Sasha had heard the door to the private room open and smelt Sayuri's wolfish smell before he saw her. Still, despite that, he did jolt a bit when she slid into the bath next to him, all of her skin bared to him and his to her.
There was no denying he was attracted to her, he'd known almost from the moment he'd seen her that he'd wanted her, something that was only exacerbated as he had gotten to know her over even just the briefest of time spent together. There was also no denying that there was at least a small part of Sayuri that perhaps didn't feel too different if the sneaky little glances and small touches were any indicator. Still, it was unfair to presume anything like that on Sasha's behalf considering Sayuri's past and her volatile relationship with Joe.
Sasha turned his head away in an attempt to offer some privacy (though he'd seen just about everything as she slid in), ears bright pink between being mildly flustered and the heat of the pool they soaked in.
"I mentioned I had tattoos. I don't know much about bath culture in Japan, but I do know that tattoos are mostly frowned upon." He explained. _________________ Butts n' butts n' butts n' butts.
Sayuri was not shy by any means, modesty was something she couldn’t have given her lifestyle. Although, even before she was taken by the Yakuza, she wasn’t especially shy then either. Despite any comments made about her body, Sayuri’s own opinion on her self image was that she was extremely good looking. She was a little taller, her hips a little wider, and her breasts more full than the standard for Japanese women. There were rumors at the bar amonst the other girls, that Sayuri had work done and the Yakuza paid for it, that’s how she was indebted to them. That couldn’t be further from the truth, the only way the Yakuza had modified her body was with her lower back tattoo and chopping off her pinky. Those things didn’t bother her either, at least not in the way that it impacted her self image.
Truthfully she had forgotten about the tattoo taboo in bathhouses, Sayuri hadn’t been since she was a teen and she didn’t have any tattoos then. She probably would’ve gotten kicked out if she didn’t sneak into Sasha’s private room.
“I didn’t realize you had tattoos, I haven’t seen tattoos like yours before.” Sayuri admitted, she looked at him from the side, only giving a slight turn of her head. Her eyes flit over the different pieces, they were simple in design (save for the cathedral), but no less striking. Sayuri’s own tattoo had color, oranges and pinks and blues. But somehow the sharp black ink against Sasha’s white skin came out more intense, more pronounced.
She wanted to touch them secretly, or not so secretly. To feel the flesh under her palms, and to rake her nails across that beautiful cathedral. Her legs wrapped around his waist, so she may straddle the pantheon doors and feel God. Sayuri could see Sasha’s ears pink and wondered if he thought about the same thing.
"Ah, well, that's because I made sure to get them done in a more...subtle manner." Sasha explained, his gaze flitting over to Sayuri, his blue eyes catching her own brown for the briefest of moments.
She didn't seem to be concerned with modesty, regarding him, or herself. Not that Sasha would have minded if she was. If she had asked him to le her have the bath to herself, he would have let her without complaint. However, since she hadn't and since she herself was noticeably looking at him, he allowed himself to look at her. He hadn't been in Japan that long, not long enough to really know what the standard "look" was, but he did notice Sayuri didn't quite fit into the mold of what he had seen thus far. She wasn't dainty or petite like the other girls he'd seen at the yakuza meetups, but he also knew she was just the right size for him to comfortably wrap his hands around her waist while they danced. He knew the swell of her breasts as they'd pressed into him, though he tried to think decent thoughts on the dance floor as she leaned in flush against him. He also knew how her hands felt in his, how slender her fingers and how narrow her palms were compared to his, how his hand could comfortably hold both of hers.
He thought she was beautiful, but it wasn't something he felt like he could say without it sounding like he wanted that beauty for himself like Joe and he never wanted to be like that, not to anyone, but especially not Sayuri.
"I'm a lawyer, well, sort of." He began. "Mob work is my main job, the family business and whatnot, but after seeing so many of my family members and their associates hauled off by the police throughout my childhood, I wanted to be useful and to be able to get them out of those situations. So I studied law by day, and did mob work on the downlow. Tattoos are part of the gig practically, they tell other criminals in the business our history like police with their rap sheets, so when I eventually started getting them, I made sure I could cover them. No one wants someone in their firm with a dirty history, right?" He smirked a little. "But that hardly mattered, when I finally passed the bar and started looking for a firm, I ended up working with the lawyers my family frequently hired. They already knew who I was and were happy to give me a place in their firm even if it was just a cover, though, between you and me," he leaned in like he was sharing a conspiratorial secret, "I'm a much better lawyer than most of those geezers." _________________ Butts n' butts n' butts n' butts.
Sayuri smiled as she listened to Sasha, and laughed a little at his secret declaration. She didn’t know anything about what it took to be a lawyer in America, or what their justice system looked like. Japan had a ninety-nine percent conviction rate, prosecutors only took on cases they were guaranteed to win. But judgment does not equate to justice, this meant a lot of wrongful convictions. It didn’t make much sense to Sayuri, Japan’s bar exam was one of the toughest to pass in the world with a passing rate of thirty-three percent, it was only two percent before 2006. In Sayuri’s mind, a room full of geniuses should be able to right wrongs with educated precision. But instead Sayuri could sit in jail for twenty-three days on account of something Joe did. On one hand, Sayuri appreciated the break from whatever torture Joe and Mio inflicted on her. On the other, jail in Japan was a lot of silence and manual labor, talking was prohibited. It made her miss the bar; miss the loud music and low lights, her high heels and flashy tops. Then the Yakuza would pay her bail and her fines, bring her back and put her back to work, a different kind of manual labor. But at least she could talk about it, she could dance and laugh and yell, as she was known to do.
“I’m not surprised.” Sayuri replied with a cheeky smile, looking up at him. “Is there anything you’re not good at? Or are you just the best at everything?” She asked, teasing him.
"No, hardly." Sasha laughed, shaking his head. "I'm not particularly athletic, or, I guess I'm not sporty. Both of my siblings were into sports in high school, our cousins too, but I'm no good at them. I work out at the gym, but that's it. I'm also no good at music. My parents made us each practice an instrument when we were growing up and me and my brother, Vitya, chose the balalaika. He's surprisingly good at it still, but I just never had the knack for it." He admitted, which was perhaps the most he had ever admitted in regards to his shortcomings to anyone outside of his own family. _________________ Butts n' butts n' butts n' butts.
“I can’t believe you’d confess your weaknesses to me so nonchalantly.” Sayuri laughed again, something that came easy to her. It was amusing to her that his shortcomings were so very human, so much so that they hardly registered to her as negatives. Sayuri wouldn’t consider herself athletic either, she didn’t do sports in high school. Not unless you count smashing up people and things with a baseball bat. She could run pretty fast, but never fast enough to outrun her past or her problems; not for lack of trying though. It was fun to picture that side of Sasha, a young man, not yet dotted with ink, clumsily strumming an instrument, and striking out on a baseball field.
“It sounds like you have a big family, I’m a little jealous. Are you close?” She asked then. He mentioned siblings and cousins, parents who encouraged him to take an instrument. When Sayuri said she was jealous, she was telling the truth. In truth, Sayuri couldn’t remember her parents that well anymore, her mother the least since she disappeared when Sayuri was young. She could remember her mom’s perm, her hair was a big and beautiful; always teased and styled with precision. Her mother often smelled of cheap hairspray, it was all chemicals and mostly glue, but the smell reminded Sayuri of her mother. She always wore chunky gold earrings, Sayuri’s mom would polish her jewelry with toothpaste to give them more shine. Sayuri remembered one of the last times she saw her mom, the sunlight glinting off her gold earrings like stars. Stars, in the middle of the day, in their living room.
Extramundane in the most ordinary place, her mom was like that.
They were supposed to have looked alike, her dad always said so. But in her memories, her mother’s face was obscured and hard to recognize. It could be true, or just something a lonely, drunkard says to his daughter, because he is a lonely drunkard. They loved each other, her parents argued a lot, but they always came back together. It seemed like at the end of the day, they knew all they had was each other. Sayuri always kind of felt like a third wheel around them, it as always them against the world, and Sayuri was there too. She wished that if they loved each other so much, they could’ve at least given her siblings. Maybe it would’ve been less lonely? Although Sayuri supposed it would’ve been harder. They’d be abandoned or worse; a bigger family would’ve meant a bigger fracture when things fell apart.
Sasha could almost feel the loneliness in Sayuri's question, like it was something tangible. It made him feel a little guilty about having had what she did not. It made him wish that the world had been kinder to her because no one with such a beautiful smile and her brazen brand of warmth deserved what she had endured.
"Mm, we are." He nodded, smiling a little as if to soften the "blow". He didn't think Sayuri would resent him for his own joys in life, but he didn't want to rub any salt in her wounds. "Both of my parents have big families, so even beyond my siblings, I always had cousins around to spare. Though, they feel less like cousins and more like siblings too." He admitted with a little chuckle. "The girl that was with me before, she's one of them. She's frustrating sometimes, she's got a penchant for beating dead horses when it comes to razzing, but I still love her." He paused, a smirk quirking the corner of his mouth. "I think my family has to love her because she's certainly not going to find a husband to do that with her attitude." He joked. _________________ Butts n' butts n' butts n' butts.
Sayuri was lonely, but to hear Sasha talk about his family didn’t make her sad. It did induce some sort of longing, but ultimately she liked it; she imagined with so many personalities in a big family, it probably often ran like a sitcom. She was happy for him, she hoped to be apart of a family someday, maybe make one of her own if nothing else. A bunch of kids, born on top of each other. Sayuri liked to imagine they would do everything together, which could’ve been the wolf in her looking for community in a pack.
“They say there’s someone out there for everyone,” Sayuri answered back with a chuckle. “Do you think she’s worried about you right now?” She asked then.
"Maybe a little, but if anything, she's probably just annoyed." Sasha laughed. "She knows I'm not easy to kill, just like I know she's a beast when push comes to shove. If anyone is worried, it's Spider. He looks like an unshakeable brute, but everyone in the family knows he's a bit of a nervous wreck beneath the surface. If only to keep him from having a nervous breakdown and staying in Stasi's good graces, we should make our way up to the embassy in Tokyo as quickly as possible." _________________ Butts n' butts n' butts n' butts.
“I know it, I know it.” Sayuri waved Sasha off then with a flap of her hand. “Getting you to the embassy is my top priority. I got us a little money, but it’s not much. We can maybe get a shuttle, or a capsule hotel for the night; but not both.” Sayuri explained.
"You got us money?" Sasha quirked a brow, a little smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. "And how'd you do that?" _________________ Butts n' butts n' butts n' butts.
“Oh I ran sacked the ladies locker room when we were apart.” Sayuri stated with a pleased smirk of her own. She had been stealing since before the yakuza took her, it came as naturally to her as laughter. It was an asset to them, to Joe. But sometimes Sayuri could pocket things for herself too, though it was hard to have personal possessions given her lifestyle. “Impressed?” She asked him with a grin.
"Very. Usually I'm the one doing the criminal activity." Sasha laughed, followed by a thoughtful little hum. "We didn't get much sleep last night, so maybe it'd be better to rent a bed somewhere, don't you think?" _________________ Butts n' butts n' butts n' butts.
“It’s the only way I know how to do things, so consider yourself spoiled.” Sayuri smiled, giving her own thoughtful pause, crunching numbers in her head. She supposed they could spring for something more spacious than a capsule, her only hope was that anywhere they went, did not host any yakuza activity or that anyone was there looking for them. They weren’t far outside of Kobe at all, and given the circumstances, Sayuri was positive they were still being hunted. “Once we’re finished soaking, I’ll find us a spot to hunter down.” Sayuri nodded in agreement.
"Sounds good." Sasha nodded and settled back against the edge of the tub. "You know, when we get to the embassy and I get back to my things, I'd like to spoil you in return." He cheekily grinned. _________________ Butts n' butts n' butts n' butts.
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