neither craving verseXhotlinetocorporate

[Verse]

Yazuko Kazaki had a pretty steep climb to where he was, but he'd gone at it hard, so it went quickly. He started in the pits, where people put him up against dogs. Turns out, even if you're too young to legally own one, you can still choke one out. He graduated to human opponents when his brand of violence gained an audience. Soon he was beating other teenager's heads in for better cash, and then he took work for Yakuza that had always owned his matches. He was reliable enough that when they opened up another dingy gambling joint, they didn't mind passing it to him. Do good work, get good things.

With his twentieth birthday barely behind him, he was now wearing suits and tattoos like the men who used to spit at him when he wrapped his his bitemarks and wondering about rabies. His youth kept the bone tight to his skull, the angled, east asian features that had gotten him trust enough to get into it with the Yakuza to start, still in its prime. There was a darkness in his eyes that was remarkable, even among his murdering, crime-riddles peers.

You had to be something above the rest to make it in Yareli City, affectionately called New City by the people who lived in it. The international port metropolis was overrun with shadowy undercurrents, and the Yakuza was one of the main ships in a fleet of other organizations. Yazuko had been happy to find himself among the people who called the shots. Even if he still had to claw his way to power, and work most nights, and party the others, he saw it as a kind of retirement, from a childhood that had been nothing short of harrowing. It had prepared him well for this. So he had his fun. Hookers and drugs, and all the vices he peddled to others. All in moderation, of course, since he knew the house was set up to win.

But now he was the house.

The small, dirty joint with a couple of tables that he started out with had become a skyscraper of elicit, adult games. The Yen-yen Casino. Their online business was always feeding a steady stream of revenue, locked mostly to IP's in and around Yareli so he could collect if needed. But he loved the physical locales more. The sounds of them. This was where he found his kindred and friends. The lives here belonged to him. Today he was playing with one of his favorites.

Keiko Hall had sold her life to him with her mounting gambling debt. It was enough to warrant a bullet to the head, but sometimes she did well enough to scratch the surface of going free. But she never stopped then. They never did. When they were pretty like her, even in her broken way, the gorillas on retainer to break bones checked with Yazuko first, before they got their pick. There were gorgeous, fresh-faced women who ended up under his thumb this way, earning with their bodies for what their husbands and fathers owed, but Keiko looked a certain way. She didn't know he had her pegged when she walked in to talk about her losses, the first time. She already had a connection to him, through her significant other. But Dakota was another story. They didn't know he knew them both. Owned them both.

Yazu walked toward one of the smaller, closet-like offices where employees got to do some less important administration, if needed, and some of these rooms had even been converted into make-shift breakrooms. Keiko wasn't really the kind he had to take to a good restaurant. She was the kind he could fuck in the ass and have suck his cock clean after. She knew she better be there first. Today was another day that'd be her last time. He promised he'd strike out the rest of her red numbers if she came. Stupid bitch never learned though, but he liked the look in her eyes, that hoped she was done. And then he got to stomp on that so she walked away with a sore cunt, a stomach full of cum, and a heart full of enough doubt that the only way she could alleviated it was by punishing herself more at his tables.

He opened the scuffed up door. He had a black suit on with a sheer shirt, mostly unbottoned under the jacket. The tilted sartorial take was par for the course, and when you're tall with vast shoulders but otherwise lanky, suits always look good. His black hair was tied back, though it was barely long enough. It had always been one of the gravest insults to the people who saw his face as the last image in this life, that it was still beautiful, despite the bad things he did to them. He wondered what looks she'd have in her eyes today. Her boyfriend usually had some broken eager in his.

 

[hotlinetocorporate]

As time went on, it really did seem like they had less and less good days. The two of them had a pretty cute little story, if not a bit unconventional. Keiko and Dakota had gone to the same high school, and they hadn't really been friends or anything like that to start. Dakota was, for lack of a better way to put it, a goddamn nerd. He was from a well-off family, and people pleasing was basically bred into him. The blonde had always been on the smaller side, more reserved and quick to just so whatever was being requested of him for the sake of avoiding conflict. He was a doormat, and the people around him took full advantage. Dakota's dweeb ass was doing half their grade's homework, was always the butt of the joke, got told to do dumb little errands for the other students. The guy really just seemed happy to be included in any kind of interaction or serve any kind of use whatsoever.

Keiko was the exact opposite. For a lack of a better descriptor, she was trashy. Her family was broke as fuck, she got all of her older sister's ratty hand-me-down clothes. She was barely ever even at school to start with, and when she did she did fuck all. Keiko was quick to mouth off, always looked tired and frequently just be floating through her classes stoned off her ass. She hung around other delinquent, the very people that would make sure that Dakota's general kindness would be manipulated by. Eventually, something in her got tired of seeing the same shit every day- So Keiko had asked him out. They dated, and she did what she could to get other people to lay off of him. It worked for the most part. Now there were new teases about Keiko being butch and Dakota needing his girlfriend to bail him out of everything, but it was better than before.

A few years out of high school, Dakota bought a house and asked her to share it with him. She said yes, and they'd moved in together. From an outside perspective, life just kept moving on for the pair. They weren't living large or doing anything impressive, but they seemed to have their shit together. That was bullshit, though.

Keiko was awful with money. She always had been- something about growing up poor just made her feel like cash had to leave her hands as soon as she got it. And since Dakota's day job paid well enough that she didn't really need to work, she just worked part-time and had a lot of spare time. Drawn to places that were full of people that reminded her of those she grew up around, Keiko spent quite a lot of time in the casino. She didn't have a favorite game- she tended to wander, just sort of spending money until her presence was demanded back home or her credit ran out.

And, well. At that point, loans happened. And she had to deal with the loans... Things spiraled, and at this point she was basically using her body to keep paying off her debts so she could keep creating new ones. Keiko hated it, and Dakota really had done nothing to deserve this kind of disloyalty from her. He'd always been nothing but sweet to her, even when they were kids. It made her feel filthy, but... It let her keep being somewhere she felt comfortable, and it kept Dakota from knowing just how fucking bad her issues were.

Tonight was a night that Keiko was doing her best to act like they were the perfect couple so many people thought that they were. Their anniversary- Dakota hadn't gotten them reservations or anything, but he'd really gone all out to try and celebrate it at home. Keiko had to work earlier in the day, and when she came home the inside of their house had been entirely different than what it looked like when she left. It'd been cleaned spotless, there was the smell of food cooking and the lingering scent of something sweet that'd been prepared beforehand. The lights seemed to be carefully turned on or off to create a certain ambiance, there was quiet music.

He really was too kind to her.

She would find him in the kitchen, dressed a lot nicer than usual. Keiko wasn't sure how he managed to make her feel under-dressed in her own home, but he did. Dakota would send her up to the bedroom to change herself. She probably should have anticipated seeing a new outfit laid out for her- it made her eyes water just a bit, especially catching sight of herself as she was in the mirror. Keiko never 'dressed up.' She always looked just slightly malnourished, pale despite her mixed heritage and her otherwise beautiful eyes ringed with a nearly bruised looking exhaustion. She didn't dress up for work, either- why would she? She was a fucking grocery store cashier.

Stripping out of her work clothes and putting on the dress Dakota had bought for her felt like putting on a costume. Dakota had a good eye for clothing and aesthetics, and his choice for Keiko reflected that. The red tone suited her very well, and the fabric was very well fit to her figure. It reached the floor with a slit that went up to her thigh, a sleeveless and backless top that tied behind her neck. It was more revealing than she would have chosen for herself. Keiko fussed for a little longer with getting the top to sit right over her bust than she would have liked to admit- Fuck, maybe she was butch and all of those kids in high school were right. But once it looked correct, she took a moment to try and clean herself up. Fix her hair a bit, clean up and refresh her worn make-up and add a red lipstick, change out her more punky and alternative accessories for mock-gold jewelry that at least almost fit the dress.

Of course when she got downstairs Dakota would lay all kinds of praise and compliments on her, and it would feel wrong. But she'd accept, thank him, do her best to act sweet. He deserved it from her, it was the least she could do. They sat down to eat, and eventually things felt... Okay.

Well, until Keiko's phone went off. She'd had all kinds of excuses to duck out lately- from work being short staffed to her mother having medical emergencies. The later was great for odd hours. The woman hated Dakota with a passion, so it was a given that he wouldn't accompany her. She excused herself, checked it, and... Sighed.

Of course, when she explained that she had to go, Dakota was all smiles and comfort. He understood- he always understood. The man was an angel that she didn't deserve. And, like she had so many times before, she left. The message on her phone seemed more pressing than usual- if anything, because this sweet treatment from him made her think maybe she could actually set things to zero and just... Stop. Actually stop this time, be the woman that Dakota thought she was.

So, when the door opened, Keiko would be exactly where she had been told to be when she'd told to be there. The woman would be feeling too many things for one emotion to read- common for her. It usually read as a generally overcast expression, and this time was no different- despite that, a mildly delusional part of her was determined to make this the last time. For real. She wanted to immediately ask that this be quick- but she knew that would ensure she'd be here much longer than she hoped.

 

[Verse]

Yazuko knew something was off the moment he opened the door. The scent coming out, the ones not native to the space, were-- better than usual. He liked this girl because she was pretty underneath the layers of self-destruction rampant among his patrons. She reminded him of the potential in similar individuals during the handful of school days he'd enjoyed, selling for the syndicate that eventually decided he should be doing other things with his childhood. Maybe he'd idealized these girls who couldn't afford or didn't believe in looking like their own worth. It was a pretty lilt to a nation-wide problem. He knew who Keiko was the moment he'd been asked about her by the debtors on the floor. And having her suck his cock to lessen her account number beside the minus mark, he'd gotten a looksee into her psyche as well.

But his real source of information was her beloved Dakota. Nothing like someone who idealizes you to get your weaknesses.

That's why he'd called her tonight. The pair was going to celebrate. Dakota had quietly asked to get this night off in particular. Of course. Take it. But something always came up, didn't it? So when Yazu saw her, all dressed up, out of her sweaters and hoodies where she liked to hide her hands, he got a nice look into the evening the couple had planned. He came over to her and put his hand on her shoulder. She'd be uncomfortable in this dress. If he hadn't known her personality already, he would have by her posture.

"So the dyke tried to dress like a girl, today? What are we celebrating? Being cheating trash?" he commented. Insults from above are always worth more. Boyish or not, she couldn't contend with his height. Fighting literal animals had done his bones well. He touched her chin. Keiko was prone to look away from him, especially when he tugged at her femininity complex. It was a travesty she didn't know how lovely she was. He fed off travesties. Somewhere during his interactions with her boyfriend, Yazuko had expressed his disgust when women wore underwear - it had been relevant to Dakota specifically but as it turned out, he'd spread the preference to his girlfriend as well. The owner of the establishment took a few steps back to admire the woman who felt ill at ease at being dolled up.

"Let's see it then. Spin around and smile for me." he said and put his hands in his pockets. It wasn't the first time he'd had someone flaunt their flaws to him, so he could use it against them.

In the unflattering lighting in here, he still looked like all the deadly things in the Yareli night. At least he unbuttoned the suit jacket to let the garment hang around the revealing shirt as he waited. As Keiko knew, the Kazaki demon didn't like to wait long. Someone who gambled away her husband's money and didn't tell him hadn't really built up the capital to delay her payments when they were demanded of her, anyway. He sighed with some lightness in his chest. This night was looking up. "With a girlfriend like you, I guess your man doesn't need enemies, huh?" The deranged friendliness in his smile should be concerning, but it wasn't the first time Keiko had seen it. With all the odds on his side, being outright threatening wasn't necessary. And with Keiko, he only used it when it was fun.