t told me why you’re here, at my apartment at 9 pm on a Tuesday. I have an early day in the lab tomorrow. If you’d called, I might have moved some things around.”

“Think I’ll be keeping you up late?” Hanma teases. He sits down on the edge of your bed, legs spread unnecessarily wide, like he needs to be ready in case a woman appears and lowers herself into his lap. With his money, face, and charisma, it may well be a regular occurrence he needs to prepare for.

“Stop hedging and tell me why you’re here,” you order.

A mistake. The meter of distance between you – Hanma on the bed, and you leaning against the dresser – seems to shrink as the tension snaps back like a rubber band. He said he was good at negotiations, which means he has a way of making the most dangerous criminals cower and submit to Toman. You have no chance, your teeth like ice and the taste of metal flooding your mouth at his oppressive glare.

“Six years, and not even a Nengajo on New Year’s?” Hanma accuses, coldly. “When I said goodbye as you went off to university, I thought it was goodbye until the winter holiday. I didn’t realize you were saying goodbye for life.”

“I would have thought you were eager to be rid of me. You were never much of a babysitter,” you say.

He rolls his eyes and replies, “Fishing for compliments? I didn’t miss you if that’s what you’re driving at. I especially didn’t miss the salon appointments or fifty boba trips a week. My talents were wasted looking after you all that time.”

You pretend his words don’t hurt and hope your performance is convincing. You missed him nearly every day those first two years.

Six years before, when you left for Kyoto, you had every intention of returning to Tokyo and all it held: your beloved brother, your friends, the stuffed animals you were too embarrassed to bring to the dorms, and the man you were too embarrassed to admit was in your heart.

That was before you shadowed at the hospital. You were already interested in hematology and wanted a chance to see doctors administer to patients up close. As a first-year chemistry student, you were wildly underqualified to warrant an attending’s time or energy, but your brother’s money had a way of opening doors. The hospital administration, with their greased palms, welcomed you. For months, you spent every Thursday after classes haunting the ER, pestering nurses, and taking notes.

In November, an ambulance pulled up, same as any other day. Only this time, the patient was a child, just a little girl with a pretty round face, precious fat hands, and a gaping hole beneath her heart. An errant bullet. They said it was gang violence. There was nothing the doctors could do. The noise the girl’s mother made, when her daughter stopped responding, was unlike anything you’ve heard to this day. It haunts you.

Violence always circled you. Kisaki tamed it to his ends. Hanma craved it. The other boys in Toman mocked and conquered it. But, for you, it had been a hypothetical. Something you chastised and then promptly forgot.

Confronted with the collateral damage up close, your entire self-concept shattered. How many parents had seen their children brutalized because of the Tokyo Manji gang? Maybe most victims weren’t on the cusp of their sixth birthdays, but everyone was a precious child to their parents. Had your brother ever pulled the trigger and rended someone’s flesh apart? Had Hanma ever delivered a punch too strong and chased the light from a person’s eyes? Had their customers ever OD’d on amphetamines, their families not learning their fate for days?

Making the choice to leave it all behind was not easy, but the winter holidays came and passed without your return to Tokyo. You didn’t cut Kisaki out altogether – he would have made that impossible – but he visited you in Kyoto exclusively. When the job offer came to work as a pharmaceutical scientist in Shanghai after graduation, you left without a backward look.

But how to explain this to Hanma now? Fights, bikes, liquor, and girls were about the only things that excited him when you were young. Since then, he’s become even more entrenched in organized crime. His hands are drenched in blood. Your conscientious objections won’t mean anything to him. Especially now, after six years of no explanation for your disappearance.

“Sounds like everything worked out the way it was meant to. I’m doing what I always wanted, and so are you,” you say, projecting confidence in your voice and words, even as your hands tear apart the fraying ends of your sweatshirt.

Hanma rolls his eyes. “Stop fidgeting and sit down.”

You immediately join him on the bed. Listen to Hanma. He’ll look out for you. A half-second delay could mean a bullet. That’s what your brother drove into your head like a mantra. It is instinct to obey.

“Kisaki brags to anyone who will listen about how successful you are,” Hanma says blandly. “I know you graduated with honors and that your company’s a big deal, but not much else. Do mad scientists have friends these days?”

You smile a bit at the mad scientist descriptor, a shared joke from the past. “A few friends. The language barrier makes it tricky. I spend most of my time in the lab, and my Mandarin is passable enough for the rare work conversation, but making real friends is challenging. There’s a pretty big Japanese expatriate community here, so I sometimes go out to the bars and meet people from back home that way.”

“Pick up a lot of men at these expat bars?”

“Excuse me?”

It’s not a lot of men.

“Too ashamed to answer, hmm? What will dear brother say?” Hanma sneers, eyes mean in the periphery. He hasn’t even angled his body towards you.

“What about you? Fucked many virgins lately?” you challenge spitefully.

“There it is,” Hanma hisses, and now he does look at you. You wish he didn’t because his gaze is even meaner than you expected. “And here I thought you’d play demure all night.”

“I’m not tiptoeing around it, Hanma! Yes, last time I saw you, we had…sex. Did you travel all this way just to check if I’d suffered from a bout of memory loss?”

You were Kisaki’s cherished little sister. Throughout high school, you didn’t have a single boyfriend, a single date. No one was brave enough to cross your brother and his penchant for enduring vendettas. For two years, Hanma shadowed your every step, and in that time, he didn’t so much as brush your shoulder unless it was absolutely necessary.

The manufactured distance crackled with tension. You’d lose focus in the library, imagining how easy it would be to cross that invisible barrier and touch his hand – just a pinky to his – while he flipped boredly through a magazine at your side. Train rides were hell and nirvana in one, the pulsing crowds pressing you close but never close enough. He’d always insist you finish his boba tea, and your whole body would thrum as your lips wrapped around the same straw he’d just used, wet from his saliva covered by the pink of your lipstick. An indirect kiss was all you could have.

It was the most erotic foreplay of your life.

On the night before you left for university, the tension finally buckled under the weight of your desire, and you let Hanma fuck you in your childhood bed. Beady-eyed stuffed animals were the only witnesses to your transgression, your pleasure, your first ever.

“Oh, I know you didn’t forget it,” Hanma says in a voice like gravel.

In these past years, you may not have lived as a celibate, but you are nowhere near worldly enough not to heat up when there is a handsome man on your bed, talking about fucking you. Even in the past tense.

You feel hyper aware of your body in relation to his. He has at least twenty centimeters on you, the crown of your head comes level below his chin. The warmth of his shoulder – a shoulder you once kissed – bleeds through your sweatshirt. The material of his pants is taut, like the muscles are flexed, below the obscene spread of his thighs. He looms too large for your hole-in-the-wall bedroom, your life, you.

Through a dry mouth that you manage, “It was six years ago, Hanma. It’s not exactly front of mind for me.”

“Why do I doubt that? Saying you’ve had better since?” Hanma purrs.

“Because you’re an asshole,” you answer. “Besides, I’m not the one who’s travelled across international borders to come knocking on your door. Sounds like you’re the one who can’t forget me.”

You nearly jolt out of your skin when his hand comes down, solid and absurdly large on your thigh. His fingers spread across your bare skin, settling on the shadow cast by your shorts.

“And what if you’re right? What if I haven’t forgotten how sweetly you mewled for me when I split you open on my cock. You had no idea what you were doing, did you? But you were so eager to learn however I liked it, hmmm?”

“Don’t! You shouldn’t talk like that.”

No man has ever spoken to you like this but Hanma. Even before you slept together, he was the most vulgar person you knew. Half the dirty words in your vocabulary were originally overheard from him. You wouldn’t have guessed that hearing those same words whispered in your ear would light your body up like a firecracker.

“Why not? I have regrets about the past. Maybe I came all this way to clear the air? You wouldn’t deny me closure, would you?” Hanma questions, condescending.

“That’s not…still…I…”

Looking directly into your eyes, Hanma unveils the words that destroy you, “If I’d known you were going to disappear for six years, I would have done so much more with your pretty, little body while I had it.”

Each word lands like a blow because you live with that same regret too.

On countless nights, you pet yourself over your panties wondering about what might have been had you only been more selfish. You would push away the longing with a reminder of your many good reasons, but all this time later, whenever you fantasize, your thoughts always visit Hanma first.

Those good reasons feel oddly distant as you whisper back, “Like what?”

“So many things, princess. To start, I’d have taught you how to choke on my dick and keep it down even as your throat starts to spasm. I hate thinking about all the nice men who might have ruined you, told you that you don’t have to try to take it deep, that just slurping at the head is enough. It’s not, baby girl, and I would have shown you how to do it right.”

Hanma’s fingers are not idle on your thigh, massaging the smooth skin, creeping slowly inward, like you might not notice, like you might spook if you do.

“What else?”

“Cumming once was a mistake. I would have been sure to cum a couple more times so I could remember what you look like with your tits painted, with my cum smearing your pretty makeup, stuffing it deep inside you. Probably would have taken hours to have you dripping in it enough for my liking. Do you remember where I came, beautiful?”

“Yes,” you breathe.

“Here,” Hanma says firmly, and he draws his hand up from your thigh to the top of your mound and lower belly where he’d pulled out and spilled himself.

“What else?”

“What else? Greedy girl,” Hanma laughs.

Next thing you know, Hanma draws you up to straddle his lap, chest barely skimming his. Your legs stretch impossibly wide to accommodate the spread of his thighs. They burn in a way that you feel in your cunt. You’re not sure when it started, but you become aware all at once that you’re soaking wet and must have been for some time.

Fingers tickle up your sides, beneath your sweatshirt, as Hanma muses, “It was your first time, and I treated you right, didn’t I? Took you nice and gentle, kissed your pretty moans away and made sure you could take it.”

He might be overstating quite how gentle it was. Most girls probably didn’t lose their virginity in five different positions over the course of a non-stop hour of fucking, but he could have certainly been rougher, so you nod.

“Exactly, I treated you so fucking nice for your first time. But for your second? Your third?” Hanma shakes his head deliberately. “I would have treated my experienced, little pussy the way it needed. Give your cervix a little kiss baby, just like those pouty lips. Leave you covered in bites, so you don’t forget who touched you first. Have you begging for it.”

Your hips buck forward, and you dissolve the distance between you both with a messy kiss. You moan before your lips even touch, and his tongue wastes no time in sweeping over your lower lip and inside. It is shameful how you rut your hips against air, how you launch yourself into the kiss without a hint of subtlety or reserve.

Winding your hands around his neck, you scratch at the shaved-short hair at his nape. A moment later, you stroke his cheek, then tug his curls. You want to touch every part of him, confirmation that he is really here, the man you remember.

As you dissolve into some kind of animal on top of him, Hanma remains composed. His teeth nip and suck on your lips until you cede the pace to him. He cups your face in his hands, maintaining the infuriating distance between you both. With little effort, he wrests control from you, taking sovereignty over your body.

“Hanma, I need –” your pleas trail off as every word takes you away from his tongue, mouth, lips, and you can’t stand to be separated.

Hanma breaks the kiss. “If you want more, stop trying to hump my cock and look at me.”

Your hips make one more abortive slide before you still, looking at him with eyes blown wide with lust. You’ve barely done anything and already his imperious gangster image is ruined: lips red, glasses askew, hair in ruins. Beneath it all is the only man who’s ever made you cum so hard you cried. Overwhelmed, you try to kiss him again on instinct, and he pulls you back sharply by the hair.

“Good girl,” he praises, only after you finally still.

The way he looks at you encourages, no demands, confession, and you find yourself digging deep for some offering you can make to satisfy that interested look in his eyes. You would do anything to keep his apathy from before at bay.

“I’ve thought about you so many times,” you admit quietly. “Before I left, for months I thought about what I could do to make you want me back. I stopped wearing a bra for like three weeks that last summer. I kept purposefully dropping things just so that I could bend over and pick them up.”

Hanma hums, pleased. He rewards you by palming a tit, molding and twisting it in an unforgiving grip.

“I remember you flashing your tits at me. Thought you were the world’s biggest fucking tease, making your bodyguard hard on duty and leaving him unsatisfied.”

“I wanted you to touch me,” you almost whine.

“Where? On your pretty titties? Show me,” he orders.

There is no sexy way to pull a sweatshirt off, but you are braless beneath, just like in your memories of that summer. You direct Hanma’s hands straight to your exposed skin, pressing forward so that you fill his palms. He has eyes only for your naked breasts, massaging and kneading them expertly. Firm hands wring from your eager body bursts of electricity that slick your panties even more.

Hanma’s voice is low in your ear. “You didn’t need to tease me at that point. I’d wanted to bend you over the nearest surface and show you what my pussy was good for for months by that point. But your nii-chan wouldn’t have liked that, would he? A little too interested in keeping his imouto pure and sweet for him. A little too eager to see your hard nipples press through your shirts.”

“Don’t!”

You rear back within his lap in alarm at the turn in conversation. The disrespectful way he addressed Kisaki, the…implication. It disgusts you. You want to run far from it. But Hanma’s hands are suddenly on your hips, slamming you directly against him even as you try to break free.

“What? It’s the truth. You’re not going to pretend that wasn’t part of you moving away, are you? Your dear stepbrother became just a bit too present after you turned eighteen and your dad died.”

“Shut up or I’ll leave,” you hiss. The subject is untouchable, and you’ll walk away with soaking panties before you stay for it.

“Ahh, and here I thought you were my good girl,” Hanma laughs. He yanks you forward roughly by the back of your neck. One hand stays secured there, so that your foreheads are touching, and the other starts to tweak your nipple. It hurts, and he means it to. “Personally, it just made popping that virgin pussy all the sweeter. Knowing how much the boss man would have hated it. Me corrupting his angelic imouto.”

The pain from your nipple transforms into something else, something worse. Because even though he hasn’t shut up fully about Kisaki, your hips have started rolling again, seeking something big and hot and hard to anchor you. His cock is a hard line in his pants and perfect for your needs, but the way your legs are spread, you can’t quite reach it, and the best sparks come from when you manage to rut your clit helplessly against his stomach through all your combined layers of clothing. Hopeless, in other words.

His grip on your neck hasn’t loosened at all, keeping you in place. You realize you like the way it keeps you at his mercy. You also like the way your mouths meet again in a slick slide, and the way he’s started rubbing your still smarting nipple firmly. Even more the way his wet mouth feels encasing it a moment later. His glasses are tossed to the side, so that he can bury his face between your tits, sucking, flicking, nipping. All as you tug at his hair and leave love bites up and down his neck.

By the time he pulls back, you’re on fire, and your tits are just as inflamed.

“Maybe I did too good a job corrupting you? Turned you into a worthless slut, so needy for cock, she’ll go out hunting for it,” Hanma muses in a voice that is crystal clear even as you are in freefall.

“What?” You manage to protest in confusion. You try to reach out and stroke his face, but he bats the hand away.

“Put your palms on your thighs and don’t move them,” he says in a tone that brooks no argument.

He lifts you up and repositions you, so that you sit sideways on his lap. A firm hand pushes you down. He is so tall that your feet can’t touch the floor.

From this position, it’s a simple matter for him to yank your shorts and panties down in one go.

You are now completely naked, while Hanma is still dignified in a suit and tie. The difference in your status is clear and degrading. Legs pressed together, a tremor of wanton friction pulses through you.

“Spread your legs,” Hanma bites out with a slap to the peak of your breast.

Like all his other orders, you gasp at the treatment but comply without thinking. There’s a moment where he sucks his own fingers, and then they’re slipping down to probe your slit, a knuckle testing and teasing your clit out of hiding. You moan at the barest hint of contact and bury your burning face in his neck.

“See how wet you are? Would a good girl be this soaked at a near stranger showing up to her apartment and treating her like a whore?”

Hanma spreads your folds wide open and rubs his whole palm across your cunt, spreading the wetness from one thigh to another, crossing your clit in the process. It proves his point and more. He has such a heavy hand, large enough that no sweet spot goes unpressed.

“I asked you a question,” Hanma warns.

You find your voice. “No, Hanma. A good girl wouldn’t be this wet.”

Despite giving him the answer he demanded, Hanma doesn’t look happy. He’s frowning as two fingers drive harshly into your pussy. You squirm, trying to adjust because it’s been many months since anything but your own fingers breached your opening. Hanma is unmoved by your struggles. After all, you’re moaning even as your body chases after his forcefulness, trying to stretch enough to accept him probing so deeply inside of you.

“When I last saw you, you were still a good girl, but now? How many fuckers have you let touch my pussy, hmm? One? Two? A hundred?” A snarl breaks across Hanma’s face, the unaffected mask cracking apart.

“Just a couple,” you mumble.

Whack! Three quick strikes to your pussy from the hand not buried inside you makes you squeal.

“That’s a couple too many, slut,” Hanma hisses.

His fingers piston inside of you viciously. You clench tighter when you realize he uses his hand branded for punishment. You scramble to keep your legs spread against the instinct to close them and protect yourself. Your hands cling to his shoulders. He kisses you like he means to sear you from the inside, and you submit helplessly to his treatment. The room temperature has skyrocketed, and you sweat against his suit.

“Please, please, please, please,” you wail into an open-mouthed kiss.

“Please, what?”

“Want you to fill my pussy,” you gasp.

“There’s just one problem, pretty girl. I don’t know what you mean by your pussy. I feel my pussy right here, tight and wet on just two of my fingers,” and here he curls them inside along your top walls to really drive the point home. “But I don’t see any pussy here that belongs to you.”

“Oh!”

Cat-like, predatory eyes bore into your face as he observes your reaction to this declaration of possession. His fingers continue to dip inside you, but now they pump shallowly, denying you what you need. He wants you to respond, to cede ownership of part of your body over to him.

His pussy. Mortifying. Degrading. Objectifying. Your brain supplies the adjectives, and your pussy flutters madly to reveal your true feelings. Correction: his pussy.

Sitting up, you lick at the seam of his mouth, coaxing him into a long, wet kiss. One hand braces against his chest for support. The other skims his ear, tugs at his earring. It earns you Hanma’s first noise of pleasure. A sincere gasp, rasping into your open mouth. You pulse at the power to please him. You do it again just to watch him flush.

“Please, Hanma. Would you please fill up your pussy?” you whimper into the kiss.

A wolf-like smile makes you question if that was a terrible mistake, but you can’t recant. Hanma stands abruptly, tossing you onto your back with hips dangling over the edge of the bed.

Hanma settles himself on his knees in front of you. Buzzing with excitement, you sit up to watch him. This would be a first for you together.

A stinging slap to your clit makes you cry out.

“Lay back and stay there. This is about me getting reacquainted with my pussy after all these years. You just lie there and don’t interrupt me,” Hanma orders. “And keep your legs open too, while you’re at it. Wide as they go.”

Ignoring your muscles’ protests, you spread out obscenely before him, hips canted up in offering. It puts you on display. You want to impress him with how well you can obey.

Despite your efforts, Hanma is hellbent on ignoring you…or, at least, any part of you north of your mound. He peels your lips apart with two fingers, so that he can peer closely at your pussy. His breath ghosts over you. It’s impossible not to squirm, but you know that will earn another slap.

“Shit, I’ve missed my perfect pussy,” he says. “Every bit pretty as I remember it. Wonder if you taste as sweet as you look.”

A slow, wet lick from asshole to clit. Another. He tongues your clit back and forth, until it swells impossibly red with blood. A pinch makes it even more pronounced. His lips close around the nub, sealing it.

Then, he sucks.

It’s too much at once. Your hips try to fly upwards, but his grip locks you firmly in place. He doesn’t stop sucking. Your arms flail reflexively, and you cry out around a clenched fist.

Are you more thankful or disappointed when he finally releases your clit and moves down to your opening? Hanma’s tongue is soft and easy in comparison to taking his fingers earlier. Your body accepts it thankfully, pulsing when his nose brushes against your little bruised clit. He swirls around your entrance, flicks playfully back up, probes the rim of your asshole, teases your hood. You can do nothing but mewl and moan as he familiarizes himself with every centimeter of your sex.

When he pulls back after several minutes, his face is drenched. You’re so worked up. You think you’ll come hard enough to pass out if he only nudges your clit again. That fate is avoided when instead, three fingers work their way into your slit, scissoring and spreading you wide for him. Your pussy is drooling, juices flowing down his wrist.

“Your cunt,” you whisper.

“Fuck!”

You are left empty as Hanma stands up. The fingers that were moments before in your cunt are now filling your mouth. They push your tongue flat and enter your throat. Surprise more than pain makes you squeal and choke. They’re heady with the taste of your own juices, and you soon relax and suck on them greedily.

“That’s fucking right. My cunt. So, tell me. Who do you think you are to have kept my cunt from me all these years?” Hanma growls, forcing his fingers deeper like he means to reach through to your stomach.

You can only gargle in response.

“Should I fuck my pussy? Is that what you want? Yes or no?”

It’s a rhetorical question as Hanma uses a grip on your hair to force a nod of agreement. Tears are welling up at the intrusion in your throat, but your focus is split on the tingling of your clit at the idea of finally having him fill you.

“If you want it, use your words.”

With his fingers choking you, there’s no way for you to articulate even the simplest sentence, and he knows it. You feel pathetic. Desperate. Slutty. Now, you let the tears spill down in earnest.

The sight of you crying softens Hanma, though not enough to lessen the pressure of his fingers.

“Do you need help coming up with the words, baby? You should just say so. I’ll help you. Say, ‘please fuck your tight, pretty pussy, sir’. Say, ‘please sir, please use your pussy however you like. It’s missed you too.’”

He waits for you expectantly. Knowing it’s a hopeless case, you still try. Repeating the words exactly as he intended them. Nothing close to a recognizable word comes out of your throat. Instead, you emit muffled vowel sounds and some high-pitched keening.

Hanma surprises you by pulling his spit-soaked fingers from your throat and wiping them against your cheek.

“Good girl, begging for it so nicely,” he murmurs. “Lay down further up the bed, but keep your legs spread. I’ll take care of you.”

It is an easy instruction to follow. You move so your head rests on the pillow and once more strain your thighs wide. Meanwhile, Hanma finally takes off his suit.

You expect him to just spear you on his cock now that it’s finally making an appearance, but instead, he lowers himself on top of you and rests it on your pussy lips. Hanma kisses you slowly, hands on either side of your head. You love this position because it lets you touch so much of him: his hair, shoulders, the long stretch of his naked back, the earring that he left on. He allows you to stroke and pet at every piece of him you can reach.

“Tell me you want me,” he murmurs against your mouth.

“I want you, Hanma. I want you.”

“Then, put me inside that little hole.”

Reaching between your bodies, you find his cock. You can’t see it, but it feels big and heavy in your hands. Wet and hard from all the foreplay. When you line him up with your cunt, there’s a moment of sting and then he’s sheathed inside. Your body accepts him without any real resistance.

His cock fits so well that you think there’s some truth to calling it his pussy.

After a long moment of just relishing the feeling of being joined, Hanma rises up on his arms for the leverage to push back inside. Short, slow strokes start to take you up the mountain of pleasure. With all the build up, it won’t take you long to cum. Especially sinful is the feeling of his stomach pressing into your clit with every downward thrust. A steady stream of moans muffle into his neck.

Everything feels so good, and you want to return the favor. You do your best to return each thrust with an upward cant of your hips, meeting him like a welcomed guest. Simultaneously, you part from his lips so that you can bite and lick your way down the column of his throat. He sighs and grunts whenever your teeth scrape against a sensitive vein. Your hands keep busy as well, scratching gently up and down his back or tickling the shell of his ear. It feels like every bit of you, inside and out, is covered in him.

A particularly well-angled thrust makes you keen.

“Tell me when you’re going to cum,” Hanma orders. His eyes are sealed tight, like the furnace of your cunt is burning him.

“Soon,” you whimper. “Your cock feels so good inside me. It’ll be soon.”

“Of course, it feels good. My pussy was made to squeeze my dick just right like that.” Your walls flutter around his length, and Hanma smirks as he feels lit. “My pussy seems to like the sound of my voice.”

“Yes, Hanma. I like it when you talk to me,” you whisper a bit shyly.

He laughs and places a brief kiss to your clavicle. “What do you want to hear, baby girl? That feeling your nipples scratching my chest makes me wild? That I love watching those needy expressions you make as I fill you up? Or how about that I love the way my pussy grips my dick so tight, like it never wants me to leave? It’s fucking drowning my cock, and we’ve barely gotten started.”

The sweet and sour of his words works you up into something carnal and desperate. Pleasure is building inside of you, and you just barely remember to tell Hanma that you’re cumming before –

A noise too ugly to replicate rips from your throat when you find yourself suddenly empty, your orgasm slipping away unsatisfied. Hanma sits up on his knees, stroking his cock, while he watches the way your hole clenches and spasms around nothing.

“Did you think I’d let you cum just like that?” At your enraged expression, he chuckles. Quickly his mirth dies down and is replaced with the mean look you recognize from when you were talking before. “Six years. You took my pussy from me for six fucking years. Not only that. You let other men have a taste of what’s mine. You think I’m just going to call you sweet names and fuck you like a good girl? You’re lucky if I don’t pound you numb, stuff you full of cum, and still leave you edged out and desperate.

“Hanmaaaaa,” you whine, only to stop when the hand tattooed ‘punishment’ slaps your thigh. It smarts, the hardest slap so far.

“Sir. Unless you want to find out just how pathetic I can make you, you’ll call me sir.”

In a bout of rebelliousness that borders on madness, you dare try to reach for and rub your clit. You’re still so close. Just a little bit of pressure, and you’re sure you can push over the edge.

Predictably, Hanma looks furious at your defiance.

“If you want to act like a fucking brat, I’ll treat you like one,” he sneers.

He bats your hand away and lays you over his knee. Stomach down and ass up. You’re surprised when, instead of spanking you, three fingers reenter your pussy. Surprise quickly turns to agony when he sets a brutal, fast-paced rhythm in your cunt.

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod,” you wail, the words drowned out by the squelching of your cunt.

“Is this what you wanted? You asked me to use my pussy right, didn’t you?” Hanma demands, yanking your hair and forcing eye contact with his unforgiving expression.

“Yes, please, sir. Please make me cum,” you babble like a mantra. Building another orgasm takes longer without any pressure on your clit, but he fingers you in a way that overwhelms and promises an even more all-encompassing orgasm in return.

Your pussy clenches down once, twice on his fingers, and then he tosses you to the side like touching you is disgusting. Misery contorts your face at yet another orgasm denied you. You think if he continues like this all night, you’ll lose your mind and start praying for him to fuck you like a good girl again.

Thoughts of your own miserable situation are cut short because this time he’s forcing your neck over the edge of the bed, standing behind you. His cock knocks at your lips. He is red and hard and beautiful, so it’s only natural to open wide for him.

There is no teasing lick up the shaft, no kiss to the slit, no build up at all. Without warning, Hanma presses his hips forward and drives straight down to the back of your throat. Like he guessed earlier, all your past lovers were respectful, never pushing to where you’d gag, so your throat is completely inexperienced as he batters it cruelly. Panicking, you make the mistake of trying to press against his thighs. In retaliation, Hanma traps your hands with his and starts a devastating pace with his hips.

“Take it, you little slut, take it,” Hanma growls.

The fear that you won’t be able to take it has fat tears slipping down your cheeks. There’s no mercy as each hard thrust pushes deep. Whenever your throat tightens to reject him, Hanma just pierces through it, making you gag and cry harder. Every other thrust ends with your nose buried in his crotch and his balls blocking your nose. Instinct tells you to fight for air or something awful will happen, and your legs kick desperately against the sheets.

Completely buried inside you, Hanma stops and holds you there for a long moment. The hand not occupied with holding you down rubs along your throat where his dick is visibly bulging. Just when you think there’s no hope, you’re released for a quick gasp of air. Spit pools out of your mouth in a long line to the floor. All of it is collected and slapped onto Hanma’s dick. Then, it returns to abuse your throat some more.

“I can’t believe you let anyone else see you like this,” Hanma says venomously. “I can tell no one ever used your throat properly, and now I have no other choice but to show you what your mouth is made for. If you’d only stayed, I could have taken the time to train your throat slowly, but you’ve had six years to prepare, angel. Not my fault you wasted them, and now you’re choking on my cock.”

You whimper at his continued anger. If you could take it all back, you’d never so much as kiss another man. It wasn’t worth Hanma’s disappointment in you.

“I’m going to let go of your hands now, but only so you can pinch your nipples. If you use them for anything else, to try to push me away or rub my cunt, I’m going to make you regret it,” Hanma warns.

The threat is enough to cow you. Even though your body urges you to press against his thighs, you instead take your nipples between thumb and forefinger and tug. A shocked moan escapes you at just how good it feels, and it vibrates all the way up to Hanma who moans as well. With the threat of passing out on his cock so imminent, you’ve been able to ignore that your clit is still needy and pulsing. Every tweak of your nipples shoots straight to your neglected pussy. It makes you mewl with want.

Slowly, you stop hating Hanma for breaking in your throat and instead long for him to use you even more. If you pleasure him the way he wants, he might again reward you with a touch of his long fingers.

Every downward thrust still makes you gag and flail, but now when he pulls back, you try to sweep your tongue along the shaft to pleasure him. The breaks between explorations of your throat lengthen, so now you can suck at the tip before each return of his cock.

“Keep that up, sweetheart. I thought all those other men ruined you, but it seems like you still know how to follow directions. Maybe my good girl is still in there,” Hanma encourages.

Teary-eyed, around a mouth stuffed with cock, you actually smile.

Hanma’s hips stutter. “But then again…that looks like the face of a cock hungry slut. Makes me think you still need to be punished to remember who that pussy belongs to. What do you think?

The bludgeon in your throat is removed, and you gasp and cough desperately at the sudden return of a steady airflow. It takes nearly a half minute for you to catch your breath. Thick strings of your saliva smear across your lips, nose, and eyes. Hanma gives you space to calm your panicked nerves, only occasionally letting his dick slap against your cheek to entertain himself.

He’s awaiting an answer, so you summon up the air to force out a broken reply, “Whatever you want, sir. It’s your pussy.”

Hanma’s lips part, eyes laser-focused on your needy, spit-soaked face. Something close to a feeling of power rejuvenates you. You can affect him, too.

“Why don’t you prove to me that you’re still a good girl, then? Show me you still remember how to ride my cock, and I’ll decide what you deserve from there.”

Over the years, you relived losing your virginity to Hanma a couple hundred times, so you don’t strain to remember what he taught you:

1.      Let him relax completely.

2.      Give him a show.

3.      Starting slow is fine, but he wants to see just how greedy you are for his cock. Convince him you want it.

Hanma settles back like a king awaiting tribute. His body is sleek, long lines of defined muscle. So focused on the needs of your cunt, you only now appreciate the beautiful view of the man before you.

“Sir, would you prefer to watch my tits or my ass?” you ask demurely.

“What a good question,” Hanma says, eyes dancing in amusement. “Come sit on my cock facing me.”

Knees on either side of his hips, you line up your bodies and sink down on top of him. Both of you wear matching expressions of bliss at being joined again. You rock your hips experimentally a few times. Once certain his cock is snug and secure, you lean back to brace your arms on his thighs. Using your abdominals, you undulate on top of him. Hanma’s eyes glue immediately to the way your stomach dances and tightens. The penetration is a bit shallow, but it lets him see every centimeter of his cock disappear and reappear inside of you.

“Can I touch my clit, sir?”

“Who’s clit, slut?”

“Sorry, your clit, sir,” you correct quickly.

He allows it and you snake a hand down to part your clitoral hood and show him how red you are for him. You rub and stroke less with your pleasure in mind than to give him the show he demands.

It’s a tiring position, so you don’t stay for long, shifting forward, so that your hands balance on his chest instead. Now, he watches the way your tits jiggle and sway as your bodies collide. The sight breaks him from his lethargy, a hand stroking and pinching your nipple meanly. You squeal in delight at how the pleasure-pain enhances the slide of his cock inside of you. Delicious.

Having absolute control over the pace, angle, and depth of penetration almost makes you complacent. Smiling and fuck drunk on his cock. It would be so easy to stay like this and ride him to a well-earned orgasm. But you know that would amount to failure. You want to be a good girl more than you want to cum at this point.

Rising up into a squat, you start to ride his cock in earnest. Recalling his past lessons, you set a murderous pace, bouncing in his lap until your muscles strain and sweat slicks down your back. You lift one tit as high as it will go and try to lick and suck on the nipple; it’s a pathetic effort with your tongue barely sweeping it, but he growls at the sight.

“Does this feel good, sir?” you plead, biting your lip and keeping unwavering eye contact.

“Mmhmm, my cunt’s so tight and wet, but you must be getting tired, sweetheart. Don’t you want to slow down? Or maybe, I can take over? What do you think?”

You recognize a challenge when you see one. A trap. Furious, you find the energy to fuck yourself down even faster, barely encompassing the tip before driving back up. You’ll ride him until your legs give out if that’s what it takes to make him recognize you again.

He doesn’t help you at all, resting his hands behind his head and just watching your body manically bounce in his lap. Your eyes screw up at the exertion. The show at this point is just that of your stubbornness.

“No, well if you’re not tired,” Hanma teases.

“I’m not tired, sir,” you pant, completely out of breath. “I’m desperate for your cock. I can’t get enough of it.”

A wet finger rubbing your clit almost knocks you off your rhythm. Unlike your little pets before, Hanma is rubbing hard and steady, like he wants you to shatter for him. It feels too delicious, like only a sin can. And, sure enough, it’s his left hand masturbating you.

“I love watching your tits bounce like that,” Hanma admits lowly. “You’re squeezing me so good, working so hard.”

“I’m riding your cock the way you like it, sir?” you plead, like if you don’t get the affirmation, it might kill you.

“Somewhere, inside the pathetic slut that whored out my pussy, I think my good girl is still there,” Hanma cooed. “A little more deprogramming to rid you of all those worthless men from your past, and I think you’ll be able to satisfy me.”

“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” you all but scream at the barest hint of praise.

You tighten up impossibly around him and his questing fingers. Finally, it’s happening. The orgasm you’ve been denied. You love his hands. You love his dick. You love his tongue. You love him! You love anything and all things Hanma, and you always have.

That is until you’re tossed aside again.

This time, you positively collapse into the sheets and start blabbering madly. “I can’t take it. I can’t. Sir, please. Sir, please. I can’t do it anymore. I need to come. Please let me come. I’ll do anything. I’ll make you come. Please, please, please. Help me.”

Hanma doesn’t laugh at your pitiful state. He’s worked up at this point too, balls heavy and drawn tight.

“Begging’s a start, slut, but I still can’t forgive you. You say anything you want, but what can you offer me to offset six years of fucking my fist and thinking about your cute little face? What’s going to make up for all the nights I came, and your tongue wasn’t there to lick it up? Maybe in six years I’ll let you cu–”

“No, sir, please!” you wail.

Your pussy is edged past reason, just pulsing madly for something to fill it. Hanma fights you off as you try to mount him again. Dismissively, he flips you onto your stomach with legs forced together.

If you can’t overpower him and take what you want, your only other option is to convince him. At this point, you’d say anything and everything. The magic combination of words is out there, if only you can stumble across them.

“I promise I’ll never touch another man again. I promise. I understand now. It’s your pussy, just yours. You can have it whenever, wherever, however you like, and I’ll just shut up and take it. I promise. Please, sir. Fuck me however you like. Use me to come. Please, anything!”

Your broken state doesn’t move Hanma, who argues, “But it’s already my pussy. You’re not offering me anything new.”

Still, he climbs on top of you and slides his cock back into your pussy. Hard cock pushes impossibly deep inside you. If you weren’t already blubbering, this position would have reduced you to it. His body covers yours completely. You feel entirely dominated, helpless and owned. Hanma’s hips barely rut against your ass, because if he thrust in earnest you would cum on the spot.

“Not just my pussy,” you mewl, desperate that he begin moving. “My throat, too. It’s yours, sir. Just yours. You can throat fuck me whenever you want.”

A sharp thrust makes you moan with joy.

“Face fuck my throat whenever I want, huh? Wake you up with my cock slapping your face in the morning? Send you to work with my load in your belly? A slut like you does need to be used hard and well in all her holes,” Hanma pants. There’s nothing unaffected about his voice at this point, growling each word into your ear. He’s thrusting hard now too, each slow pump hitting your g-spot and making you spasm.

“Yes, yes, yes! All my holes…slut like me needs…use all holes, sir…throat…pussy…virgin asshole…your asshole, please!”

Somehow through the indistinguishable babble, Hanma picks out the key information and yanks your head back by your hair, so that you peer up at his face.

“All your holes belong to me? That’s what you’re promising? You’re giving me each of your tight little holes to play with, slut?”

“Yes, sir. They’re all yours.”

It’s the final piece of the puzzle.

Hanma fucks into his cunt like he plans to destroy it. So deep and fast that your head spins as you collapse back into the mattress. Fuck drunk, you offer up every part of yourself to him in a litany of broken Japanese with no consideration of the consequences. You want him to own you.

The pressure inside you breaks in an outpouring of screams and juices. You cum. The arc of pleasure signals every part of your body to seize and shake.

Having edged you to the point of distraction, your orgasm doesn’t crest and end. Instead, it keeps pulsing through you. The unforgiving squeeze of your cunt almost pushes Hanma out, but he won’t allow that. He grips your hips tight ands spears you through it, which only lengthens the sensations.

Stars burst behind your eyelids and don’t go away when you open them again. There’s a ringing in your ears that drowns out everything from your moans to the sound of Hanma’s snapping hips. Robbed of two of your senses, you’re left dumb and broken.

You are reduced to a pile of quivering legs and twitching clit.

After a few minutes, the fog of cumming wears down. Your brain takes stock of until now ignored sensations. Your throat is bone dry and wretched from all your screaming. The strain from riding him earlier has your legs weak, all but useless. Most of all, you become cognizant of just how deeply Hanma’s cock is piercing you. It batters your cervix viciously, and you start to cry out weakly at the pain.

“Please, Hanma, I can’t take it anymore. You’re too deep,” you whimper against the onslaught.

“Yes, you can, baby. My pussy was made to take my cock all the way just like this. You can take it, and you will,” Hanma groans. There’s something faraway in his voice, like his brain is in another realm; he’s chasing his orgasm just like you now.

“But you’re just so big, and your pussy’s so small,” you protest again.

“Fuck, so fucking small,” Hanma agrees.

It spurs him on to fuck you even faster. His hips pins your down completely, so there’s no room to escape the deep thrusts that are hellbent on breaking you in two.

There is nothing to do but take the pounding.

Overwhelmed, your legs start shaking and don’t stop. To muffle your cries, you claw and biting at the crumpled sheets. Harder thrusts make your whole body bob upwards like a limp doll. It’s a fitting description because he owns all your holes and favors them like one might a beloved toy.

“I’m going to – fuck!” Hanma growls.

Hanma yanks you up by the neck, which forces your chest off the mattress and your hips lower. Each thrust now rubs your sore clit against the sheets, and your cries take on a new edge of carnality. How easily pain transforms into a careening pleasure that crosses your eyes and slicks the cock between your thighs.

“Beg me to use your pussy even if it hurts. Beg me to fill you up even as you cry,” Hanma moans deeply into your ear.

The most sudden orgasm of your life robs you of the ability to speak, let alone process his words.

Hanma’s lost all control as well, spitting filth into your hair without taking a breath, “Greedy slut wants to use my cock to cum over and over again. You’re too fuck drunk to beg, pretty girl? This cock killed every last brain cell in that pretty head. But don’t worry, I know your cunt is hungry for it. I’ll feed you. Fill you up nice and full. Plug you up so you don’t let it go to waste. Come on, baby, tell me you want my fucking cum.”

“Wan-it-syah,” you gargle.

The gush of your pussy one last time is the final trigger. Hanma’s hips ram hard into your ass and stay there, stuttering. He cums with a long moan, like he didn’t expect your pussy to wring something so powerful from him.

As promised, his load fills you. It feels hot and wet and like you were made to carry it inside you.

Collapsing, Hanma’s weight crushes you further down. Lips find your neck to press a flurry of kisses there. Now that you face the prospect of him pulling out, you no longer mind the pierce of your cervix, humping back a few times to try to milk just a little more from him. He isn’t wrong when he calls you greedy.

Only when completely soft does Hanma slip out of you, his load dripping out and wetting the sheets. He strokes your back languidly, and you wonder if he might not fall asleep on top of you.

“Don’t clean yourself up. I want to fuck your hole sloppy later,” Hanma orders without his usual energy.

Still obedient, when you roll out from under him, you clench your thighs to preserve as much of his cum as possible.

You want to say something to Hanma. He’s gazing curiously at your fucked out expression, and you want to comment on what you just shared. How wonderfully he has fulfilled all your fantasies and expectations dating back the better part of a decade. How terribly you’ve missed him. How you hope he never lets you leave again, knows what’s best for you.

The last hour has been so overwhelming, however, that you can’t remember how people find the energy to speak, let alone articulate something emotionally complicated. All you know is you want to be close to him. He permits it when you snuggle closer, face tucked into his chest.

The only sound in the room is Hanma humming gently as he strokes your hair.

Finally, you remember how to speak and can’t resist the most pressing question of all: “Am I your good girl, sir?”

“My good girl? You know, I don’t think so.”

Your gut sinks.

“You’re not my good girl. But my good whore? Now I think that sounds just right. Don’t you?”