Kneel Before This Love: Act 4

I guess this means I lost the battle of wills, Fuyuki thought as he gazed out at the meticulously tended garden. His wrists were unbound. He still hadn’t been given any underwear, and his naked body was clad in no more than a hasty kimono… but he could probably escape, if he tried, and yet his feet seemed to be rooted to the spot. In the end, he still found himself here in the Komine-kai compound. He’d even begun to get used to Mitora’s aggressive passion. Apparently human beings were made of tougher stuff than he’d realized, because he felt like now he was willing to accept even things he had dismissed as absolutely intolerable before. In the week since he had come to the compound Mitora’s obsession with him had not diminished in the slightest, and the man slaked his lust for Fuyuki’s body practically day and night. When Mitora was out, Fuyuki usually sat around staring off into the distance like he was doing now. And he fucking hated that his head was full of thoughts of Mitora.

“I’ve brought your meal, Fuyuki.”

Apparently it was already time to eat. Sokabe stepped inside with a tray in one hand. Today there was a narrow dish lined with white fish cured with kombu, another one of his favorites, along with a handful of other small plates, all beautifully presented and reminiscent of the simple appetizers that often preceded a tea ceremony. Each and every one had clearly been prepared with a great deal of care.

“Did the chef here always specialize in Japanese food?” Fuyuki asked, reaching for his chopsticks. He couldn’t be bothered to keep putting up a fight, and he began to eat without fuss. He remembered sleeping over at this very house countless times as a boy, but he’d never been served food like this before. Was that because he’d always been served the children’s menu, or had the chef changed?

“No, in fact I believe he struggled with tea ceremony dishes like these. He was much more accustomed to cooking for large crowds,” Sokabe said, kneeling with his legs folded neatly underneath him. “But he learned, on the boss’s orders.”

“…I see.”

Sokabe’s answer told him everything he needed to know, and Fuyuki didn’t waste his breath asking why Mitora had given such an order. He’d tried arguing to himself that they were both men, or that Mitora had never done anything other than harass him—anything to deny Mitora’s feelings. His love was so intense that Fuyuki had been scared to take it seriously. But by now, he had been made keenly, painfully aware of just how genuine Mitora’s feelings for him were. Mitora would always be true to himself, even if that meant burdening an unwilling Fuyuki with the nuisance of his affection.

But why the hell had he spent all these years harassing and annoying him?

Was all that seriously just his way of pulling his crush’s pigtails…?

Fuyuki heaved a sigh.

“Is it not to your liking today?”

“Oh, no, it is!” he said, shaking his head hastily. His meals, all courtesy of Mitora, were so delicious that he could feel himself getting dangerously used to this. That overbearing man was no doubt ready to give Fuyuki anything that he wanted—anything, except for the freedom to leave Mitora’s arms, his greatest wish and the one thing he would never be allowed.

“How long has he…?”

How long had Mitora been in love with him? Fuyuki wasn’t quite sure if he’d been talking to Sokabe, still kneeling with rigid posture as he waited for Fuyuki to finish eating, or to himself. He hadn’t been expecting an answer, but Sokabe actually obliged him.

“I believe since the two of you were children.” His expression was solemn as he added, “I confess that I know little about romance myself, so I can’t say I understand it all, but… perhaps sometimes love blooms without our knowledge?”

Fuyuki said nothing as he polished off every last morsel of food on the tray, and then set his chopsticks down.

“Thank you, it was delicious.”

“I’ll pass it on to the chef.” Sokabe’s face softened into a hint of a smile. “And you… also look like you’ve blossomed yourself, Fuyuki.”

“Er, what?”

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but you have a much more sensual beauty now than before. The kind that oozes sex appeal…”

Fuyuki never would have expected something like that to come out of the mouth of a man like Sokabe, and his cheeks turned pink despite himself. “Oh, um… thank you.”

Nobody had ever called him sexy before. Making a big show of turning down the compliment felt like a weird thing to do, but what was he supposed to say back? He knew that his features came across as cool and refined, and he’d often been called beautiful; but he still had a sharp tongue, and he was so strong-willed that it showed in his face. Shouldn’t all that make him the exact opposite of sexy? Had sex with Mitora not only remade his body but changed his vibe, too?

Well, he was far from thrilled about that.

“I first noticed it myself around when you were still in middle school,” Sokabe said abruptly as he was clearing away the tray. “Mitora… the boss came up to me all of a sudden and told me to go buy whiskey for him because he wanted to give it to you for your birthday. It was the same whiskey his father had poured him to give him his first taste of alcohol, a very fine bottle. It was Mitora’s favorite.”

Fuyuki’s eyes opened wide. Now that Sokabe mentioned it, he did vaguely recall that the day Mitora had foisted that bottle of booze on him on his way to school had been his birthday.

“Every time you started dating someone he would insist on testing them to see how far they were willing to go for you. He’d follow them around, drop the gang’s name… he always said he wanted to ‘keep the floozies away.’ Of course, I’m sure he mostly just wanted to stop anyone else from taking you away from him. As you’ve seen, he has some trouble being honest.”

Fuyuki was shaking his head slightly. Now that he thought about it…

“I remember when you were taking your university entrance exams, he said he wanted to keep your spirits up and he was determined to throw you some kind of send-off party.”

…he remembered everything.

“I tried several times to advise him against making moves on someone outside of the gang, but Mitora’s feelings did not change.”

He remembered, but he’d certainly never imagined that all those actions had been manifestations of Mitora’s love. Even now, he didn’t want to accept it.

“But, he never showed me even the slightest sign…” he protested, still trying to prove to himself that it couldn’t be true, but Sokabe shut him down with quiet forcefulness.

“It was because you were outside of the gang that the boss promised himself that until the day he had free rein to exert his authority, until he knew with absolute certainty that he was strong enough to protect you, he would content himself with simply being by your side. Danger is just a fact of life in this line of work. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten what happened in Hayama. The boss was precocious as a boy, and you were still so innocent, you never hesitated to put yourself within his reach, but he never tried to act prematurely.” Sokabe paused for a second, and his eyes flicked to Fuyuki.

“His father fell ill, and it wasn’t long before his role as acting boss became official. As he moved to unite the factions within the Komine-kai, there was some talk of marriage as a means to strengthen the bonds within the syndicate. But the boss always declined those proposals. He insisted that he had already chosen the one who would be his partner.

“But now that the conflicts have settled down, some of the heads of the subordinate gangs are starting to try to matchmake again. Of course, the boss refuses them all. He has already decided that his successor will be someone he deems worthy of the job, even if they are not a blood relation… and I suspect that one of the reasons he has gone to such reckless lengths to keep you close is because he wants to squash any more marriage proposals. As a man better suited to actions than words, I imagine he wants to demonstrate with his behavior that he has no intention of replacing you with anybody else.”

Sokabe’s candid words sank slowly into Fuyuki’s heart. His hands curled into fists over his knees.

Mitora was an idiot. A clumsy idiot who did all the wrong things at all the wrong times. Time spent with Mitora had never done anything good for him in his life, but to be told that Mitora had been acting out of love for him all along, well… it didn’t make it okay, but he couldn’t keep blaming him quite like before, either.

Even his heart was becoming helplessly full of Mitora.

After Sokabe had carried his tray out of the room, Fuyuki slumped against the sliding doors and stared out at the garden. It was still the same view from his childhood.

Sokabe had said that Mitora had seemed to be in love with him since they were boys. Why had Fuyuki never noticed?

Well, even if I had, I don’t know what I would’ve done about it.…

He could see the artificial hill in the garden from Mitora’s bedroom. It was shaped like Mount Fuji, dotted with moss and small wildflowers and casting what must be a pleasantly cool shadow around it. In their childhood he and Mitora and the other boys had clambered up that hill many times to play, having no idea of the time and effort it took to maintain. He felt a pang of nostalgia.

That reminds me, I haven’t seen Youhei either.…

Fuyuki’s thoughts drifted to his other childhood friend. Among the Komine-kai’s affiliated gangs was a violent group known as the Jinno family. Youhei Jinno was the son of the head of the family and the same age as Mitora. He had lived at the Komine compound for a period of time (looking back, had he been like a hostage…?), and the three of them had been close companions until early elementary school.

Fuyuki had heard from his father that shortly after Mitora had become the boss, Youhei had also taken over as the head of the Jinno family. He’d barely seen Youhei at all since graduating from school, and he wondered how he was doing. Unlike Mitora, Youhei had been lean and more of the intellectual type; Fuyuki couldn’t picture him as the head of a violent gang at all.

I heard he even passed the administrative scrivener qualification exam, so what the hell is he doing…?

Nobody chooses the family they’re born into. Fuyuki considered it grossly unfair for anyone to be forced to step into their father’s shoes, but how had those two felt about it?

“Fuyuki? What’s the matter?”

Mitora had come up next to him at some point. The man had headed out early that morning, but apparently his business was finished now. He seemed to be most comfortable in kimono whenever he was at home, and he had already changed into one. Fuyuki tried to remember when Mitora had started wearing kimono, but he couldn’t. It must have been sometime after high school, when Fuyuki had started to avoid him and stopped coming around to this house. Mitora was wearing it loose, and his dusky skin peeked out from the open collar.

“Nothing,” he murmured, his back still propped up against the frame of the door.

“You got that sexy look on your face thinkin’ about nothing?”

Mitora tilted his head up by the chin, and Fuyuki scowled at him. “You’re an idiot.”

His gaze slid away to the little Mount Fuji. Why did he find himself pining so much now for those old days, when it hadn’t mattered who they were, and he’d had no idea what love was?

“How’s Youhei doing now?” he said softly, still turned away from Mitora. He meant nothing by it; it was just that his old friend had come to mind, and he was curious.

“Whoa, whoa, you’re lookin’ like that thinking about another man? I ain’t lettin’ that slide.” Mitora had seated himself cross-legged beside him, and he hauled Fuyuki sideways into his lap.

“‘Another man?’ We’ve known him since we were kids!”

“A man’s a man, can’t take my eyes off you for a second.” Mitora huffed through his nose as his groping hands tugged open the collar of Fuyuki’s kimono. “What’s got you so sentimental anyway?”

“I’m not, I just…” He really had been very close to both of them as a boy. Anything had been fun as long as they were together, and the three of them had run around playing until long after the sun had set. “The last time the three of us slept over somewhere together was Hayama, right?” Fuyuki murmured, his chest full of quiet reminiscence.

“Yeah.”

“We all took off school.… We stayed there for, what, ten days?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

At the time he’d been so happy to get out of school that he hadn’t thought anything of a holiday at the Komine villa, but the mood among the adults must have been crackling with tension. And then a rival syndicate had surrounded the Hayama villa, no doubt going after them—well, after Mitora and Youhei—and there had been a bit of a siege. He’d been afraid, but his certainty that Mitora would make everything alright had dulled his sense of danger. But Mitora had been just a boy himself back then. Where had all that implicit trust come from?

But right after that is when we stopped hanging out together.…

Now that he thought about it, that was when Mitora had started harassing all of Fuyuki’s close female friends at school.

Mitora’s fingers steadily undid Fuyuki’s sash with the nimbleness of a man who was very used to handling kimono.

“That was also the last time we took a bath together,” Fuyuki mused his memories aloud. He’d never given a second thought to being naked around his friend, but what about Mitora? Had the sight of Fuyuki’s thirteen-year-old body filled him with desire?

“Oh, if you wanna take a bath with me I’ll go start the tub filling right now,” Mitora snorted.

“Idiot.” Fuyuki turned to look at him. “Hey, Mitora. Were you already in love with me back then?”

“Wha…”

A deep red flush leapt to Mitora’s cheeks, much to Fuyuki’s surprise. What was this innocent reaction coming from the man who’d used and abused his body like a toy?

“Wh-Who gives a fuck about that anyway? Embarrassing little shit!”

“Says the guy who’s constantly saying much more embarrassing and degrading things? This makes you blush?”

A reaction like that made even Mitora look cute.

Even an arrogant, aggressive bastard like Mitora.

Hold on, don’t start thinking he’s cute, Fuyuki. Keep it together. Remember everything this idiot did to you.…

There was something so adorable about a bashful Mitora that Fuyuki almost went to wrap his arms around him before catching himself with a start.

That had been a close one. He must have lost his mind.

“That’s enough outta you!” Mitora snatched his chin between his thumb and index finger, and Fuyuki’s lips parted from the pressure on his jaw.

“Oh… mm!”

Mitora lunged into the kiss, nipping at his lips and thrusting his tongue deep into his mouth.

Fuyuki’s kimono slipped from his shoulder. He didn’t feel like putting up a fight.

Maybe Mitora was right, and he was feeling sentimental after all.

In his own way, Mitora was clearly serious about him. Fuyuki wouldn’t deny that. But that didn’t mean he was going to just nod and smile right away. The man had seized him with such brute force he was basically a kidnapped hostage, and Fuyuki still hadn’t come up with a way out of this deadlock.

“Ah, oh… ah, ahhh!”

He couldn’t get his thoughts organized, and he felt distracted and anxious. His body, on the other hand, was responding very clearly. He wasn’t supposed to be wanting any of this, but he couldn’t deny his pleasure was more intense than ever before. He was straddling Mitora’s lap face-to-face, the man’s cock buried deep inside him. Fuyuki rode Mitora hard, angling the fat head to bump against his prostate as he bounced up and down, nails digging red lines into Mitora’s shoulders. A lewd wet squelch followed every motion.

“Ahhh!”

Mitora had already pumped him full of his semen, and the thick slippery coating allowed Mitora’s cock to slide smoothly in and out. Fuyuki clenched his core muscles on every exit and re-entry, addicted to the delicious squeeze of his inner walls around Mitora’s shaft.

“That’s real good, baby,” Mitora panted, his breath hot and hungry. He was alternating love bites on each of Fuyuki’s nipples, hands planted firmly on Fuyuki’s hips for support. “What’s up with you, decided to finally chase your pleasure for once…?”

“Mm, ah…!” Fuyuki’s own cock was grinding against Mitora’s abs and chest, and he bounced frantically. “Oh, oh, I’m…! I’m gonna—!” His heaving body flung beads of sweat into the air, and embarrassing babbling spilled from his mouth. “I’m gonna come, I’m coming…!”

“Do it, baby, come all over my belly,” Mitora hissed.

“Ahhh!” With a high-pitched scream Fuyuki spurted his release between them, and then collapsed forward onto Mitora. His own body weight drove Mitora’s cock in to the hilt, and when he squeezed around him, he felt the heat of Mitora’s seed gushing inside.

“…ah…” he moaned, savoring the sweet warmth as his body quivered with aftershocks.

“Feel good?” Mitora asked, tongue scooping up the droplets of sweat trickling down Fuyuki’s neck.

“Yeah…” he murmured in a muffled voice.

“Ain’t you cute today.” Mitora’s fingers traced Fuyuki’s rim where it stretched around him. “It’s still leakin’ out of you around my cock. Heh, well, I came a lot more than once.”

Mitora’s stroking nearly had Fuyuki’s lust ready to simmer again. It had been too good, he’d felt on the verge of losing his mind. Mitora’s tongue wiped clean the drool that had trickled from the corner of his mouth, and Fuyuki’s eyes slid open dazedly to see Mitora’s satisfied smirk just inches away.

“How you feelin’?”

“Tired…”

“That’s not very sexy,” Mitora said with a grin, and Fuyuki turned away. Did he want an answer like, “that felt amazing?”

Well, he’s not getting it. If he had to say something like that, the shame alone would kill him.

But this relationship wasn’t healthy. If he let Mitora keep distracting him with sex, then all the things he needed to think about would never get resolved.

Think…!

There was only one way to break free from this bizarre and ridiculous situation, and Fuyuki had finally realized what it was: he had to think about what he wanted to do. Think about it sincerely enough to make up for all the time he’d spent ignorant of Mitora’s feelings.

What exactly… do I want from Mitora?

Should he accept him? Or reject him to the bitter end, hold his ground and not give an inch no matter what new torture or cruelties Mitora might subject him to, and cut him completely out of his life?

Cut Mitora out, huh.…

Looking back, for all his bitching about him, Fuyuki had never spent a day without Mitora in his heart. Both when he’d been a boy trailing eagerly at Mitora’s heels, and even now that they’d grown estranged, Mitora had always been the person closest to him. If he was going to reject him, he would have to cut him out entirely. They couldn’t be friends who’d known each other since childhood anymore.

…and that worried him. He was worried about himself, about his sneaking suspicion that he could never bring himself to go that far to reject him.

“I apologize for the interruption.” From the other side of the door came the sounds of a voice and the shuffling of what seemed to be several people.

“What’s going on, Sokabe?” Mitora called back, still nestled inside Fuyuki’s body. The man must be tired himself, but his bearing didn’t betray even a hint of fatigue.

“There’s been some trouble in Shinjuku, on Jinno turf.”

Jinno? That was his old friend Youhei’s gang.

“Report,” Mitora ordered, something strangely regal in his voice even as he kept Fuyuki speared on his cock.

“Yes, sir. A group of high school kids was trying to act tough and harassing a businessman, no gang affiliation, and one of Jinno’s men apparently stepped in to help.…”

It sounded like Sokabe had come bearing trouble.

“Good on him. So what happened?” Mitora was perfectly calm. Fuyuki had always seen him as impetuous and emotional, not someone who made calculated, logical decisions, but times like this showed him a different side of Mitora.

“Police hauled him to the station. The other party were minors, and it looked especially bad that he caused them some slight injuries.”

“Got it. Call our lawye—” Mitora swallowed mid-syllable. “He’s still recuperatin’, ain’t he.”

“Yes, sir.”

Fuyuki felt Mitora’s gaze snap to him, and he roused himself languidly to say, “I never said I’d consult for you.”

If anything, he wanted some distance from Mitora right now—not to reject him, but to have some space to think about the two of them.

“But you’re the only one who can help him out here.”

Fuyuki was always moved by opportunities to help others, but he was determined to stick to his guns. “The reason the cops are so ready to use any excuse they can to get rid of you is because you’re all a public nuisance! You’re parasites leeching off honest people!”

His voice took on a bitter edge. They may be fucking, but he knew he could never stand on Mitora’s side. He couldn’t just switch off how he felt. In the end he still wanted to work as a normal lawyer, and if he stuck his neck out now for this gang member who’d gotten caught up in trouble, he was afraid he’d be tying himself to gangsters for the rest of his life.

“Alright. Can’t argue with that,” Mitora conceded, but his eyes were deadly serious. “Guys like us, we’re the first ones the cops drag in when shit goes down and they need someone to pin it on. And if we really were doin’ shady shit, then fair enough. We gotta take responsibility for that somehow, even if it means doin’ time.

“But if they’re tryin’ to lock us up for something we didn’t do, then even we want a shot to fight. Your old man understood that, that’s why he agreed to be our legal advisor. He’s got a big heart.”

“My dad’s decisions have nothing to do with me.…” Fuyuki’s heart wavered even as he spoke. It was true that if Sokabe’s report was accurate, the arrested gang member had gotten a truly bad deal. He’d done a good deed that anyone else would have been praised for, but just because he was a gangster, he’d been treated like a villain.

…but.

Fuyuki still hesitated.

What should I do…?

Mitora’s arms were still wrapped around him as he ground his molars. Neither Mitora nor Sokabe said a word, even though if Mitora had wanted to, he could have just toyed with Fuyuki’s sensitive body until he’d forced a yes out of him. But this particular time, Mitora made no move to touch him. The decision was his and his alone. It would be a big step, no matter which path he chose. He squeezed his eyes shut. What was his answer?

Various scenes flickered across the inside of his eyelids. He saw the faces of the men, the gangsters, that he had been watching since childhood. The young men who had played with him as a boy. The men who had fought to protect him in Hayama. The men who had gripped his father’s hand with tears in their eyes, thanking him. The men who raised their glasses with a whoop and a cheer at New Year’s and other holidays.

Youhei and everyone… and, Mitora.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been lost in self-reflection by the time he opened his eyes. His mind was made up.

“Get me a suit—now, please. I need to interview him.”

Fuyuki himself was surprised at the clear assertiveness in his tone. Once the decision was made, it was time for action. He was a man of his word, though he didn’t take it quite as far as Mitora.

“You mean it, Fuyuki?” Mitora called his name, his voice thick with a certain emotion.

“But,” he said, looking at Mitora, “I haven’t decided whether I’m going to take a formal advisory role yet. I’m only lending a hand for this case on behalf of my dad, alright? Besides, the head of the Jinno family is Youhei. We go way back.” Fuyuki slowly lifted himself off of Mitora and forced his wobbly legs to stand. “Get that suit ready for me while I wash up.”

“You got it. Versace, Gucci, anything you want, baby. Been fucking you every day for a week, I know all your sizes.”

“No, you idiot, something simpler. Actually shouldn’t you have the one I was wearing when I came here?”

The moment Mitora had popped free of his body, semen had begun to drip down his thighs. Had he been filled with so many loads of Mitora’s come that it had begun to seep through him, spreading the stamp of Mitora’s possession all the way to his heart? Is that why he felt so uncharacteristically willing to stick his nose into this business?

“Sokabe,” he called softly through the door. If it was time for action, then he needed to plan out his win. Fuyuki hated losing.

“Yes?”

“I need you to track down the witnesses, please. I need testimonies from the uh, businessman that was rescued, and any passersby. Gangsters don’t get a lot of sympathy in a courtroom, so we need to nip this in the bud before they press charges.”

“Understood.”

“Let’s give those snotty kids a little raking over the coals, shall we?” That said… “But my specialization is corporate law, that’s all I know. I have zero experience with criminal defense.”

It was a strange thing to say with swagger, but acting meek and modest while naked would have felt a little too pitiful, so he left his hands on his hips while he added his disclaimer. It didn’t make what he was saying any less pathetic, though.

“Don’t worry.” Fuyuki was saying himself that he didn’t feel confident, but Mitora spoke with enough boldness for the both of them. “You never know when to give up.”

Good point. Fuyuki couldn’t argue with that.