#I really don't want to dislike her but she's not making it easy lmfao

[sleepynoons]

AHHHH help i need someone to pick me off the floor and bring a mop over

hi it's me again sorry for existing in the same timeline as you

anyway sooooooo many wonderful perfect amazing show-stopping things about the finale

uh first of all, kudos for the perfect break between pt 1 and pt 2 - it's incredibly seamless, and it ties all the loose strings together, and really, the thing that stuck out to me about this whole story is simply how Cohesive it is. super hard to execute that as a writer, so really, really impressed by that.

onto more specifics.

first, i so appreciate the portrayal of reader as being very sexually active, and in my mind, hypersexual. i mentioned previously about how we don't really know the full story with suo, and that applies to reader as well. we don't really how reader grew up, what her likes/dislikes are (besides sex and bad sex, respectively), what family life was like before getting kicked out, etc. not sure what you had in mind, but there's a sense i have where i truly, truly believe reader is not actually a very reliable narrator!!! i think there's some avoidance!!! some dense and forgetful behavior that is meant to elucidate and confuse us as readers!!! and funnily enough, suo helps us gain clarity.

anyway, i think hypersexuality rep is important, in general. a big part of it isn't just feeling horny 24/7. there's some very real problems with low esteem/self-respect, feelings of disgust, internalized misogyny + objectification, and more. i think this fic also treads this balance very carefully, in that it recognizes that sex work is really just a means to get by, in the most neutral sense possible. it's not always glamorous, it's not always violent. as someone who's done a ton of research and activism in sex work, especially at the intersection of sex work + immigration, i really appreciated this rep.

in terms of reader and suo's relationship, this is really where i wanna dive into it. it's very clear i love them and i love them together, but it's not just their alikeness that makes them work. it's their shared history, their leniency + strict expectations for each other, and so much more.

the specific word choices and phrases really drive this through – "being gutted by suo" "mortified" "pavlovian response" and so many more

their banter is really the cherry on top as well.

also wanna emphasize this more - despite how romantic they are with each other (in their minds), they're also so sharp and judgmental – and i mean judgmental. lowkey kinda like asian parenting LOL like reader wants the best for suo, but now that suo's become a yakuza, that's a grudge she's keeping for the rest of her life. similarly, suo wants reader to stop fucking around and actually practice more self-control, but because she doesn't listen, he's gotta take matters into his own hands and edge the living shit out of her. sexual innuendos aside, literally asian love. like fine we'll deal with it if you don't listen but just know we're holding it over your head for the rest of your goddamn life LMFAO ik it's kinda toxic to other folks who may not have grown up in such an environment - and i'm not really gonna have an opinion on whether it's valid/justifiable or not -, but as someone who grew up with tiger parents + somehow managed to be somewhat emotionally close to them, this type of love is really smth i treasure a lot.

and i think that's the whole point of the fic, for me at least. reader and suo want to take care of each other. they want to cherish the time they have together. but at the same time, it's realistically impossible not to hurt your loved ones. i think it's so easy to say certain things are dealbreakers and to just walk away, but even irl, sometimes it's also just... hard to walk away. idk maybe i have a really convoluted sense of love and romanticism, but i am 100000% convinced love is difficult and honestly not really worth the payoff sometimes, yet reader and suo kinda don't even care if the payoff's worth it. like we'll hurt, we'll love, and we'll just see how it goes bc we just care that fucking much about each other. i wonder if they'd still choose to be tgt even if they knew they were making each other incredibly unhappy... bc they're each other's person ykwim.... anyway, some more food for thought for me... heheh

also,,, sex scene had me quaking,,, i totally read the tags and saw p*ssy inspection and wasn't shocked,,, totally was prepared,,, haha,,,, ha

anyway, sooo much love and thanks again, op. i may have gone off the rails, and thought or interpreted shit you didn't even think about or agree with. point is, haven't thought so much about a fic in so long, and i really was so enraptured with every word, every cadence, every paragraph. apologies for the brief spam in your inbox, but i really hope, no matter where you go, you keep writing. thank you so so so much, truly, for sharing this with us.

TOKYO VICE | part 2

“Do you remember,” Suo begins, voice light, “how our master always talked about how important it is to engage with each other’s feelings?” You tense. “No,” you blurt out, and Suo laughs. “Of course not,” he plays along. “You were always so terrible at it. But I've been doing a bad job too, lately. So”—he reaches beneath your dress, hooks your thong with his fingers and starts pulling the fabric down your sticky thighs—“I wanted to have an honest conversation with you.” (Or: Tired of your lies and self-deception, Suo takes matters into his own hands and forces the truth out of you.)

12.8k words. suo x fem reader. deeply unserious yakuza au ft. yandere suo. mostly unrepentant smut, comedy, angst. warnings: sex work. nsft tags: afab reader, emotional sex, fingering, dacryphilia, orgasm denial, pussyjob, just the tip, creampie. suo is mean and makes you cry but there's no degradation, he's just a bastard lol. he also manhandles you a lot and you sit in his lap. dividers by @/cafekitsune!

part 1 here

You're surprised at Suo’s indifference to your sex life.

A month has gone by, and he’s made no comment on your habit of sleeping with customers, nor on the hours during which you come home—which are now even later than usual, since you have express permission to sleep with people and have no need to rush back to the penthouse after your ‘appointments’. And it isn't as if he's ignoring the reality of your late nights either. In a stunning show of respect for your personal freedom, he now actively offers to arrange for someone to pick you up from whichever love hotel you'll end up at. (You always decline, of course—if you're going to pretend to be his wife, you'd rather pretend to be a faithful one.)

Ironically, you had initially thought that Suo’s approval wouldn't matter either way. You had found the sex with your clients to be so uninspiring that it made you miss celibacy, so you were planning on stopping. But it turned out that you were deeply affected by the experience of sitting in Suo’s lap as he talked about his expectation of deciding whose cocks you should be allowed to take. It did something horrible to your sex drive, and thus you turned to work as your only outlet.

You spent around three weeks desperately trying to find a customer to satisfy your urges—or at the very least, to fuck you in a way that could get you to stop thinking of Suo whenever you got even a little horny. You were faced with utter failure in this pursuit, and in the end, bleakly resigned yourself to the reality that your shameful attraction to your best friend is incurable. You’ve now given up on the love hotel visits and simply take care of your needs with a vibrator instead. At least this way, you can actually say Suo’s name while you cum, rather than constantly reminding yourself to say your customer’s name instead.

The freedom of letting yourself fantasise about Suo has been exhilarating, but terrible for your friendship. It’s just difficult to sit across from him at breakfast and act like you haven't touched yourself at the table while he was gone, fantasising about what it would be like if he bent you over it and fucked you dumb. But you are a decent actor—hostessing demands that of you—so you don't think Suo has caught onto your carnal desires for him. Hopefully, he never will.

Another couple of weeks pass like this. Things are so calm that you come to believe that Suo is genuinely fine with you having some degree of sexual freedom, at least at work. This, however, turns out to be nothing short of naïvete.

After all, Suo is never forceful when he's upset with your decisions—but he also never fails to redirect them.

One spring evening, you show up at the kyabakura and are told that you’re only to see one customer tonight, and that it will be a private session.

“But we don't do private sessions here,” you say, blissfully unaware of your imminent suffering, “and we don't even have private rooms at this establishment.”

To this, your mamasan responds that the club is making an exception for this one guest, and that this guest has rented out the rooftop bar just to see you. When you ask just who this person might be, a look of mild panic flashes through her eyes. She grabs you by the shoulders and tells you to be careful. Just keep him happy and go home after, okay? she says. Don't go out for drinks, and definitely don't go to any love hotels. Don’t tell him your real name at any cost. You don't want to involve yourself with a man like him.

A sense of dread fills you as you step into the elevator.

A cool breeze greets you when you step onto the rooftop patio. Normally bustling with a raucous crowd, it almost feels eerie in its emptiness. Aside from the glow of the red light district beneath you and the city skyline in the distance, the only light is coming from the candles lighting one of the booths.

Your anxiety intensifies as you approach it.

You aren't very surprised at the sight of Suo lounging on a leather couch, dressed in full criminal regalia—infamous eyepatch, tassel earrings, and all. Sakura once mentioned that this club is connected to some colour gang, so you figure that the manager likely recognized Gui Yanzhao on sight. He probably suffered a minor angina when he did. The mamasan herself has no criminal ties to your knowledge, but she was probably informed that one of her girls was to entertain a high-profile yakuza, and she was likely worried that you'd been maimed in the process. Gui Yanzhao has a bit of a reputation for being a sadist, after all.

While you appreciate her concern, it is not Suo’s history of violence that scares you, but his history of antagonising you. On good days, there's nothing that delights him more than seeing you flustered or off-kilter. On bad days, there’s nothing that consoles him like spiteful retaliation against whomever's managed to piss him off—and you have, without a doubt, managed to piss him off.

You groan as soon as you see him, fearing the worst for your mental health.

“What are you doing here,” you say, and Suo smiles.

“Oh? You're not happy to see me?”

“No,” you moan. “How are you even here right now? Aren't you worried about being assassinated or something? Who did you terrorise to get an entire rooftop bar to yourself?”

“I have a very cordial relationship with all the major organisations on Keisei Street and was promised immunity during my visit tonight,” Suo says neatly. “And I didn't terrorise anyone. I simply walked into this fine establishment and politely asked for a private space to enjoy with my preferred hostess.”

Neither of you need to mention that the sight of the tassel earrings alone would be enough to terrorise someone. The manager probably felt like he was being extorted just from being on the receiving end of Suo’s smile. Actually, you currently feel like you're being extorted too.

You spend a good few moments giving him a look of open distress, to which he smiles.

“You know,” he says, “for a top-ranking hostess, you're not showing much hospitality right now.”

“Oh, for the love of—”

You force yourself to stop, remembering that you are, in fact, at work. Despite your mixed feelings about your industry, at the end of the day, you pride yourself on your work ethic. You take your job very seriously, and your job right now is to entertain your customer—even if said customer is your fake yakuza husband who is toying with you as a cat would a mouse.

Resigning yourself to a night of probable humiliation (one of Suo's greatest passions in addition to lying for comedy), you walk over to sit yourself next to him. And just like in Red Dragon’s lounge, Suo overturns the decision by pulling you into his lap. Your eyes go wide as he settles you on top of him—because unlike the intimate space of that crime scene, this is expressly forbidden behaviour at your club.

Also, unlike that other night, you are currently wearing the shortest dress imaginable and the tiniest thong you own.

You find yourself shivering as Suo's hand settles on your lower back, which is fully exposed thanks to the cut of your dress. You try not to focus on the calloused press of his fingers against your bare skin, but this is an exceedingly difficult endeavour, as his touch has been featured in your sexual fantasies for the past several weeks. Worse yet—your dress is now riding up your ass, and your thong isn't doing much to cover you. Whatever material his pants are made of—light, delicate—feels incredibly good against your thighs too.

If this continues, you might cum on the spot.

“Wait,” you say, and Suo raises a brow.

“Oh?”

“You aren't supposed to touch the hostesses here.”

He smiles. “I'm sure this place might be able to make an exception for me. But only if you are personally willing to, of course.”

“...”

Making an exception for him, in your current situation, would be among the worst decisions you've ever made. But after two of the most sexually frustrating months of your life, you’re ready to make horrible decisions.

“Fine,” you say. “But you better not cheap out on the drinks. The mamasan will only overlook this if you make it worth our while.”

“Of course,” Suo says. “Though I think she’d overlook a lot of things for me regardless.”

Suo makes good on his promise and orders a great deal of alcohol. All top shelf, of course. He laughs that his goal is to bring you to the number 1 ranking with his patronage alone tonight. It’s a hideous display of wealth.

As you pour him an absurdly expensive drink (a Hibiki 30 year-old blended whiskey), you reminisce on how little money you both used to have as teens. He had to be so careful with his wallet whenever he felt like visiting you—or rather, checking in on you—at work. Especially after your master passed. The two of you were very good about staying financially independent, but there was something comforting about your master’s promise to support you if anything ever happened.

With him gone, you and Suo had only financial paranoia and each other.

You guess that might have affected Suo more than you thought. Perhaps he didn't join the yakuza to spite you, but to support you. Certainly, he seems to enjoy spoiling you right now—treating you to drinks that would easily clear a year of his salary as a teen, buying out an entire night of your time at a high end club, renting out a whole floor just so that he can have you to himself. When you point out that his tab must be getting catastrophic, he only laughs.

“I did always say that I wanted to spend money on you,” he recalls. It had been a running joke during your days at the girls’ bar, when you scolded him for paying 3000¥ per hour just to visit you. You hated that he was wasting money on the red light district; he always replied that it wasn't a waste, because it was money spent to see you.

You feel your stomach flutter at the comment. You didn't think he'd remember words from so long ago. As a teenager, you had a tendency of clinging onto small, inconsequential moments with him because they brought you so much joy. You’ve always assumed he would have forgotten them, writing them off as instances of shallow teasing—but if he remembers, then surely they meant something to him too?

This would all make you feel sentimental if you weren't outrageously horny.

Suo has kept you on his lap the whole evening, even as you pour him drinks. Every movement to serve him has you involuntarily rubbing on his thigh, and you're quite certain at this point that he's been lifting your skirt up inch by inch with every casual touch on your waist. You don't bother accusing him of it, though. He'd just give you an innocent look and say that it was an accident. What a horrible man.

Accident or not though, it doesn't change the fact that your nearly bare cunt is pressed right against him. You keep trying to shift positions to pull down your skirt or lift yourself off him, but each attempt only makes it worse—brings the soft fabric of his pants right against your pussy, or makes your clit drag against his thigh, with only your thong separating your bodies. You try to suppress your arousal, but to your overwhelming horror, you can't seem to control yourself. You feel yourself getting wet, folds quickly becoming slick as you’re forced to grind on him. Your body, already warm from all the cocktails and shots, grows even hotter as you squirm on his lap.

In a desperate move to regain some control, you fully get up to reach for another drink. But then you feel a pair of hands on your waist, and Suo pulls you back onto his leg—this time forcing you to straddle it. You can't help the whimper that leaves you as your dripping cunt is spread and pressed against him, your clit throbbing against his thigh.

You pray that he doesn't notice the noise, so of course he does.

“Hm? Is something wrong?” Suo’s hand drifts over your waist and down to your thigh, where it ghosts over your bare skin. He leans in, and his voice is silky as he speaks into your ear: “You're moving around a lot. Do you need to get up?”

He’s giving you an out. It's quite considerate of him, as staying like this would not be a good decision. But for better or worse, you have a tendency to make bad ones.

“...no, I'm fine.”

“Good,” he says. “Let me know if you’re uncomfortable at all. I'm happy to move if you'd like.”

As if demonstrating, Suo shifts the leg you're sitting on, directly rubbing it against your core. You try not to shudder, feeling yourself get even wetter, clenching around nothing.

Trying to ignore how empty you are, you grasp for other topics of conversation, something to distract you. A little scrambled from the alcohol and catastrophically aroused, you of course land on the one that's been making your sex drive unmanageable.

“Remember a month ago,” you say, “how you talked about choosing who gets to touch me?”

“Yes.” His palm is warm against your thigh. He isn't moving it, so there's plausible deniability, but the amused tone of his voice suggests that he knows what he's doing. “Does that bother you?”

Of course it should bother you. It's a level of control that's appalling even to your anxiously-attached ass. But it’s also making you wetter right now. You try not to cry—from misery or sexual frustration, you're not sure.

“Well, yeah. Come on, Suo—even you should know that's really weird of you.”

“I do,” he says, smiling like he isn't admitting to deranged behaviour. “But how else am I supposed to know you're safe? Or even aside from being safe—if your needs are being met.” His hand runs up and down your thigh before settling at the hem of your dress. “I wouldn't want you to go unsatisfied. Who knows what kind of people you'd seek out if that happened.”

You actively stop yourself from putting your face in your hands. The gall of him saying this after forcing you into extended celibacy is beyond words, especially as you're being forced to rub up on him, effectively ruining every attempt you've made not to think about him sexually for the past several years. There are many materially consequential reasons for your decision to not fuck Suo—you should not be soaked through your panties, your thighs sticky with need, as you sit on his lap.

“That's,” you say lamely, “not very normal of you.” Trying for a less sensual conversation, you go for the reliable topic Sakura’s romance radar: “Also, if satisfaction was your concern, why did you choose Sakura? I love that guy a lot, but he has literally no experience. And I think he'd blue-screen trying to keep a friend with benefits. You know he can't handle a fuckbuddy.”

You are not trying to be mean. What Sakura objectively needs for his first time is someone sweet and emotionally competent and, most importantly, not an absolute freak like you. This is a failure of your character, not his.

You can hear Suo’s smile in his reply: “I don't think you're giving him enough credit.”

“He has the social skills of a feral cat.”

Suo genuinely laughs. “Sure, when he first came to Makochi. But he's much better now. Plus, you have no room to talk. I mean”—his breath sweeps over your ear—“you used to be pretty wild yourself. I've just domesticated you is all… though you've been misbehaving lately.”

His words do something horrible to you. Trying to distract yourself from the mounting sexual tension, you turn to him to give him a biting retort, but you're abruptly stopped by the look in his eye. Distinctly hungry and unrepentant in its desire, his gaze roams openly and shamelessly along the curves of your body.

You feel like you're being eaten alive.

Plenty of customers have looked at you in such a way when you wear this outfit, but none have had this effect on you—which is to say, making you clench immediately.

You try not to cry. You actually will cum on the spot at this rate, and you don't think you could be subtle about it. You're barely keeping it together right now, with how your pussy keeps fluttering and dripping. Coupled with the way that the alcohol is melting the edges of your self-control, you're shocked you haven't at least moaned yet.

In a last ditch effort to save your friendship, as well as your rental (house arrest) situation, you slap a hand over his mouth.

“Stop that.”

Suo laughs. He grabs your wrist, lifts your palm away. ��Why?”

Why? Because if you keep talking like that, I'll bend over and start begging you to fuck me! you think. But even in your inebriated, horny state, it feels like a poor idea to admit this aloud. You end up saying, “Hostesses aren't paid to flirt like this. Strictly speaking, we’re paid to be conversational partners.” You frown at him. “You're breaking a lot of club rules right now.”

This reprimand backfires on you, as you are suddenly filled with intrusive thoughts of breaking every single rule in this establishment with Suo, including the ones preventing you from climbing on top of him and riding him raw. You squirm at the thought, wishing you could close your legs rather than making a mess of your underwear (now a lost cause), but Suo’s grip stays firm on your waist.

He, himself, is unbothered by your scolding. “Okay,” he says simply. “Then I won't speak to you as a hostess. I want to speak to you, seriously, as a friend.”

His smile is so disarming, it makes you nervous. But he sounds earnest enough for you to be curious, and anyway, you're desperate for something to distract you from your wet cunt.

“Alright,” you acquiesce, “What do you have to say, as a friend?”

“I just have one question.”

“Sure. Shoot.”

His hand comes to rest in your thigh again. He leans in, breath so hot against your ear that your heart jumps.

“I can accept that you wanted to see customers just to satisfy your urges. But tell me why you didn't come to me first.”

You freeze up. Look at him, wide-eyed.

“Wh-what?”

Suo just smiles. Looks so fucking innocent you wonder if you misheard, but his voice is sharp when he replies: “Let me put it another way. Why have we never slept together?”

For some reason, you’ve never thought that he'd ask you this question point blank, even though you've asked it to yourself many times. It takes you several moments to piece together a response, during which Suo’s expression turns distinctly wicked. A sign that he smells blood.

“Why would you think we would have?” you ask carefully.

“Because we’ve both clearly thought about it. You especially.”

You try to keep a straight face. “No I haven't. I don't know what you're talking about.” You raise a brow. “How would you even know?”

“Because,” he says, hand inching up your thigh, “you’re so wet that I can feel it.”

You're mortified.

Shame floods your body, first because of the accusation, and then because you know it's true. You were tipsy enough not to think about this, but now—sobering up from sheer panic— you're acutely aware of how you've soaked through the fabric beneath you. Something that Suo had certainly known, and chose to encourage.

What a horrible man.

When you don't reply, he tilts his head. “Don't tell me you haven't noticed. Do you want me to show you?”

His hand is moving so slowly, you know he's giving you another out. You could easily get off his lap. You could even slap him and call him a sleazy drunk and grouse at him to go home. You could forgive him in the morning for coming onto you and say he'd obviously made an inebriated mistake, as opposed to a very calculated decision. Your friendship would stay mostly intact. His grip on you might tighten, but that would be fine. You would still get to stay with him.

And that's all you've ever wanted. Just to stay with him.

But you're so wet, so empty, so aching. You want to be touched. You want to be touched by Suo, and only by Suo. You want to be fucked by him, to be owned by him, to be ruined by him. You’ve wanted it so badly and so long that you can't even remember when it started—only that you want it to end.

So instead of moving away, you sit there and endure the humiliation of getting your cunt inspected by him.

Suo hums as he opens your legs. You suppress a whimper as a finger moves along your folds, at the noise it makes as it runs through your slick. “Look, you’re so wet,” he murmurs into your ear. He finds your clit—swollen, neglected, and you whimper as he starts to draw slow, lazy circles around it. “Poor thing.”

“It’s only because you had me grinding on you the whole night,” you say through gritted teeth. “It doesn't—ngh—doesn’t mean I’ve been wanting to fuck you.”

You sound pissed enough that you'd convince anyone else, but you know, even without seeing his face, that Suo can tell you're bullshitting.

“You’re not a good liar,” he remarks. A fine teacher even when humiliating people, Suo can't help but add, “If you have to tell a lie, at least come up with a believable one.”

“What makes it unbelievable?” you reply, words clipped off by a sharp inhale as he starts rubbing your pussy.

“Well,” he starts nonchalantly, as if he isn't toying with your cunt, “after you were targeted in that succession conflict, I put hidden cameras in the area, and also in our suite.”

Your eyes go wide. Even in your aroused state, the implications are making you panic. “You—you what?”

“It was for security purposes,” he dismisses casually, as if he's not admitting to a serious invasion of privacy. “Only near the front door and the common areas. I just wanted to catch intruders and any suspicious behaviour from my men. But imagine my surprise”—you feel his fingers start to press into your cunt—“when I instead caught you fucking yourself on the couch and moaning my name.”

You’re mortified. Humiliated. Mind racing with every instance you were horny and stupid enough to touch yourself in a common space. You think about yelling at him about the cameras, but then you feel two fingers sinking into you, and now you aren't thinking about much at all.

Your mind goes blank as you're stretched open by him. Your cunt is so wet, so empty, but the feeling still makes you whine. Your brow furrows, and you give him a pleading look. Slowly, please.

“Don't worry,” he says in a soothing tone, “I know you can handle this. I've seen you take much bigger. Though”—he shifts, pulls you so you're in between his legs, and now you can feel the length of him against you, hard and aching and huge, what the fuck—“maybe not big enough.”

You tighten around his fingers as he grinds against you. You want him inside you so badly, it hurts. Suo laughs when he feels your desperation, and he sounds so amused that you can't help but feel ashamed. But even more than shame, you feel aroused. You take the rest of his fingers easily, down to the knuckle.

“What the fuck, Suo,” you eventually manage through your panting, though not with much bite. “You weren't—ahh—meant to see any of that.”

“Sorry,” he says, sounding deeply unapologetic. “If it makes you feel any better, I didn't watch much, and I deleted all of it. I didn't need to see that to know you have feelings for me.”

You tense. “What feelings?” you ask, and Suo stops. He pulls his fingers out of you—you breathe sharply at the loss—and manhandles you until you're straddling his lap. Forces you to look at him, into his one eye. It's knife-sharp, brutal, but familiar. You don't struggle, nor do you feel uneasy.

But you do feel like prey.

“Do you remember,” he begins, voice light, “how our master always talked about how important it is to engage with each other’s feelings?”

Fuck.

“No,” you blurt out, and Suo laughs.

“Of course not,” he plays along. “You were always so terrible at it. But I've been doing a bad job too, lately. So”—he reaches beneath your dress, hooks your thong with his fingers—“I wanted to have an honest conversation with you.”

He smiles at you. Actually looks kind and even sounds earnest. What a fucking sociopath. You allow him to slide your underwear down your legs, kicking them off. Now your pussy is completely bare to him, and you can hear the way his breath stops as he touches it again. Three of his fingers push in this time, and you pant openly at the stretch, leaning against him as your body trembles from the stretch. He flexes his fingers experimentally, watching your reactions—your whimpers, your sighs, the way your eyelashes flutter when he brushes that one spot inside you.

“I’ve always had feelings for you,” he starts, using that nonchalant, delicate tone—the specific one that suggests danger, “and I know you’re too smart to have missed that. I’d be fine with it if you didn't return them, but you do.”

“I don't,” you protest, and then his fingers curl and press into your g-spot. You're cut off immediately, gasping at the sudden wave of heat in your belly.

A hand comes up to your chin. He forces you to look at him. “I said I wanted to have an honest conversation, remember.”

“I–I am being honest, I—” Your voice breaks as he starts pumping his fingers. It's slow, gentle, but precise. Tension builds in you at an alarming rate, your thighs getting as slick and messy as his hand. You bury your face into the crook of his shoulder, breathe in his cologne and gasp into his skin, and your mind goes hazy from the euphoria of his touch. Sure, you've hugged Suo before, been held by him before, and god knows you've been touched like this by a ton of other people before—but it feels different now. It feels different when it's Suo who's touching you, different when you’re this close to him while he's drawing all this pleasure out of you. When one hand feels so good inside you and the other one is holding you so intimately.

“Suo,” you whimper, overwhelmed by hot tension in your belly, “I-I’m close, I’m close, oh fuck—

He stops.

Before you can comprehend what's happening, he’s withdrawing his fingers, and all the heat in you is melting away. Your orgasm lost, you come down from your high—nerves frayed, emotions taut.

“Suo,” you say, “what the fuck?”

He gives you a smile. It almost looks nice. “I'm not letting you cum until you tell me the truth.”

You’re going to cry.

You're so wet, so empty, so desperate, and now you feel oddly afraid. You don't like the way he's staring you down. You don't like this line of questioning, this bullshit of engaging with other people's feelings. You’ve never liked it. But you need—need—him to fuck you. You need his fingers inside you and you need to cry into his neck while you finish.

You say, very quietly, “Please, Suo.”

“Please, what?”

It's funny. You've performed begging and crying and submission for countless clients, sometimes during annoyingly rough sessions. You've done it for years. But nothing has ever felt so humiliating as this moment, when you ask your best friend, in the smallest voice possible, “Please touch me.”

“No. Not until you start being honest with me.”

Suo's mouth curls at the devastated look you give him. You hardly even notice that he's adjusting you, having you straddle his thigh again—this time, facing him. You don't register it until your cunt is pressed into the wet spot you left earlier and he's saying, “You can move if you'd like. But I'm not touching you.”

“You’re fucking horrible,” you say with all your heart, but your pussy is throbbing and you're desperate for release. So you finally do what you were desperately trying to stop yourself from doing the whole night—you start grinding on him. Like a fucking animal in heat. It's embarrassing, especially because his leg feels so good against you. The friction on your pussy makes you pant, your eyes squeezing shut as your clit finally gets some pressure. It makes up for the way he’s looking at you, which is sly, handsome, and rage-inducing all at once.

“You really do need to be touched,” he remarks softly. “You said your customers satisfied you. Was that true? Did they properly fuck you?”

“N-no,” you gasp. Your mind feels so cottony now that you're getting some relief. You can barely think, and definitely not enough to lie. “It was—it was—fuck, I never came.”

He hums, satisfied. “There—see? Telling the truth isn't so hard. You can do it again.”

He sounds so condescending. You would ordinarily hate it, but for some reason, it's going straight to your pussy right now, making you drip so much you know you've ruined his pants. You’re getting close, too, just by rubbing yourself on his leg. It doesn't feel quite as good as when his fingers were in you, but it’s something. And it’s making it hard to focus on what he's saying.

“It’s fine if you can't be honest about your feelings,” Suo continues. “Let's assume you're telling the truth, and all you want to do is fuck me. Why haven't you?”

You try to answer him, but you can't. You're too focused on the roll of your hips against his leg. There's too much tension, too much heat. You melt against him again, breathing heavily into his shoulder as you tighten around nothing. His hands come to your waist, as if grounding you, and somehow this makes everything feel even better. You start panting, babbling, I'm close, I'm getting close, Suo, Suo—

His grip tightens, and he stops you in place. You cry in frustration—no tears, but the noise you make is broken.

“Answer my question,” he says. You feel a hand glide along your bare skin, stopping at your inner thigh. “Answer me and I'll touch you.”

“Okay,” you say, as desperate as you are distressed. “Okay, I'll do anything. Anything.”

“Good.” He sounds so pleased.

You put your arms around his neck, for no reason other than you want to. Lifting your hips, you part your legs for him, and you feel so relieved at just the touch of his hand that you sigh—even though all he's doing is running a finger along your slick folds.

You shudder as his fingers play with your sex. Lean your head on his shoulder as he starts to move. You’re so desperate that you start grinding against his hand, whining for him.

“Well, then,” he murmurs. “Tell me why you didn't come to me. This is all you wanted, isn't it?” He rolls your clit between two fingers, making you squirm. “Just to get off, right? I could have done that. You'd have enjoyed it more.”

“It”—your eyelids flutter shut—“it would have been too complicated. Y-you’re my boss, and I pay rent to y-you, and we’ve been friends for so long, I didn't want to make it weird—”

Suo delivers a sharp slap to your pussy.

The contact is so sudden that you yelp. It only stings a little, but it makes your clit ache. The noise it makes is so wet, so filthy, telling of your desperation. And to your shame—even though you have never once in your life enjoyed being handled roughly by your customers—your cunt starts leaking in response.

You whimper, about to burst from frustration. You need to be touched so bad. You need to be touched by him so bad, and you need to cum on his cock or else you'll lose your fucking mind.

“Suo,” you complain, or beg, and you don't even realise that you're tearing up until he swipes his thumb under your eye.

“Try again,” he says gently, but not kindly. “The truth this time, and then I'll make you cum. Why didn't you come to me first? These past few months, or any other time?”

You don't answer him. “Suo, please—” And he moves back so that you're no longer leaning against him. Your lip trembles at the loss of the warmth, which somehow feels worse than the loss of your orgasm. An actual tear rolls down your cheek, and he doesn't wipe this one away.

“Answer me,” he says firmly. Instead of replying, you try to reach for him—wanting to be pressed against his body again, wanting him to draw pleasure out of yours again—but he stills you with his hands.

You feel devastated.

Out of horny, emotional desperation, and an all-consuming need to be fucked, you admit, “I was just scared!”

This is the worst mistake you've ever made.

The minute the words dislodge from your throat, you feel yourself choke up. You don't know why. All you know is that you suddenly can't hold back your tears from your sexual frustration, which for some reason is starting to feel distinctly like a non-sexual kind of angst, which is also strangely painful for your chest.

Because now that you've said it out loud, you can't ignore it.

You want to hide. You want to crawl out of his lap and run out of the establishment. Surely, the mamasan will forgive you for leaving a shift with such a frightening and horrible man, who is currently trying to extort your feelings out of you. But Suo’s grip is solid and unforgiving on you, and all you can do is squirm.

“Scared of what?” Suo asks. His voice has gone soft. Actually soft—not in a way that suggests danger, but a way that suggests you're loved. It makes you tremble.

His arms circle you, and one rubs at your back. It makes you relax very slightly. Or at the very least, it makes you stop wanting to bolt.

“What were you scared of?” he prompts again.

A feeling of defeat washes over you. Suo will figure you out sooner or later. He always does. So you tell him, very quietly, “I was scared that—that you'd leave me.”

You realise that you just stuttered. You stuttered because you're crying. You're actually, genuinely crying. Not from sexual frustration, but because you're just frustrated in general. And miserable. You've been chronically miserable for most of your life, and that misery has had nowhere to go until now.

You press your face into Suo’s shoulder, and he lets you. You breathe deeply in an attempt to stop crying, his cologne washing over you. It's nice, but what feels most comforting is just the scent of him. You're used to it from the days before he'd ever thought about using a fragrance, let alone a fragrance that would bankrupt the average person. It's calming, even when overlayed with ambergris and vanilla. Familiar.

Your breathing evens out a little—but only a little.

“Why would I leave you?” His voice is so kind, patient. More tears bead on your lashes.

“Because you might not want me anymore.” You sound so fragile. Shit, you are fragile. You can't stop the splintering feeling in you, the same one that ate at you two months ago when you thought he was going to leave you. “You could get tired of me or resent me or get bored with me. You could—you could want to throw me away, for no reason. Or—” You breathe in sharply, clinging to him harder.

“Or?”

“Or you could die—you joined the yakuza, so you could die. Why did you do that?” An actual sob leaves you. His shirt is getting wet. You ruined so many of his silk changshan like this in the past, when your boyfriend cheated on you and when your parents kicked you out and when you slept with your fifth customer.

And when your master died.

“I'm still so fucking mad at you for it,” you bite out around your tears. “If you got fucking killed—oh my god, I can't even think about it. I can't—I couldn't take it if—if I kissed you, and we had sex, and then I didn't have you anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re the only thing I have.” You squeeze your eyes shut, a terrible realisation hitting you. “And…”

“And?”

“And,” you say, voice breaking, “I think because I love you?”

You know it as soon as you voice it. You do love him. Not just platonically, but in the way where you want to hold his hand and kiss him and marry him. In the way a miserable nineteen year old girl is so in love with her miserable best friend that she refuses to leave him despite how terrifying he’s becoming. You loved him in this way before you realised you wanted to have sex with him, and even after that, you loved him so much that it didn't matter that he wasn't having sex with you.

You love him so much it disgusts you.

You want to hide, but Suo forces you to look at him. He brushes away your tears, cups your face. The Pavlovian response takes over: your heart rate slows, and you calm down.

“There,” he says gently. “That wasn't so bad, was it?”

He’s wrong. You bet he knows he's wrong. That was objectively one of the worst experiences of your life. You feel wrung out, tenderised. You never thought you'd say any of that. You're not sure you knew most of that.

But in Suo’s arms, plied open with his words and his hands, you actually find yourself shaking your head. You lean into the touch of his palm.

“I love you,” he continues, his tone so authoritative and calm that it leaves no room for doubt, “probably to the point that it should scare you. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” you say quietly.

“And we won't be separated. I won't allow anything to take you away from me. Do you understand that too?”

You make a noise, halfway between a relieved sigh and another sob. This declaration should not be a surprise from a man who’s effectively locked you up in his house. Still—your heart feels so light when you hear someone say, for the first time in your life, that they’ll stay with you no matter what. It's like Suo has just unearthed a weight that you didn't know you'd been carrying.

“I’ll try,” you reply, voice small.

“Good.” He strokes your cheek. “Do you want to keep going?”

It’s absurd. You just cried and confessed something terrifying. With anyone else, this would be an experience so horrifying that you'd leave right now and never come back. Your sexual desire should not just be gone, but permanently erased. At the very least, you shouldn't feel the slightest bit horny.

But somehow, being gutted by Suo hasn't left you feeling bad. It's left you feeling lighter. Kind of like you've been purged. You feel exhausted, but in a malleable way. Dazed and relieved to be in his lap. Your thighs are still embarrassingly sticky, heart still embarrassingly wobbly, and you just heard him say that he loves you.

Now you want to hear him say it while he's cumming inside you.

“Yeah,” you admit immediately, pathetically. You sniffle.

“You're sure?” Another stroke. “I want to hear you say it clearly. What do you want to do?”

Your dignity is gone. “I want you to fuck me.”

He smiles. A fond hum leaves him. “Good girl,” he murmurs, and you feel a flutter in your belly. “I'll take care of you now.”

He kisses you this time, before he touches you. On the neck, on your jaw. You bare your nape to him, shivering at the feeling of his lips on your jugular, at his nipping teeth on your skin. You realise he's leaving marks, and with each one, you shudder. It feels so intimate. You're on a rooftop bar, in a skanky hostessing dress, crying and strung out—but this is the closest thing you've ever gotten to one of your fantasies about him. Not the nasty ones that you think about when you're home by yourself, but the ones you think of when you're in bed with various salarymen. The ones where you get to lie with him in bed and press your lips to his.

“Suo,” you start.

“Hayato,” he corrects you. “You're my fiancée now, remember? We should be on a first name basis.”

Your stomach flips. “Hayato,” you try again, breathless. “Please.”

He takes a moment to reply, busy sucking another mark into your skin. “Please, what?”

You hesitate. Suo pulls back, looking at you. You whine, feeling shy all of a sudden. You flirt for a living and yet you feel embarrassed about your request. It's humiliating.

“Please, what?” he repeats. His mouth is curled in a smile, and you can't tell whether it's endeared or entertained. “Please let you cum? Please fuck you?”

“Please kiss me,” you say, in a small voice.

Suo pauses.

“What?”

“Please kiss me,” you beg. Close to tears again, for some reason you don't know. You think it surprises him as much as it does you.

It takes him a moment to recover, but when he does, he gives you a look that’s fucking ravenous.

His thumbs away the wetness from your eyes. “You're so cute sometimes. Did you know that?”

You flush. Plenty of customers have called you cute, but none have had you feeling so indignant nor shy.

“I’m not,” you reply, “and stop that.”

“But it's true. And I want you to know it.”

Suo presses his mouth to yours before you can respond. You're so eager for him that you part your lips immediately. Your instinct is to make your first kiss with him messy and desperate, but he’s in full control, and he’s taking his time. His tongue is careful and precise. Full of intention. His lips are slow, languid, and lazy, like he's savouring the taste of you. A hand plays with the strap of your dress. You feel him slide it off your shoulder—the other one quickly follows—but you’re so absorbed in his kiss, you hardly pay attention.

You're vaguely aware of the breeze against your bare chest. One of his hands moving up, feeling out your curves. He hums into your mouth when his fingers ghost over your nipples, and they harden under his touch.

“Suo,” you whine as he teases them, and he pinches one of them, watching as you squirm.

“Hayato,” he corrects you promptly, and you give him a worn, teary look.

“Hayato.”

“Yes?”

“I need more,” you say quietly.

He smiles, clearly enjoying your desperation. “Be patient,” he teases you. “I’m getting there.”

He kisses a line along your jaw, down your neck. Traces your collarbone with the path of his mouth, works his way down to your breasts. At the same time you feel the heat of his tongue on your nipple, his hand reaches between your legs. You're so wet already that he doesn't need to work you open again—just sinks his fingers inside you until you're sighing for him.

You discover that when he's not antagonising you, Suo is frighteningly efficient with pleasuring you. He learns quickly how you like your tits played with, and how to fuck you so well with his fingers until you're gushing around them and keening. He said he'd take care of you, but you think he's mostly forcing all this pleasure from your body for his own enjoyment. There's no other explanation for how he keeps bringing you to the edge and pulling you back, swallowing each of your whines and complaints with his mouth. The only time he isn't kissing you is when you're begging—and you don't miss the way his breathing deepens every time you do.

But no matter how much you beg, he isn’t letting you cum.

“Look at the mess you're making,” he murmurs as he plays with your cunt. You're sitting between his legs again, your back against his chest. You can feel the length of his cock against your ass, and you hear how his breath hitches every time you squirm against it. Except for that one tell, he sounds completely unaffected by what he's doing—forced you to open your legs wide for him, spread your glistening folds to tease you. The leather beneath your ass is wet, ruined by your need.

“Hayato,” you whine.

“Just a little longer,” he promises, “and then I'll let you cum.”

Your mind is so fogged with pleasure at this point that you can't focus on anything other than Suo’s touch. You’ve actually forgotten where you are—not a truly private space, but part of a club. The girls would normally only come up if you put in an order, but you haven't for a while now.

Long enough for someone to check on you without warning.

You tense as soon as you hear the door open. You recognize the server—she knows you well, by face, stage name, and real name. Your eyes go wide as she calls for you. You try to sit up, close your legs, but Suo grabs one of your thighs and forces it open.

“Suo, wait—”

You whimper, incapable of words when his fingers push into you again. He starts fucking you with them, and in earnest this time—curling his fingers until they're pushing into your g-spot, doing it over and over and over. Your eyes roll back and you stop struggling, and Suo takes the opportunity to touch you with his other hand too, playing with your clit. A strangled moan leaves you as the heat in your gut ratchets up. Pleasure swells in your belly; you feel like you're going to burst.

“Suo,” you cry, tears pricking your eyes, “wait, wait, my coworker—wait, I think—I think I'm gonna—”

“Go ahead,” he says into your ear, voice silky, and he pushes against your sweet spot in a way that gives you no choice but to obey him.

You cum so hard that you squirt all over the seat. Your whole body is wracked with intense pleasure—hips bucking violently, legs twitching, crying so loudly and shamelessly that your coworker naturally hears. She catches you spread wide open in Suo’s lap, his fingers deep in your messy, swollen cunt as you drench them.

Her tray clatters to the floor.

Fighting the mindless haze that your body is in, you glance at the other girl, whose hand is over her mouth. She looks appalled. She’s going to yell at you. But then you then watch, in real time, as her eyes travel to your customer’s face and she realises who he is. If she was red when she saw the two of you, she's now a pale white.

“Did you come to check on us?” Suo asks. He sounds amused. She flinches at his voice, and actually takes a step backward. “We’re fine for now. We’ll order something in a bit, and call you up here as usual.”

“O-okay,” she says, voice high and tense. “I—I’ll leave you two, then. Please—please enjoy yourself, sir. We'll be available in case you require any other services.” And she walks away briskly, almost in a run. She doesn't even bother to stop the expressly forbidden act that you're engaged in.

Once she’s gone, Suo allows you some dignity. He pulls his fingers out of you, lets you catch your breath.

“Oops,” he says. “It’s too bad they caught us. I suppose they won't want to keep you on as an employee, since you broke such an important rule.”

You stare at him, wide-eyed. Your emotional and sexual pliability quickly dissipates, replaced by disbelief.

“You—you did that on purpose,” you say between pants, too fucked out to be truly angry, but still appalled.

Suo raises a brow, gives you an innocent look. “Did I? I was just making you cum, like you've been begging all night. It was just unfortunate timing.” He then smiles, which makes him look incredibly kind despite the apparent sadism of his person. “But it's fine. They're going to fire you for this, but you know my club will always take you back.”

You close your eyes and groan. “You’re horrible.”

“I am, aren't I?” Suo puts his arms around you, kisses you on the shoulder, his voice getting low. “But this is a better arrangement, don't you think? You won't need to see customers this way. Every time you need relief, you can come upstairs and I'll give you my cock instead.” He grinds against you, letting you feel how hard he is, and you whimper. He laughs, probably entertained at how desperate you sound. “Or maybe I'll just make you take it whenever I feel like it. I think at the end of every shift makes sense, doesn't it? Since that's how often you've been touching yourself on the couch.”

“S-suo.”

“It’s Hayato now, remember. What is it, dear?”

He sounds so smug, mocking you. You should be furious. But in your fucked out state, all you can focus on is the idea of being forced to take Suo's cock every night. Despite already being ruined, your pussy starts throbbing again. You squirm and press your thighs together, trying to get it to stop—you’re so fucking tired—and you bleakly realise that you can't control your body’s reactions around him. You're getting wet again. It makes you want to cry.

“Hayato,” you whimper, on the verge of tears.

“Ah, you addressed me properly. Good.” He’s so satisfied. “What is it?”

“I…”

“You?”

“I”—your voice is so small and embarrassed, you can hardly believe it—“I want you to fuck me.”

He feigns shock, as if he wasn't actively provoking this. “Really? But you just came.” A hand prods between your legs. You obediently spread them for him, and he checks your pussy with two of his fingers. You moan a little at the intrusion, but there's no resistance at all.

Your cunt, still dripping, tightens around him, and he laughs softly.

“You really do need a cock in you. Who knew you had such a needy pussy.” He curls his fingers. Probably feeling the way it makes you gush, delighting in the gasp it draws out of you. “No wonder you have to use that toy every day.”

You're about to die of embarrassment. “Hayato. Please just fuck me.”

Suo turns you so that you can look at him. He’s wearing a kind, benevolent face when he says, “No.”

“...what?”

“I'm not going to give you my cock.” He hums, contemplative. “Not for a while, I think.”

“B-but,” you say, genuinely upset, “but you were just talking about doing that at work.”

“Sure—after we get married. It's only proper, don’t you think?”

“What?” Your eyes are wide in disbelief. “You—you just made me cum with your fingers. In a public space.”

“Yes. But that's different from letting you have my cock. It wouldn't be gentlemanly of me to do that before we’re wedded.” He can't keep the amusement out of his voice as he bullies you. “I'm sure you can wait until the summer, right? Since that's the season you chose for us. August, I think you told Nirei.”

“Hayato—”

“Actually,” he muses, easily sliding a third finger into you, making your voice clip off in a whimper, “I think you shouldn’t be allowed to have anything in you until then. Except for my fingers and tongue, of course. But no toys, and no other men either. That definitely wouldn't be proper.”

“I'm going to,” you say spitefully—and tearfully. “If you don't fuck me right now, I will sleep with other people.”

“I don't think you want to find out the consequences if you do.”

“How would you even—ngh—know?”

“Good question.” He starts pumping his fingers, and to your horror, your cunt needily swallows them with each motion, your body as desperate as he's been saying. “I guess I'll need to check your pussy every night. See if it's been stretched out by someone else’s cock. Maybe upstairs in the lounge at the end of each night, so I'll know that you haven't fucked a customer during a shift. Clearly, it's not impossible that you would.”

You try not to sob. Not only are his words utterly humiliating, they're making you wetter. After fucking so many people in so many ways, you didn't know it was possible for you to feel this much shame during sex—but then again, shaming people is one of Suo’s specialties.

You give him the teariest look possible, because by now you've figured out that he likes seeing you cry. Sadistic motherfucker. You're happy to use it to your advantage though.

He gets that hungry look in his eye again. “Please, Hayato,” you beg, voice trembling with need, “I want more. I thought I was your beautiful wife already.” You grind your ass against his cock, and he inhales sharply. “Don't you wanna cum in your wife’s pussy?”

Suo stops, deeply affected—just as you guessed he'd be. After making you his fake wife in both his criminal life and his civilian one, it's painfully obvious that the man is obsessed with marrying you. You'd make fun of him if you weren't so horny. Or humbled.

He only allows himself speechlessness for a second. He hums soon after, delicately wiping the tears out of your eyes. “You've been good enough that I guess I can reward you. I won't fuck you, but”—he shifts away, and you can hear his pants unzipping—“I’m sure you'll enjoy yourself anyway.”

Suo wasn't lying earlier. His cock is bigger than any toy you've ever used. It's pretty, too. Curved and long and flushed at the head. Glistening with prespend, which has pearled up at the tip. You think you might be salivating. For a minute, you contemplate asking if you can feel it in your throat, but then Suo’s lying down and moving you on top of him. When his cock nudges at your folds, you can’t help your excitement. You squirm, trying to sink onto his length.

His grip tightens on your waist, stopping you.

You’re about to whine at him about this, but he doesn't give you the chance. “If you try to ride me,” he says, in a voice so cold that you know he's not joking, “I'm not touching you until we’re married, and I'm not letting you touch yourself either.”

“...”

With anyone else you'd call bullshit, but you know that Suo is both crazy and petty enough to actually achieve this.

“Okay.” You sound and feel mollified. “I'll behave.”

He smiles. “Good,” he says cheerfully. “Just stay like that, then. I’ll take care of you.”

You listen to him, mostly because you're incredibly excited about getting pussy inspections and you'll be devastated if it doesn't happen. And you don't expect it to be a big deal, anyway. While your sex drive has been a constant source of grief for you throughout your life, you don't really have problems controlling any specific impulses in bed when you truly need to. You’re used to giving your customers whatever they want and, if you're lucky, getting off from it. You figure this will be the same.

You find out very quickly that it isn't.

You need to stay still. You can’t sink down on him. Two easy orders that are extraordinarily difficult when Suo is the one beneath you. You have to actively stop your hips from moving when you feel the silky head of his cock press into your folds, which are still dripping with your slick. Suo’s breath hitches when he runs the tip along your opening, drawing wet noises every time his cock head catches on your needy hole, smearing his precum all over it. All you want is to push back on him and let your pussy swallow his cock. You’re aching for it, and you know he is too. If you sank down on him now, he'd lose control and fuck you raw until he was cumming inside you. And then he'd probably keep going after that, not letting you move until you were stuffed full and dripping with his spend. Both of you know it.

But you don't do that. You're good for him. You sigh, just trying to enjoy the feeling of his length rubbing against you. How he's twitching and throbbing against you, how he wants as equally much to be inside you—but pulls back every time. Your mind goes a little fuzzy with the drawn out, low hum of pleasure, and you close your eyes.

Then he starts pushing into you.

“H-Hayato?” You whimper at the intrusion, at being made to take something so thick without warning. “I thought you weren't gonna—”

“I'm not,” he says. His breathing is heavier, his words strained, but his voice is still commanding when he says, “Don’t move.”

Suo doesn't give you the whole thing, just the tip. It is much harder to control yourself like this—when you can feel yourself getting stretched by the head of his cock, already so fat and heavy, but you don't get filled up by it. It makes you aware of how empty you are, and how wet you're getting. You bury your face into his neck and make a noise that's both tearful and pathetic.

It's not acting when you whine, in a watery, miserable way, “Please, Hayato. I need your cum in me.”

It's probably the crying that gets him. He inhales sharply, thrusting maybe a little deeper than intended. You groan at the extra inch of cock, eyes rolling back, and can't help the way your pussy tightens and drips, trying to suck him in.

“Fuck,” he says, and then he pulls out.

He lays you flat on your back. Before you can get so much as a word out, he's between your legs and pressing his cock against your entrance. For possibly the happiest moment of your life, you think Suo is going to fuck you—but instead he starts pushing the slick head of his cock right against your neglected clit.

You aren't going to complain.

You whimper as he starts rubbing against your sex, leaving his prespend all over your swollen bud. It makes you squirm, grinding yourself against it, and you press your legs together to get some more pressure for the both of you. Soon his cock is sliding between your thighs, getting them all sticky with his prespend. You can feel the length of him hot and slick against your folds, heavy and throbbing.

You've never cum like this before. It was never enough stimulation when your customers made you do this, which nearly all of them have. But the pressure on your clit and on your folds is shockingly intense as the two of you move, enough to make you whimper as a familiar tension builds. It's not as overwhelming as when his fingers were inside you, but it's enough for you to start panting at the tension in your belly. You can hear Suo’s breath picking up as you start to whine, and he watches you, almost predatorial, as another orgasm crashes over you. You moan his name as you cum, squeezing a few more tears out of your eyes.

He stares at your flustered, wet face as he pushes the head of his cock against your entrance again, fisting himself as it flutters and drips in the aftershock of your orgasm. Suo’s been hard for so long, for the whole time he's teased and bullied you—you aren't surprised at how close he already is. Especially not when you start talking about how much you need his cum in you, how empty your pussy feels without it, how badly you want your husband to fill you up. All with your mascara smeared and your lip trembling, a sight that makes him throb.

Suo groans as he finally cums. You can feel his cock twitching, warmth spurting out onto your folds, and then into your pussy as he thrusts shallowly into you. You pull him down needily as he fills you, and he indulges you with a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss.

When he pulls out, you can feel his cum drip out of you, all the way down to the couch. You make a happy noise at the mess he's made of your hole, giving him a lovestruck, dreamy expression.

“You should do that every night after you're done checking my pussy,” you sigh.

Suo’s mouth curls, and breathes out a kind of laugh. He holds your face, and one of his tassels brush against the shell of your ear as he presses his forehead to yours. “I’ll do it if you're good for me.”

“I’ll be on my best behaviour until our wedding night,” you promise, voice affectionate.

Suo gives you a fond look. His expression is so sentimental. You think he’s going to say something sweet.

“Alright,” he replies. “Then be good for me and keep the rest of that inside you, okay? Let’s not make a mess of these floors. I don't want to get blacklisted from this club.”

You open and close your mouth, completely speechless.

“You're fucking horrible,” you say with all your heart, and he laughs and kisses you, and kisses you, and kisses you. He doesn't stop until you're placated and horny again.

Suo takes his sweet time pushing his cum into you as deeply as possible, saying that it's to make sure you don't lose any of it, but really so he can draw another orgasm out of you. Knowing that the mamasan might take pity on you and think that you were coerced into degrading sexual acts by a terrifying yakuza client, he makes sure to order a drink beforehand, calling up a server. (I don't want to be a bad patron, he hums as he looks at the tablet, and I said I'd get you to the number 1 ranking, right?) It subsequently looks, sounds, and is completely consensual when you're found pulling at Suo’s hair, keening as he fingers his cum into you while sucking on your clit.

This leaves you with no hope of continued employment on all of Keisei Street.

To add insult to injury, you do make a mess of the floors, despite Suo’s conscientious efforts to avoid this—though it's not as bad as the one you left on the couch. You also can't find your thong anywhere, which you guess is something else that the mamasan won’t appreciate when she finds it. Still, for the rest of the night, everyone shows Suo nothing but the utmost respect and highest quality customer service. They even ask how he found your company and if he has any feedback for you. He praises your conversational skills, karaoke abilities, and how capable you were in catering to his many needs. He also lets them know that you'll be resigning.

Hanzo and Shuuhei are waiting to pick you up, bringing the Rolls Royce with the privacy suite. This time, Suo doesn't use it to interrogate you; he instead uses it to kiss you and tease you and discuss wedding plans. If it'll be indoors or outdoors. If you'll have a big reception or a small one. If it'll be a traditional wedding, or if you’ll want a Chinese one like the one your master would have maybe liked to see. You settle on having a Shinto ceremony and a Chinese-style reception. Having been raised Chinese, whenever Suo imagined marrying during his teenage years, you were always in a red qipao. His master even once told him that if he managed to win your heart, he'd organise a tea ceremony and act in the role of Suo’s father.

After disclosing these facts (the first of which makes your heart weak, and the second of which leaves it aching), he asks about any long-standing things you've always wanted to do with him as a couple. If you had any silly or indulgent daydreams about your future with him, and what they were like.

“I don't know,” you admit. “I guess after you applied to teacher’s college, I liked the idea of marrying you, and doing all the domestic things you talked about. Though you were just joking at the time.”

You don't really expect him to remember much about this particular line of teasing. Sure, the man is currently obsessed with marrying you, and maybe he daydreamed about it a little bit when he was younger—but he mostly treated the idea as a funny joke when he was a teenager. All of the teasing has probably blurred together for him over the years. Certainly, it has for you.

But you've never been able to forget this particular memory. It’s one of those small, inconsequential moments that you find yourself incapable of letting go to this day. You loved hearing him talk about getting married, even though it hurt immensely that it was probably just teasing. You loved it because you wanted it. You wanted Suo to teach people because you knew he was good at it and it would make him genuinely happy. You wanted to stop working in the red light district and make a nice and safe home for Suo, just as he'd made a nice and safe home for you. And you wanted to marry him and kiss him and have sex with him and only him for the rest of your life.

You wanted it so badly, it still makes you heart ache to think about it.

He was definitely just teasing you, though. Suo was a sane person at the time, and sane people do not actually plan a marriage and life with someone before dating them or even fucking them. Most importantly, a sane person wouldn't hold onto such a silly joke for so long. Oh, you expect him to say, laughing. You're right, I had nearly forgotten.

But all he does is give you a smile. It's one of his strange, enigmatic ones.

“No, I was quite serious about it,” Suo says, looking right at you.

You stare at him.

“Really?”

“Really.”

He's being so straightforward, so earnest. Your typical reaction would be to feel flustered, sentimental—but something about his expression and tone bothers you. But before you can suss out what it is, he continues, and the moment passes.

“Was there anything else you ever wanted to do?” he asks smoothly.

You're startled, off-guard. “Oh, um… not really. I never let myself think too much about it.”

“Come on,” he prods. “There must be something.”

“No, I really didn't think of any ideas on my own. Although…”

Your face gets hot as you trail off. Suo senses weakness, and goes in for the kill.

“Although?”

“It's too embarrassing,” you admit, looking away, and Suo looks a little too interested as he pesters you for an answer.

“Come on, it's fine.” His mouth curls in a way that tells you it's not fine. “I promise I won't judge you. I just want to know what I can do to make you happy as your husband.”

You give him an uncertain look, and say your only concrete fantasy about him so quickly and quietly that he misses it.

“Pardon?” he asks.

“...romantic, vanilla sex.”

Suo blinks. “What?”

Your face burns with humiliation.

“I used to think about having romantic, vanilla sex with you. When I was a teenager. A lot.” Said as if you weren't just thinking about it two months ago in a love hotel, and still don't want it now. You wouldn't even bring it up if you didn't think it was necessary. But unfortunately, you're professionally skilled at perceiving people’s sexual interests, and you've perceived that Suo is sexually a freak. He was definitely going easy on you tonight, and is probably actively planning to get worse. You'll never have normal sex with him unless you explicitly state a desire for it.

Suo gives you a surprised look. “That's… a very mundane fantasy.”

“It wouldn't have been mundane to me,” you reply, somewhat defensively. “I used to think about it when I slept with my customers, who weren't very romantic. Or vanilla. So I didn’t really have a good reference point or anything for that kind of sex, but sometimes I still thought about doing it with you after they had left.”

You look away after saying this, wondering why you disclosed all of that. It certainly wasn't necessary for your dream of someday taking Suo’s cock without being psychosexually tortured first. Now you feel like you need to hide. You even think about excuses for stopping the car, and ponder again how difficult it would be to live without proof of identity, if you chose to run away.

But Suo doesn't let you run. He pulls you close to him, wrapping you up in his warmth.

“It's okay,” he says gently, in a voice that reminds you of how he was in his old Furin days. “You'll be okay. I'll make sure of it.” It confuses you deeply, and you turn to ask him what the fuck he's going on about.

You don't even realise you're crying until he starts kissing away your tears.

You can’t understand why you’re weeping. Maybe something strange and hormonal happened while you were having sex, like Suo made you orgasm too hard and all the oxytocin is making you depressed now. Though you think that hormone is supposed to make you happy. You're not sure. You never finished school, so you wouldn't know.

Whatever the reason, you hastily wipe away your tears. A hand rubs at your back, and you let yourself press your face into his shoulder.

“Sorry,” you say quickly.

“Don't apologise. You don't have anything to be sorry for.”

You hesitate as you breathe against the silk threads of his shirt, thinking about how many of his shirts you've ruined with your tears. At least three changshan and one Versace summer piece, by your count. It’s not like he hurts over the money these days, but guilt tugs at your heart.

“I don't know about that,” you mumble into his shoulder. And it takes a while to work yourself up to saying it, but eventually you whisper, with full honesty, “I'm sorry for always worrying you.”

“I know,” Suo says. He sounds sincere when he says, “I’m sorry too.”

“I’ll try to be better from now on.”

“You will be. And even if you aren’t, that's fine.”

For some reason, that makes your heart squeeze.

You melt against Suo after that, listening to the steady roll of tires and passing traffic outside. There's a gentle pitter patter of rain against the car roof, tinny and rhythmic, that gradually crescendos into a proper storm. The windshield wipers squeak against the glass. All of the noise is lulling you into a kind of peace, or maybe you're just feeling that way because Suo is holding you.

Fatigue wears your consciousness, and you close your eyes. The hustle and bustle of the red light district grows distant, faint—partly from slipping in and out of your dreams, and partly from the quieting world outside. It's now completely silent other than the heavy rainfall. You think they must be taking the road through Makochi. Suo asks for it whenever he wants you to sleep well.

He probably thinks you're asleep when he says, “I’m sorry for being how I am now.”

You almost stop breathing. Almost.

“You didn't fall in love with me when I was like this, so you must not like it very much,” he continues. “I know that Master wouldn't like me much either, if he were alive. He always said that you should support your loved ones until they can stand on their own two feet. But lately, I feel like all I've been doing is breaking yours.”

He sighs. The sky groans with distant thunder.

“Sakura knows who I really am, you know,” he says quietly. “I think he's worried about what'll happen to you if we get married. Though he’s been worried about you for a while.” Suo almost sounds endeared when he adds, “Did you know he only texts me now to ask if you're okay? He really does love you.”

He’s more sombre when he continues, “But Nirei is just afraid of me. That’s why he’s never around. He’s going to call you in a week and tell you not to go through with the wedding. He’ll probably tell you to leave me too. It’s good advice.”

It's hard to keep your breathing slow, with how badly your heart hurts.

“I’ve tried to go back to how I was, to the kind of person that Master was trying to raise,” Suo confesses. “But I don't think I can get better.”

But even if you can't, you want to tell him, that’s fine. You wish you could hold him how he's always held you.

“It doesn't usually upset me nowadays,” he admits after some time, “how I am now. But to be honest, talking about our school days did make me feel bitter, because I can't give you the things I know you wanted.”

He kisses the top of your head. Gently, so as not to wake you from your dream.

“I'm sorry I never became a teacher. I'm sorry I joined the yakuza. I'm sorry I can't give you a normal life. And I'm sorry I can’t have an honest conversation with you.”

Silence. You feel his chest stop briefly, his breathing deepen.

“Maybe someday, I'll get better enough to say these things to you while you're awake. Maybe someday, I'll even get better enough to let you leave. It would be best for you.”

His voice gets even softer. Tender.

“But for now, I don't know how to let you go.”

You feel a hand shifting away, the soft noise of leather against skin. Then both arms around you again, even warmer, even tighter. He’s leaning his head against yours. You think Suo is falling asleep.

Allowing yourself a single, quick glance at the car, you peer at your reflections in the rearview mirror. You see sheets of rain sliding against the back window, his dark lashes pressed to his skin, and all the scar tissue he likes to keep hidden away.

And you can see, very clearly, tears beneath his missing eye.

END 'TOKYO VICE'

hi everyone thanks for reading this chapter!!!! i hope it didn't disappoint after all the shitposting i did about it this week lol

can i just say. this was straight up the weirdest sex scene I've ever written HASLKFJSDF and the mood whiplash throughout this was probably the craziest i've ever written within a single piece. unfortunately, this reader copes with her trauma via humour and sex and it really shows rip. i hope it wasn't too offputting!

thank you to everyone who left a comment on part 1!! please do let me know if you enjoyed part 2 as well. <333

tagging @kweenkatsuki-fics and @stuckindreamland06!

[k1ngl30n]

Y'know. I never really understood the INTENSE Alana Bloom hate (in regard to how she behaves with Will) until I started thinking about it a bit more (and also the help of a fanfiction lol).

Why would you kiss someone who just confided in you that he was having a mental breakdown, having just had an episode earlier that drove him to break through his chimney?

Why would you treat a forty-something year old man like a child? (See: the scene where Freddie is offering her hand to Will, he ignores her, and Alana does the little tilt stare thing that just screams 'shake her hand, Will')

Why would you tell a man who is notorious for not having many friends that you don't want to be in a room alone with him?????

I don't know. It really rubs me the wrong way. And then how she started having an affair with Hannibal? That weirds me out. A lot. Like. Will had to be out of the way and unavailable for you to go after the guy that you saw as stable and good for you?? So Will, who you always perceived as broken, was also always a viable choice???????

Do you get me? You guys get me. You guys get it. Alana in SS3 though. She's ok (but only really because of her responses to Hannibal living his best locked-up life tbh lmfao)

[chappell-roans]

did u see this whole millie bobby brown disclosure? Her saying that she doesn’t watch movies because she thinks it’s too long and she can’t just sit and watch. and this is sadly typical behavior from nepo babies and those kids that were essentially made to be actors by their parents. they don’t feel real love for the craft but get so many opportunities than other actors that study cinema and are very knowledgeable barely get.

but i think only actors that love cinema are able to transcend and work for a long time. a lot of people were calling Austin Butler pretentious but I find his knowledge of cinema admirable. chalamet also got called pretentious once for referencing a lot of movies but I find that normal because studying cinema as an actor should be your job? it’s part of the preparation? A look at the career both of them have… it’s easy to know when an actors loves the craft by how they speak, Florence’s hot wings interview was very insightful and you can tell she pays attention to every element of filmmaking.

For instance, I remember watching an interview w Tom Holland and I find him a charming guy but I really dislike how he once joked and made fun of a very valid question about studying process for a role - it doesn’t seem that he takes the craft that seriously and I find the instances of where he didn’t know who certain directors were and when he said Scorsese couldn’t direct a Marvel film so crazy considering how he has been the pioneer of so many “blockbuster” in its time, and his lack of cinema knowledge shows in the quality of his choices for roles.

I feel a lot of actors don’t realize that by saying things like they they get a lot of doors slammed in their face.

I'm late replying again sorry but all of this, yes. I tried not thinking about it too much but it definitely irks me. And I think there are a loooot of people of tbh all ages that feel this way. But it does particularly suck for someone making movies to feel this way? (I did see some conversation on twitter between people who actually work on film sets and they said this is common, particularly among like crew members like gaffers, lighting, etc etc.)

YES. This is why when "pretentious" discourse goes around because like Jacob Elordi talks about Marlon Brando (not his method acting, but just his acting) or old movies, people make fun of him and say he's just a try-hard hipster. But maybe... he loves acting and wants to improve his craft? Like, I agree. It's something that should come from a place of love and wanting to get better. We can't all be Hugh Grant and annoyed at the world all the time lmao. And like you said, same with Austin, Timothee, hell, remember the Jeremy Strong "dramaturgical" discourse that people freaked out about for a week because he used... a common theater word? Lmfao.

It's like, when letterboxd does their asking an actor or director their four favorites, there's always people in the comments saying they don't believe that an old French movie or hell even a 70s movie (that isn't The Godfather or Star Wars, bc apparently Jaws is pretentious?? LMAO), could be someone's fav and they're lying to look good. But if someone lists a bunch of animated Disney children's movies, La La Land, and Scott Pilgrim then they must be telling the truth. Maybe they both are? But god it's so frustrating to think that having taste beyond the basics is pretentious. Like, people call CHRISTOPHER NOLAN MOVIES PRETENTIOUS. Just because something is mildly to extremely clever or smart doesn't mean it's pretentious :)

Rant over lmao.

I need to watch Florence on Hot Ones still but I loved seeing bits of her on the press tour for Oppenheimer and I saw a clip of her and Zendaya talking about the craft of cinematography (linked) and how like Flo told her story about the camera breaking on Oppenheimer, and Z talked about like how she loves sitting in the tent w the Dune cinematographer and learning how everything works. Like, they love filmmaking!!! And I love that! This is how actors become better, and can produce, and even direct successfully. (Z I think definitely will. She'd had plans to direct at least one Euphoria ep but of course shitshow that it is, it hasn't happened yet.)

But yeah agreed about Tom Holland it's all soooo. Idk. You can very much tell when someone really loved movies and the process of how they are made, or not. And that's the truth whether someone's favorite movie is Godzilla v. Kong or Breathless. But yes!!! I truly don't understand why they say things like that, like... unless you want a door closed, don't close it for no reason! Lmao. Ayo Edebiri has talked about this recently.

I really don't get that w Scorsese of all people too like... all his movies are fucking popcorn movies. It's all cinema but who the hell is thinking Goodfellas is boring? Or The Aviator? Hell, I just watched Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. It has a batshit opening and is suuuch a fast-paced movie for what it is like, about a woman coming to terms w loss and making it on her own w her annoying kid (affectionate) and domestic violence I just ?? I don't get it myself! And pretending Scorsese actually has a war against Marvel is stupid as fuck. I wish he did! Someone should.

[acrorossbeliever]

AU ASK GAME BUT I ANSWER THEM ALL WOOPS By @catsockpuppet

SPOILERS FOR THE COMIC DARK CARNIVALS BY THRUMPLES ON TUMBLR, COMICFURY, TWITTER AND INSTA

1. If it still exists, how does the cult work in your AU? Who is the leader?

Not really a cult, due to the au being based off of an indie webcomic, I kinda have to follow the world rules. They're all demons to say the least. They kidnap people to possess and parade in the circus and then kill them when they're too weak to not leave witnesses.

2. Who’s your favorite character in this AU?

Definitely Suzie and Ross! Suzie the poor girl just wanted her parents back...and Ross ouughhh he snapped man. Imagine getting possesed, one of your friends are dead and you think the other two are too. You're a kid with a demon controlling your body. Jeez.

3. Cant quite find a third? Maybe it was a counting mistake on OPs part^^

-

4. If it still exists, how does the Eyes Of The Universe work in your AU?

It doesn't exist , but I guess it would take the place of The Serpent aka The Devil of that universe.

5. What was your inspiration for this AU?

The comic by thrumples! Please go give it a read:

6. How would canon Skid and Pump react to their AU versions?

Skid would be confused as to why he's a cat lmfao. Pump would like his cat self tho! He's more of a Lykoi.

7. What character have you changed the most?

Skiddad/Sapphire in this au. He isnt bad he just got kidnapped into all this. But he's really rude and... plotting something.

8. What characters haven’t died in your AU? How did they survive?

None haven't died woops.

9. What characters have died in your AU that didn’t die in canon? How did they die?

SUZIE NO MY GIRLY!!!! After recognizing her parents performing in the circus she leaves the others to go and find them . They were gonna use Suzie as a vessel but accidentally killed her. And thus the PANIC BEGINS!!!! oh and Suzie and Pumps mom/Jasmine! She committed to free herself from possession in front of the hatz.... And Ignacio who got killed cause John stabbed him (More like the demon possessing him) they managed to exorcise the demon but Iggy is dead lol

10. Has anyone changed professions in your AU?

The officers are also part time demon hunters. Roy and Robert became demon hunters and Radford and Kevin help with all that.

11. Has the Candy Club changed at all? And if the Candy Club no longer exists, what is serving it’s role?

Candy club hasn't changed! Though there are many missing posters. And it's more dusty since Streber was also kidnapped and possesed so since he was Kevin's bff Kevin isn't .. doing good.

12. Who has suffered the most in your AU?

Ross definitely. This kid went through so much shit for sure.

13. Who’s the happiest character in your AU?

I can't say happy more like unaware. Skid and Pump left the carnival before the incidents. Pump still has hope his sis will come back...poor kid.

14. Do you have a least favorite character in your AU (as in, what character’s actions do you dislike the most)?

Not a least favorite character but one I don't really give a shit about is Pumps dad/Phillip. He's just a widower.

15. Has the setting changed? Where is this new setting?

A carnival! Run by demons...

16. Would you accept OC’s for your AU?

Yeah!

17. Would you accept fanfiction of your AU?

Yeah just make sure to read the actual comic first to follow the lore rules of the original source.

18. Would you accept ships for your AU?

Yeah! Nothing problematic tho.

19. Are there canon ships in your AU (that aren’t canon to regular Spooky Month)?

RossxRobert is implied. Theyve never said it tho. Yet ...

20. Favorite art piece (made by you or someone else) of the AU?

These two! Ouuughhh Acroross...

21. Have you ever written anything for the AU?

Yeah! Scroll down and you'll see it all!

22. If your AU was it’s own show, do you think it’d a happy or sad ending?

Can't say since...the comic this is based off of isn't done lmfao so I don't know

23. What character do you think you need to develop more in your AU?

Streber for sure.

24. Least favorite character in your AU lore-wise (like, do you think any specific character’s lore is weak? Do you dislike anyone’s story?)?

Not sure really lmfao

[solradguy]

To compliment the Xrd newcomers question, thoughts about all the new StrIVe guys so far?

GREAT. I love all the new characters!! They've all had really unique designs and personalities so far and I'm looking forward to seeing where their lore all goes.

One of my friends I play against a lot is a Giovanna main so I'd say I'm probably most familiar with her haha. She hits like a truck and the matchup between her and Sol is fun. Her English voice is probably one of my favorites out of the whole Strive cast, to be honest. Gio sounds unimpressed by EVERYTHING. Her match start dialog where her opponent says something threatening or whatever and she replies with "wow, cool" in that deadpan cracks me up every time. Rei, her dog, is also great. I'm interested in seeing if Rei is the same kind of Gear-derived magic/technology as Eddie. We'll probably find out eventually!!

Goldlewis is another character one of my friends plays often and the Goldlewis vs Sol matchup is one of my favorite matchups in Strive. It's easy to get Goldlewis into a corner with Sol, but being put INTO the corner by Goldlewis can turn a match in his favor fast. It's also easy to interrupt Goldlewis with Sol's fast attacks, though if Goldlewis has meter he can punish greedy combos or risky jump-ins very easily. It's like fighting a Dark Souls boss haha. I don't think that match-up's unfair for either side and, as a Sol main, it makes me have to actually consider the consequences of my actions instead of running in and going ham. Those Down With The Systems are no joke lmfao. Goldlewis' design is also really refreshing. I like that they made a heavyset American character that's not either some flavor of "lazy slob" archetype or feral redneck gun nut. Goldlewis seems like a cool guy!

Nagoriyuki's got my favorite design of all the new characters so far. He's just so COOOOOOOOL with his mecha helmet and giant katana. Nago's personality is really interesting to me too. He seems a little more reluctant about being a vampire than Slayer is, but he's not hesitant about using his vampiric powers in the same way as Sol with his Gear stuff. ArcSys did an excellent job depicting his personality in his fighting style too, imo. He's absolutely not giving it 100% in-game (compared to how he fights in the story mode) and is just there for the fun of it and his slow yet hard hitting moves get that across well.

Happy Chaos is interesting. I'm a simple man and can't for the life of me manage all those meters so I've only played him a few times, though I don't dislike playing against him either. His design is also unique and I like his car a lot haha. The cliffhanger for him at the end of the main story mode is such a tease, I want to know what happens next!! Other than that I don't have a whole lot to say about Chaos, to be honest. His theme is really good, maybe my favorite of the characters new to Strive.

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

So, this may sound weird, since I don't ship ZK, but I think the reason some dislike EIP is because they realize it was the first part of a busted enemies-to-lovers arc. EIP was part one, where Zuko and Katara see how others see them, and it weirds them out. Yet, Zuko insisted on sitting next to Katara and Katara pushes Aang away, suggesting there might be something there that they don't want to acknowledge. (1/3)

The first part of the finale was Part 2, where June reiterates the "Hey you're with your gf again!" Zuko and Katara deny it, but there likely should have been an undercurrent of 'Why do people think we're together? Do we act like it? Should we be? S/he is kind of cute.' During this time, Zuko defers to Katara and despite Toph likely being more helpful, asks Katara to be the one to take down Azula with him. (2/3)

Last part of the finale should have been the money shot, Zuko taking lightning for Katara, and in a parallel to CoD, Katara healing him. Dante Basco is right in that there probably should have been a kiss at that moment and the end scene of the gang at the Jasmine Dragon with Zuko and Katara shyly proclaiming their interest in each other. (3/4, sorry I have one more)

Again, ZK is not my ship, but EIP seemed to set up a ZK endgame that jumped the tracks at the end. By all the "rules" of a good narrative, Zuko and Katara should have ended up together, otherwise EIP should never have been countenanced or storyboarded. Full disclosure that I'm not a huge Kataang fan either, but Kataang was done a disservice by having EIP exist. It either should not have ever gotten written, or the ZK enemies-to-lovers arc should have been concluded. (end)

Disclaimer: I don’t care if someone ships Zvtara. Never have, never will. If the takeaway you (the general you, not anon specifically lol) get from this post is that Zvtara is “bad,” then I’m going to assume you didn’t actually read anything I wrote, because that is the farthest thing from my point here. Also, this post is strictly my personal response to these asks. I don’t expect everyone to read this and be like “YEAH” lmao. I am sure some people have different opinions, and that is a-okay!

In short, I think we will have to agree to disagree, anon.

Do some people consider EIP the beginning of a busted enemies-to-lovers arc? Of course they do, they’re “rabid zkers” who wear Zvtara shipping goggles 24/7 lmao. EIP couldn’t have been the beginning of an E-L arc because such an arc was never in the cards for them in the first place! Katara forgave Zuko in the previous episode. Trying to cram a romantic relationship into five episodes after months of hatred between Zuko and Katara would have been awful writing (and thus probably would have been a decision mercilessly criticized until the end of time, lmao). So it’s honestly better that Zvtara gets to spread its wings in fanon instead (much less pressure)! Also, realistically speaking, Katara and Zuko probably still had so many issues to work through in their friendship. Like yes, she forgave him and recognized he was trying to do better, but that doesn’t erase what Zuko has done to her and her friends. There is still plenty of forward progress they need to make before romance can even be considered between them. If that makes sense?

Also, let’s be real: EIP and bit with June afterwards were 100% ship bait. Just an attempt to add to the “drama” of who Katara would end up. A technique only effective while it was airing, for the record, because if you watch the show straight through, it becomes glaringly obvious that Zuko and Katara’s relationship - while gorgeous - was always meant to stay strictly platonic within the canon timeline.

Anyways. I’ll try to break down your ask one piece at a time!

“Zuko and Katara see how others see them, and it weirds them out”

Yes, they are definitely weirded out! The transcript says, “Zuko and Katara inch away from each other, slightly uncomfortable.” Which is just a longer way of describing that they were weirded out by the depiction of their relationship in EIP, lol. However, the play is not how others see them. The play is the Fire Nation’s imperialist propaganda, meant to demean the entire Gaang. I talk about in specifics how the entire Gaang is belittled here, but this is the key stuff I noted about Zuko and Katara:

it’s important to situate that and more importantly situate eip zuko and katara’s relationship within the context of the show. the fire nation is an imperialist country. the southern water tribe has suffered heavily beneath them. we know from “the headband” that fire nation individuals are fed pro-imperialistic propaganda from birth; that combined with zuko and azula’s degrading comment of “peasant” towards katara demonstrate very clearly how the fire nation views every other nation - put simply, they are superior and everyone else is inferior. that attitude is therefore reflected in the eip play:

- katara, an indigenous woman, is highly sexualized and portrayed as overly dramatic and tearful, because the fire nation objectifies women not of their own people and views them as less intelligent and less emotionally stable

- she is thus paired as having a “romance” with zuko in eip because naturally, via fire nation logic, zuko would be able to “score” an “easy” woman of one of the water tribes

- furthermore, the eip “romance” between zuko and katara emphasizes zuko’s position as a traitor to the fire nation; the implication is that as a traitor, he’d only be able to achieve a relationship with a “lesser” woman, e.g. a woman not of the fire nation

That is not how other people truly view Zuko and Katara’s relationship. That is how the Fire Nation depicts their relationship in order to degrade and dehumanize Zuko and Katara. To misinterpret that as “evidence” that Zuko and Katara should have been together romantically is… disturbing, in my opinion. (I really try to stay far away from zkers who use EIP as “proof” of supposed Zvtara interest in each other like honey that is imperialist propaganda please don’t 😭).

If you want to talk about how other people actually view Zuko and Katara’s relationship, look at the Gaang, who were around them most of all! They never tease the possibility of romance between their friends. Why? Because within canon, there wasn’t one. Simple!

“Zuko insisted on sitting next to Katara”

Nope! This is all the transcript says: “Zuko [Removing his hood.] Just sit next to me. What’s the big deal?” He doesn’t even mention Katara! Zuko is literally just like I’m already sitting. Why do I need to move? lmfao. It’s no thoughts head empty for our favorite firebender 😂

“Katara pushes Aang away”

I’m assuming this about the kiss, which I’m going to make a post about in the future because I am TIRED of the tomfoolery. Anyways, I’ll keep this brief - yes, she does push him away. She does not deny that she likes him. For Katara, the issue is the timing: “This isn’t the right time.” Both Katara and Aang know they like each other, plain and simple (which is why Aang doesn’t ask if he returns her feelings - he asks if they’d be together, because he knows their feelings are mutual). Katara pushes Aang away because, as she says, they’re in the middle of a war. She’s already seen Aang die once. He might die again. She doesn’t want that, of course, but it’s a reality Katara is forced to consider.

Anyways, her decision has nothing to do with Zuko. Lol.

“June reiterates the ‘Hey you’re with your gf again!’ Zuko and Katara deny it, but there likely should have been an undercurrent of ‘Why do people think we're together? Do we act like it? Should we be? S/he is kind of cute.’”

June’s assumption - especially because it is a repeat of a gag from earlier in the series, when it is incredibly concerning to assume a Fire Nation citizen would be with someone of the Water Tribes because of the war and its consequences - is comic relief. Not even good comic relief, lmao, because of the horrific implications I just mentioned that come with it, but it’s supposed to be comedy. There was no need of any “Zvtara” undercurrents there because a) Katara and Zuko had never expressed romantic interest in each other in the past, b) it wouldn’t track with the show’s narrative of Katara as Zuko’s surrogate sibling because of her position as Azula’s primary foil, and c) it just doesn’t make sense in general. Katara likes Aang. Zuko likes Mai. There was never a love triangle there, plain and simple. Fandom invented it.

And again, if you want to talk about how people actually see Zuko and Katara, don’t look at June, who has never had a proper conversation with either of them. As I said, the Gaang is a much better example, since they’re with the two 24/7. If they never tease Zuko and Katara about romance, why should we trust this random lady who doesn’t even know them?

“During this time, Zuko defers to Katara and despite Toph likely being more helpful, asks Katara to be the one to take down Azula with him.”

As I mentioned, Katara is Azula’s primary foil, so from a literary perspective she absolutely needed to be the one to take her down. Zuko needed to face Azula, but taking her down - again, from a literary pov - was always meant to be the end of Katara’s journey (she was the only person besides Aang who was ever a match for Azula, after all, as we see in CoD). Also, how would Toph be more helpful?? Not saying you’re wrong, btw, I just don’t understand what you mean. If I was Zuko, I also would have brought the waterbender that I’d already witnessed almost take down my sister already 😂. But even if Toph would have been more helpful, sometimes practicality must be sacrificed for a fulfilling narrative arc, lol!

“Last part of the finale should have been the money shot, Zuko taking lightning for Katara, and in a parallel to CoD, Katara healing him.”

Honestly, anon, this part of your ask baffles me 😂 I totally understand why rabid zkers might make this argument, but taking into account the rest of the show… It just doesn’t make sense? It’s been talked about a hundred times, but Zuko taking lightning out of romantic interest would ruin his redemption arc, regardless of if it was Katara or Aang or Sokka or anyone in the Gaang that he was taking it for, so that should be the end of discussion, full stop. I’ve talked about this issue here and here before, and someone else does a great job breaking it down in this post, too. But seriously. Zuko having romantic interest for anyone in the Gaang would ruin!! His!! Entire!! Arc!! I hate when people don’t understand that 😭 Zuko had to learn selflessness, to learn how to put others before himself, and to unlearn the imperialist rhetoric he’d been indoctrinated with from birth. Romantic interest during canon for Katara, Sokka, Aang, whomever, I don’t care, completely disregards all of his growth of breaking away from the Fire Nation. Plain and simple.

“Dante Basco is right in that there probably should have been a kiss at that moment and the end scene of the gang at the Jasmine Dragon with Zuko and Katara shyly proclaiming their interest in each other.”

I learned in a discord I’m in that Dante Basco apparently hadn’t seen the whole show until this year lmao. He didn’t know what energybending was nor did he know A:TLA ended with a Kataang kiss. Take that with a grain of salt, of course (you can watch the livestream this is revealed in here, and it was also mentioned in the recent StageIt A:TLA reunion), but I think it’s safe to conclude Dante Basco can be treated like any other Zvtara shipper. He likes the ship, which is totally cool, but he is not one of the writers, so his opinion meant naught in constructing the canon narrative.

ANYWAYS. My point is why would Zuko and Katara proclaim interest in each other if such interest would have to be crammed into five measly episodes?? Especially when four of those episodes were the finale?? That is awful writing, of course the A:TLA writers wouldn’t do that, lmao! They’d built up Kataang and Maiko already. Why scrap it and needlessly rush a romance from an excellent - and, important to note, a newly established - platonic bond? Nah.

“EIP seemed to set up a ZK endgame that jumped the tracks at the end. By all the ‘rules’ of a good narrative, Zuko and Katara should have ended up together”

Nope. Idk what rules people have been teaching you, anon, but they were lying!! You deserve better than people who would lie to you like that 😤. But yeah, narratively speaking, Katara and Zuko getting together would have made no sense. It would have undermined Zuko’s and Katara’s arcs, it would have completely disregarded Katara’s established feelings for Aang and Zuko’s for Mai, and again, it would have been totally rushed. Who wants that?? Normal people don’t, lmao. This might be hard to believe considering I occasionally rag about BNF zkers, but I actually have several friends who are Zvtara shippers! They agree that canon Zvtara would have made no sense, and that it’s better to play out a potential Zvtara dynamic in post-A:TLA fanon. I swear, it is only the rabid shippers who think Zvtara should have been canon, and trust me when I say no one should want to associate with them, lmao.

(And again, as I touched upon earlier, Zuko and Katara’s canon narrative relationship was surrogate siblings because of Katara’s position as Azula’s primary foil. The show wrapped their arc up perfectly! With a lovely bow and all. So no complaints from me!)

“otherwise EIP should never have been countenanced or storyboarded. Full disclosure that I’m not a huge Kataang fan either, but Kataang was done a disservice by having EIP exist”

What EIP did right:

- accurate (and horrifying) depiction of pro-imperialist propaganda

- recap of previous seasons

- a lesson on consent (Aang kisses Katara, it is depicted as wrong, and Aang reacts appropriately by admonishing himself and by giving Katara space afterwards. like, people call Aang an incel/entitled/whatever, BUT HE HAD THE PERFECT REACTION?? he literally backed off and never pressured her again. i would have killed for the guy who kept getting in my personal space during my junior year to have backed off when i told him to. spoiler alert: he didn’t)

- hit some good humor beats

What EIP did poorly:

- honestly it’s not very interesting just based on watching it (deconstructing it as propaganda gives it better depth), but that’s to be expected from filler

- stupid shipping drama

- not having an additional conversation/explicit apology between Aang and Katara

HOWEVER. This final point is actually very subjective. For one, A:TLA has a clear trend of not showing apologies on screen. Ex.: Katara doesn’t apologize to Sokka for what she said about their mother, Zuko doesn’t apologize for anything he did to the Gaang, Song, or really anyone (closest we get is “Hello, Zuko here” lmao), Ty Lee and Mai don’t apologize for putting the Kyoshi warriors in jail, etc. etc. So while an explicit apology would have been great, the lack of one admittedly tracks with the show’s pre-established standards. And two, while I of course would love a conversation between Aang and Katara (that’s literally MORE KATAANG. why would I refuse 😂), it isn’t… necessary, to be frank. Aang’s mistake is treated as such - kissing Katara was wrong and he should never have done that. Like I said, Aang acknowledges this error and gives Katara space afterwards. Thus, it is Katara who chooses to be with him when the war is over. She respects the time he gave her to come to a conclusion, and the choice she makes is that she loves him despite his poorly-timed kiss (I mean, she forgave Zuko for being complicit in Aang’s death. Katara is clearly a very forgiving person!). So like,, it gets to a point where if someone doesn’t recognize that, they’re probably the kind of weirdo who labels anything they don’t understand in a story as a plothole, lmao.

All of this is to say that EIP wasn’t a disservice to Kataang. It certainly could have been better, of course, and the kiss was obviously only put in to hype up drama (“will they, won’t they” blah blah blah), but overall it handled consent well for a kid’s show.

“It either should not have ever gotten written, or the ZK enemies-to-lovers arc should have been concluded.”

On the whole, EIP is absolutely an unnecessary episode, yeah. It was just a recap before the finale. The only important thing is its accurate depiction of pro-imperialist propaganda, but most people’s minds don’t immediately go to that, I’ll admit lmao 😂. And as I’ve already said, there was no Zvtara E-L arc - fandom completely made that up. Which is totally fine! That’s the point of transformative works. But they are still fanon. Plain and simple.

TL;DR - Zvtara was never in the cards for A:TLA. I wish rabid zkers would stop pretending it was and have fun in the sandbox like the rest of us 😭

And for the record, anon, you absolutely, 100% do not have to be convinced by any of this! It’s just my own, personal thoughts on the whole dealio. No worries either way!! 💛