Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

exposure
/ɪkˈspoʊʒər/

noun

The act of being seen.
The amount of light allowed to reach a photograph.
The state of revealing something that was previously hidden.
The story of a photographer who learned to look and a model who never expected to be seen.

The laptop screen burned in the darkness of the studio like a rectangle of cold light, the only source of illumination besides the articulated desk lamp that Yuuji had tilted until it almost touched the keyboard. It was two thirty in the morning and the silence of the building was so dense that he could hear the hum of the refrigerator from the tiny kitchen, four steps away from where he was sitting.

He had been editing for three hours.

On the table, next to the mouse, sat a bowl of instant ramen whose broth had turned into a gelatinous, cold mass. He pushed it aside without looking, with the back of his hand, and the movement made the spoon tinkle against the porcelain. He didn’t remember leaving it there. He also didn’t remember eating more than two bites.

The photograph that occupied the screen was good. Very good, in fact.

Yuuji leaned forward, rested his elbows on the table and narrowed his eyes. The image showed a silhouette outlined against the fogged window of his home, bare torso, a thin rope surrounding the wrists in front of the body, hands relaxed, fingers barely curled inward as if they had just released something. The natural light of dusk wrapped the shoulders in a gradient of honey tones that dissolved into shadows at the base of the back. It was himself, of course. It was always himself when he couldn’t convince anyone else.

The timer had been hell. Running from the camera to the exact spot, repositioning the rope, maintaining a neutral expression, neither dramatic nor absent, just… present. Vulnerable without seeming helpless. He repeated the shot seventeen times until the sun set at the right angle.

Now, seeing it finished, he felt that small jolt in his chest. That warm and silent thing he had been chasing for years. The image breathed. It had texture, weight, something almost tactile in the way the condensation on the glass blurred the contours. It wasn’t pornography. It never was, even though the comments sometimes couldn’t tell the difference. It was composition, light, anatomy and silence.

He saved the file with the name «_final_window_v3_corrected_definitive2.jpg» and opened the forum.

The page loaded with that minimalist aesthetic he liked so much: black background, square thumbnails, white sans-serif typography. His profile had an abstract cover photo, a close-up of wet fabric and a username that Nobara had helped him choose two years ago: tiger_eye_studio. Below, the laconic bio: «Erotic photography and visual exploration. 24. DMs open for collaborations.»

The new post had been uploaded six hours earlier, just before he went out for a run in the park to clear his head. Now, back in the burrow of his apartment, it was time to face the harvest.

The numbers were good. Too good to be true, he thought, and then hated himself a little for thinking it. Two thousand four hundred views. One hundred eighty-seven reactions. Thirty-two shares. People were hungry this week, apparently.

He scrolled down with the mouse wheel.

The first comments were the usual ones. Loyal users who had been following him for months and who dropped hearts, generic compliments, questions about the lighting or the type of rope he had used. Yuuji smiled without realizing it when he read a message from someone who called themselves seaurchin_99: «The texture of the fogged glass is brutal. Did you use glycerin or just water vapor?». He replied with a «just vapor and patience» and kept scrolling.

That was when he found them.

«Same thing again.»

«Okay, buddy, it’s getting old. Always the same pose, the same window, the same rope. Can’t you think of anything new?»

«This is a copy-paste of your January series but with less light.»

«You used to be great, now you look like a generic OnlyFans.»

Yuuji blinked.

The cursor stayed still over the third comment. He read it several times. It wasn’t the most hurtful, it wasn’t even especially cruel, but something about the word «generic» dug under his nails and he couldn’t get it out.

Generic.

He, who broke his back every damn session to find an angle that hadn’t been seen a thousand times. He, who measured the light with the obsession of a watchmaker and who sometimes spent twenty minutes staring at a photograph without blinking, looking for the error, the line that was too much, the pixel out of place. He, who had been paying hospital bills with every damn premium subscription he managed to get for two years.

Generic.

He ran a hand over his face. His fingers were cold. The desk lamp buzzed for a moment, as if it also wanted to give its opinion, and then returned to its constant electric murmur.

With a calm he didn’t feel, he closed the forum page, moved the mouse to the upper right corner, clicked on the white X over the red background, and stared at the desktop. The wallpaper was an old photograph, from when he was seventeen: his grandfather asleep in the porch armchair, the afternoon light falling on his crossed hands, his glasses about to slip off his nose. He had taken it with a borrowed camera from school. An analog Canon that revealed grainy negatives like sandstorms.

That photo wasn’t generic. That photo was a memory with a pulse.

Feeling especially tired, he got up from the desk.

The studio, if you could call it that, was a single room that served as bedroom, living room, kitchen and photo studio. The bed was pushed against the back wall, covered with a navy blue comforter that had a cigarette burn in one corner. He didn’t smoke, but Nobara did. The sofa, technically, was inherited from a classmate who moved to Osaka. The fridge purred. The shower dripped one drop every nine seconds exactly.

Yuuji walked to the window and rested his forehead against the cold glass.

The city slept with that slow breathing of three in the morning. Yellow streetlight lights, a cat crossing the street, the blinking neon of the 24-hour corner store. He tried not to think about the comments, but it was already too late: they had hooked into his brain like weed seeds and every time he breathed they pricked him a little more.

«Always the same pose.»

«Copy paste.»

«Generic.»

He wondered if they were right. It wasn’t the first time he had considered it; in fact, he considered it every month, like a menstrual cycle of insecurities. Was he stuck? Was he repeating himself? Was this the limit of his talent?

He stepped away from the window and returned to the desk. He opened the folder where he kept ideas for future sessions. There were sketches on bar napkins, notes in the phone’s notepad, screenshots of Romanticism paintings, frames from silent films, a PDF on traditional shibari, another on Caravaggio lighting. He didn’t lack ideas. What he lacked was someone to inhabit them.

Because that was the problem, wasn’t it?

Photographing himself was practical, cheap and didn’t require negotiating schedules. But it had a physical and anatomical limit. He could only achieve certain angles with his own arms. He could only convey certain emotions with his own face. And no matter how much he mastered the timer, there was something in the interaction with another body, another gaze, another breath, that no selfie could replicate.

He needed a model. A good model. Someone willing to play with light, rope and skin without their pulse trembling.

The idea had been floating in the room’s air for weeks, settling on the furniture like a fine layer of dust he pretended not to see. Now, with the comments still burning on the back of his neck, he decided to stop pretending.

He sat down, opened the forum again, and wrote a post:

@tiger_eye_studio

Looking for a model for erotic photography / visual exploration sessions.

No previous experience required, only willingness to work with natural light, decorative ropes (basic shibari) and partial or full nudity as mutually agreed.

Professional and respectful environment.

Payment per session or portfolio exchange.

DMs open if you’re interested or if you know someone.
RT appreciated.

He published it before fear made him delete it.

Then he turned off the desk lamp, closed the laptop and lay down on the bed. The ceiling had a water stain shaped like Australia. He stared at it fixedly, eyes dry, head full of white noise, and didn’t fall asleep until the sky began to lighten behind the curtains.

The morning arrived too soon and with the specific cruelty of Wednesdays.

Yuuji entered the faculty with a vending machine coffee in one hand and his backpack hanging from one shoulder. He wore his faithful yellow hoodie, sneakers that had been white in another century, and his hair messy in a way that could only mean «I slept with wet bangs and we’ll see what happens». The dark circles reached almost to his cheekbones, but he smiled out of inertia every time someone greeted him.

The university was an ugly 1970s building with modern additions that clashed like patches from another outfit. The Visual Arts wing had wide hallways, white walls full of exhibition posters and a permanent smell of fixative and burnt coffee. Yuuji turned left at the end of the corridor and pushed open the photography lab door with his hip.

—You’re late —said Nobara without looking up from the mirror.

She was sitting in front of one of the vanities in the back, surrounded by shadow palettes, brushes with bitten handles and a cup of green tea that was steaming dangerously close to a bottle of liquid highlighter. She had her hair pulled up in a high ponytail and red-framed glasses that she only wore when working.

—Time is a government invention —Yuuji replied, dropping his backpack on a table—. Besides, class starts in ten minutes.

—My class starts when I say. And today I said I need a guinea pig to test this contouring technique I saw in a tutorial from a Brooklyn drag queen.

Yuuji dropped onto the swivel stool next to her. The seat let out a metallic creak. —Contouring? Isn’t that runway makeup?

—That’s what I like about you, Itadori. You always listen to half of things and still give your opinion. —Nobara turned toward him and held his chin with two fingers, examining his face like a forensic scientist examines a corpse—. God, your skin looks terrible today. Did you sleep at all?

—A couple of hours.

—Editing?

—Editing and existing. A dangerous combination.

Nobara let out a snort that was half laugh, half huff and began applying a liquid base to his forehead with quick, precise movements. It smelled floral and chemical at the same time. The brush bristles tickled the bridge of his nose.

—I saw the new photo —she said, changing her tone. Now she spoke lower, without the sarcastic edge from before—. The one with the window. It’s really good, Yuuji.

—Thanks.

—No, seriously. The texture of the glass, the way the light falls on the shoulders… There’s something almost painterly about it. Like a Rembrandt but with ropes. —She applied translucent powder with a large, soft brush—. Did you see the comments?

—Yes.

—Did you read the bad ones?

—I read them all.

Nobara stayed still for a second. Then she continued doing his makeup as if nothing had happened, but he knew her well enough to notice the subtle change in the brush pressure. Less force. More care.

—They’re idiots —she declared—. You’ve spent two years building your own style and now it turns out it’s «generic» because you’re not doing what’s trendy this week. People don’t understand anything about creative processes. They want fast consumption, infinite variety, new emotions every twenty-four hours. And if you don’t give it to them, they get bored and spit on you. It’s emotional capitalism, or something like that. I read it on Twitter.

Yuuji sketched a half smile. —You sound like you’re about to sell me a course.

—Shut up and close your eyes, I’m going to do your eyeliner.

He obeyed. With his eyelids closed, the world reduced to sensations: the wet brush sliding along the lash line, the smell of green tea mixed with the acetone from an open bottle somewhere, the music playing from Nobara’s phone speaker (something electronic and melancholic he didn’t recognize). He breathed deeply and let his shoulders relax a little.

—I posted an ad —he said, almost without meaning to.

The brush stopped a millimeter.

—An ad for what?

—Looking for a model. For the sessions. You know.

Silence.

—Open them —Nobara ordered.

He obeyed again. His friend’s face was twenty centimeters from his, her brown eyes narrowed with an expression that wasn’t exactly surprise. It was more like… silent validation. As if she had been waiting months for that ad and hadn’t wanted to say it out loud for fear of pressuring him.

—It was about time —she said at last—. You’ve been photographing yourself for too long. You’re a good model, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a big difference between self-portraiture and getting trapped in your own reflection. You need another body. Another energy. Someone who pulls you out of your comfort zone.

—That’s exactly what I was thinking at three in the morning. But now, in the light of day, it scares me a bit.

—Fear is good. It means you’re doing something that matters. —She gave him a tap on the nose with the end of the brush—. Any responses?

—I posted it last night. I haven’t checked yet.

—Well, check now.

Yuuji hesitated. Then he took the phone out of his hoodie pocket and opened the forum. The post had one hundred twelve interactions and eleven direct messages.

—I have eleven DMs —he announced, with a mix of excitement and panic rising up his throat like sparkling water.

—Eleven? —Nobara leaned in to look at the screen, completely forgetting the half-done eyeliner—. Okay, let’s filter quickly. Any message that starts with «hey bb» or «you’re so hot» goes straight to the trash. Anyone asking for free content, blocked. Anyone who says «I’ve never done this but I’d like to try» could be potential if the tone is respectful.

—You’re really good at filtering.

—I’ve been dealing with men on the internet since I was fourteen. I have an involuntary PhD. —She rummaged through the brushes and found a thin one that she bit distractedly—. Go ahead and open them. I’m dying of curiosity.

Yuuji went through the messages one by one.

The first: «Hi, I saw your ad. I have experience in artistic modeling and I’m very interested in your style. If you want we can grab a coffee and talk.» It was signed by someone with a sunflower avatar and a name that sounded like a Fine Arts student. He saved it in the «possibles» folder and kept going.

The second was a «hey bb» and Nobara deleted it with a swipe without asking.

The third was from a guy in Osaka offering collaboration but only in town for two days. Discarded.

The fourth was from a user named megumi_blackout who simply said: «If you need me again, let me know. But no ropes this time, it takes me a week to get the marks out.» Yuuji let out a chuckle and Nobara raised an eyebrow.

—It’s Fushiguro —he clarified—. I’ve photographed him a couple of times. He’s a good model, but ropes make him nervous.

—Fushiguro is a scared cat in a goth body. Of course ropes make him nervous. —Nobara pointed at the screen—. Keep going, keep going.

The next messages were a mix of vague proposals, awkward compliments and a surprisingly professional offer from someone named okkotsu_y who said he had experience in contemporary dance and was interested in exploring the relationship between movement and restriction. Yuuji starred it.

He reached the last message.

The sender had an absurdly long username: the_strongest_eyes_youll_ever_see_and_theyre_blue. The avatar was a close-up of round sunglasses against a white background. No real profile picture. No bio. No previous posts.

The message said:

S
I’ve seen your work. I like the light you use.

Very few photographers understand that light is half the story.

If you’re looking for a model, I’m interested.

I have no experience, but I learn fast.

I can do Tuesday at 17:00.

Attached is a reference photo so you can see my build and skin tone.

Greetings,
S.

Yuuji read the message three times. Something in the tone gave him a strange unease. It was polite but not submissive. Confident but not arrogant. And that last phrase —«light is half the story»— touched an intimate nerve, an idea he himself had defended in academic drunken conversations with his classmates.

—This one —he said without thinking.

Nobara leaned in. —The one with the sunglasses? With that ridiculous username? Yuuji, that’s a walking red flag.

—Why?

—Because no one who calls themselves «the strongest eyes» in an erotic photography forum is a normal person. At minimum he’s an exhibitionist. At maximum he’s a serial killer.

—You’re so dramatic.

—I’m realistic. It’s my curse.

Despite the protests, Nobara didn’t take the phone from his hands. She just watched, with the brush forgotten between her fingers, while Yuuji opened the attached photo.

The image showed a man in full body, standing against a white wall, in street clothes, dark jeans, black t-shirt, hands in his pockets. He was tall. Very tall. Broad shoulders but not bulky, a stylized build, with long and elegant proportions. His face wasn’t visible: the frame cut off his head just below the chin. But you could make out a defined jaw, a long neck, very fair skin, almost pale, that contrasted with the white hair that barely showed at the bottom edge of the image.

Yuuji stared at that tiny detail, that fragment of snow-white hair that didn’t look dyed but natural, like the snow that appears on mountain peaks even in summer.

—Okay —Nobara said after a long silence—. He’s handsome.

—You can’t see his face.

—You don’t need to. With those shoulders and that jaw I can already tell you he’s handsome. Plus, the white hair is very visually striking. It would look good in your photos. Strong contrast with the dark rope you usually use.

—So you’re giving me permission?

—You don’t need my permission, idiot. But if he kidnaps you, I want you to know that I told you «I warned you» and that I’ll use your disappearance as an excuse to miss two exams.

Yuuji smiled and wrote a reply.

Yuuji:

Hi, S. Thanks for writing to me.

I’m glad you value the lighting work, it’s one of the things I take most care with.

I saw your reference photo and I think your build could work really well for the type of compositions I want to do.

Tuesday at 17:00 works perfectly for me. My studio is in Shimokitazawa; I’ll send you the address if you confirm.

Ah, and do you have any preferences or limits regarding the sessions? That way I can have everything ready in advance.

Greetings,
Yuuji.

The reply came in less than a minute.

S
Shimokitazawa works for me.

No limits, no preferences.

I adapt to whatever you need.

Should I bring anything?

S.

No limits. No preferences.

Yuuji frowned. That response was… curious. Most inexperienced models tended to be cautious, full of questions and conditions. This guy spoke as if posing naked and tied up in front of a stranger was as routine as buying bread.

—He says he has no limits or preferences —he told Nobara, who had already gone back to focusing on the eyeliner—. Doesn’t that seem weird to you?

—It seems suspicious. But it also seems interesting. People without filters usually give good photographic material.

—That’s a very shady thing to say coming from you.

—Shady, but true.

At 16:55 on Tuesday, Yuuji was nervous.

He wouldn’t admit it out loud, but his body betrayed him in ways that even Nobara didn’t need to see to know. He had been repositioning the silver reflector by the window for ten minutes. He moved it five centimeters to the left, stepped back, looked at it, moved it three centimeters to the right, stepped back again, shook his head and started over.

The studio was tidier than usual. The bed was made. The dishes were clean and put away. The desk table was cleared. In the center of the room, on the worn wooden floor, he had laid out a black tatami that cost him a kidney every time he washed it. Next to it, a wicker box where he kept the ropes: cotton, jute, synthetic hemp. In different thicknesses and colors. He had chosen a dark red cotton one to start. Soft. Flexible. Pretty on camera.

Next to the box, a small side table with the equipment: the main camera, a second-hand Sony A7III that he had bought after months of saving, two lenses, a tripod, a portable flash that he barely used because he preferred natural light, and an external monitor connected so he could see the shots in real time.

He had everything ready. It had been ready for an hour.

What he didn’t have was calm.

He looked at himself in the reflection of the turned-off monitor. Nobara had done his eyeliner that morning —“so you look handsome on first impression”— and he had put on a plain black t-shirt because it seemed more professional. But he still had the same dark circles, the same messy hair and the same anxious golden retriever expression.

He took a deep breath.

—It’s just a model —he told himself out loud—. You’ve done this before. With Fushiguro, with Inumaki-senpai. It’s not different.

But it was different. Because the others were his friends. He knew them. He knew which expressions were hard for them, which poses made them uncomfortable, when they were tired or bored or simply not themselves. They were familiar territory.

This S. was a complete stranger. A stranger with a ridiculous username, a chiseled jaw and a way of writing that was unsettlingly serene.

The doorbell rang at 16:59.

Yuuji startled as if he had received an electric shock. He smoothed his t-shirt with sweaty palms and crossed the four steps that separated him from the door.

When he opened the door, the first thing he saw was a white button-up shirt. With the sleeves rolled up to the forearm. Underneath, dark pants with an impeccable cut. Shoes that cost more than the rent of his apartment. Subtle, woody cologne with an underlying sweet note he couldn’t identify.

The second thing he saw was the hair. White. Fresh snow. Wavy at the tips, falling over the forehead with a naturalness that seemed rehearsed but probably wasn’t.

The third was a pair of round sunglasses, completely opaque, that hid the eyes but not the smile. A smile that spread slowly, like a crack in the ice, and had something of private amusement, an inside joke that only he understood.

—Itadori Yuuji? —asked the stranger. The voice was velvety, with a slightly higher register than Yuuji had expected for someone of his height—. I’m Satoru. The one from the ad.

Yuuji opened his mouth.

And then, like a puzzle completing itself in a terrible moment of clarity, the pieces fell into place. The white hair. The jaw. The sunglasses. The height. That voice he had heard in interviews, in commercials, in the damn gym television. That silhouette he had seen on huge billboards on the way to university. That elegant predator stride that belonged to only one man in all of Japan.

Yuuji’s brain emitted an audible short circuit. Something clicked and then cracked and then nothing.

He closed the door.

He simply pushed it hard with the palm of his hand, without thinking, without processing, without giving any explanation. The frame vibrated with a dry bang that echoed down the hallway and bounced off the studio walls like a tiny gunshot.

Then he leaned back against the wood.

His back against the rough surface. Palms open, flattened on both sides of his hips. His chest rising and falling with a breath that sounded like the ragged panting of a cornered animal. His eyes were wide open, fixed on an undefined point on the ceiling, and his mind was a white whirlwind where words spun without forming sentences.

That was Gojo Satoru.

The. Gojo. Satoru.

Japan’s most famous supermodel. The most beautiful man according to three magazines and a morning show. The face that sold colognes, watches, sunglasses and probably anything he looked at. The guy who appeared on Vogue covers, on Shibuya billboards, in YouTube ads you couldn’t skip. That Gojo Satoru.

Outside. His. Door.

Waiting. In the hallway. In front of 4B. Next to the dusty fire extinguisher and the dead potted plant that the neighbor in 4A had forgotten to water for six months.

Yuuji let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding and made a sound that wasn’t exactly a word. Something between a moan and a “no” and a hysterical laugh that got stuck in his throat.

It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. It had to be a hallucination. A joke. A hired actor. An evil twin. Something. Anything. Because the real Gojo Satoru couldn’t be in Shimokitazawa, in a building without an elevator, looking to model for a nobody who edited photos at dawn and had cold broth for dinner.

Impossible.

Absurd.

Right?

He stayed there, flattened against the door like a butterfly in a collector’s frame, with his heart pounding against his ribs and his cheeks burning in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature.

On the other side of the door, the silence was absolute.

Yuuji swallowed. He licked his lips. He forced himself to breathe once, twice, three times. Then, with the feeling that he was making the biggest mistake of his life, or perhaps the most improbable right decision, he turned on his heels and opened the door again.

Just a crack at first. Just enough to peek out with one eye.

He was still there.

It was still him.

It was still Gojo Satoru, standing in the hallway, with his hands in his pockets and a vaguely amused expression that hadn’t moved an inch. He didn’t look offended. He didn’t look surprised. He looked… entertained. As if they had just served him a particularly tasty appetizer.

—Hello again —said Satoru, with that irritating calm—. Are you going to slam the door in my face again or can I come in?

Yuuji opened the door all the way.

He opened his mouth.

He closed it.

He opened it again.

Air entered his throat and got stuck there, like a fish out of water, like an engine trying to start in winter and only producing sputters. He moved his lips. No sound came out. He tried again and the only thing he managed was a choked sound, an attempt at a syllable that died before it was born. He pointed at Satoru with a trembling finger. Then pointed at the void. Then pointed at himself. His hand moved back and forth in an absurd ballet of disbelief.

—You’re… —he finally managed to say. His voice came out strangled, hoarse, as if someone had placed an invisible hand around his throat and was squeezing it very slowly—. You are… Gojo Satoru.

Satoru took off his sunglasses with almost ceremonial slowness. He folded them. He put them in his shirt pocket. And when he lifted his gaze, Yuuji received the full impact of those blue eyes, truly blue, impossibly blue, blue eyes that shouldn’t exist outside a Photoshop filter, and felt his knees go a little weak.

—The same one —said Satoru, smiling as if confirming a secret—. Can I come in?

The problem with having everything is that nothing surprises you.

Satoru Gojo had learned this lesson at twenty-two, sitting in a hotel suite in Milan with views of the Duomo and a glass of lukewarm champagne between his fingers, while his agent listed the figures of his new contract over the phone. Eight zeros. His face on three Shibuya billboards. An international campaign for a sunglasses brand that, ironically, he would never wear on the street because he preferred his own. The usual ones. The round, opaque ones that made the world a more bearable place.

At twenty-nine, the lesson had solidified in his chest like fresh cement.

He was rich. He was desired. He was, according to three different magazines and a morning show that his assistant had shown him on the iPad, “the most beautiful man in Japan.” And he was mortally bored.

It wasn’t a common boredom, the kind cured by an impromptu trip or dinner at a new restaurant. It was an existential boredom, a kind of dense fog that seeped through the cracks of his luxury apartment in Roppongi Hills and occupied every room. He woke up at ten, stared at the ceiling for twenty minutes, had breakfast with fruit cut by a private chef who barely spoke, went to the gym in the penthouse, posed for photo shoots that demanded nothing from him, smiled for covers that provoked nothing in him, and returned home with the feeling of having played the same role seven hundred times.

Beauty was a velvet prison. And he had the key, but not the lock.

That Wednesday afternoon, because it was Wednesday, and Wednesdays were particularly unbearable, he was sprawled on the sofa in his living room, legs dangling over the armrest and his phone held fifteen centimeters from his face. The sunglasses rested on the coffee table, next to a fashion magazine he hadn’t opened and a bowl of grapes he had no intention of eating. Without the glasses, the world was a bombardment of stimuli: the reflections of the sun on the buildings opposite, the glow of the screen, the saturated colors of the abstract art his decorator had hung on the north wall. Everything bothered him. Everything was the same to him.

He scrolled through the screen aimlessly. Instagram, Twitter, a news app, Instagram again. The same faces, the same poses, the same motivational phrases written by community managers who earned more than a surgeon. He yawned. He scratched his jaw. He thought about ordering sushi. He thought about not ordering anything. He thought about how boring it was to think.

And then, without really knowing how, he landed on a forum.

It wasn’t just any forum. It was one of those corners of the internet where people posted erotic art with aesthetic pretensions. Photography, illustration, visual poetry. Satoru knew it vaguely because an ex, or something like an ex, a model he had shared a bed and silences with for two months, had told him about it years ago. “There are people with real talent in there,” she had said. “Not like the ones in our world, who only know how to press a button and hope your face does the rest.”

He had laughed then. Now, with nothing better to do, he started looking.

He scrolled.

Photos of hands tied with silk ribbons. Chiaroscuro of anonymous torsos. Geometric compositions where the human body was just another line in the frame. Some were bad. Others were pretentious. Most were forgettable.

But then a photo appeared that made him stop.

A fogged window. A silhouette outlined against the steam. A bare torso, wrists surrounded by a thin rope, a golden dusk light wrapping the shoulders like an embrace. There was no drama. There was no exaggeration. There was something harder to achieve: intimacy. The feeling of looking at something you shouldn’t see, not because it was obscene, but because it was private.

Satoru sat up on the sofa.

He entered the profile. tiger_eye_studio. Laconic bio. No real profile picture. A bunch of similar posts: self-portraits, light play, ropes, textures. All with that same contained pulse, that same almost painful sensitivity. The guy, because Satoru assumed it was a guy even without confirmation, understood light. Understood the rhythm of an image. Understood that eroticism wasn’t in what was shown, but in what was suggested.

It was good. It was very good.

And it was exactly what Satoru needed to kill an afternoon.

He kept looking through the profile. He read the comments. Some were complimentary, others were garbage. “Always the same.” “Generic.” “Copy paste.” Satoru raised an eyebrow. People were idiots. They didn’t know how to tell the difference between a style and repetition. They didn’t understand that a real artist didn’t change their voice every week to please a volatile audience; they refined it. They deepened it. They made it more their own.

Then he saw the ad.

“Looking for a model for erotic photography / visual exploration sessions.”

He read it twice. He took a sip of sparkling water that had been warm for hours. He rested his chin on the palm of his hand. And he smiled.

He didn’t need the money. He didn’t need the exposure. He didn’t need anything that unknown photographer could offer him. But he needed something to do. Something that didn’t taste like a contract, an obligation, a rehearsed pose in front of a camera he already knew by heart. Something that would take him out of the golden circuit of magazines and runways and put him in a tiny studio with peeling walls and a photographer who had no idea who he was.

Not at first. Maybe never. Presenting himself as just anyone, a curious person, someone who had seen the ad and wanted to try. No last name. No history. Without the weight of being Gojo Satoru crushing every interaction before it even began.

He wrote a message with the most ridiculous username he could think of, the_strongest_eyes_youll_ever_see_and_theyre_blue. It seemed appropriately absurd and he attached a photo cropped below the chin.

The reply came quickly. The photographer, Yuuji, signed as Yuuji, was polite, professional, slightly awkward in his formality. He liked it. He liked that he asked about limits and preferences. He liked that he said “that way I can have everything ready in advance,” as if preparing things in advance was his way of controlling the chaos of the world.

He confirmed the address. Shimokitazawa. A neighborhood of narrow streets, second-hand shops and hipster cafés. Perfect for an indie photographer who lived on ramen and edited at dawn.

The following Tuesday, at 16:47, Satoru Gojo put on a white shirt, dark pants, his round sunglasses, and left his penthouse in Roppongi Hills with the closest feeling to excitement he had experienced in months.

In the elevator, he looked at himself in the mirror. He saw a tall, attractive man with snow-white hair and a chiseled jaw. He saw Japan’s most sought-after model. He saw the face that sold colognes, watches and sunglasses. And he thought: “I hope he doesn’t recognize me. I hope he has no fucking idea who I am.”

Because if he recognized him, the game would be over. If he recognized him, he would go back to being Gojo Satoru, the untouchable, the unreachable, the one who charged astronomical figures just to be looked at. And he didn’t want that. He wanted to be S., the stranger from the ad. He wanted someone to look at him without expectations, without prejudices, without the media noise that surrounded his name like a constant buzz.

He wanted, for once, to just be himself.

Yuuji’s building was on a narrow alley that smelled of ramen and hanging laundry. Five floors with no elevator, a narrow staircase with a loose handrail, doorbells with names written by hand on colorful labels. Satoru found 4B —“Itadori Y.”— and pressed the button with the tip of his index finger, as if prolonged contact would dirty him.

He waited.

Ten seconds.

He heard footsteps on the other side. Someone tripped over something —a chair, maybe, or a pile of books— and let out a muffled “shit” that drew an involuntary smile from him. Then the deadbolt, the chain, another deadbolt. So much security for such a quiet neighborhood, he thought.

The door opened.

And Satoru Gojo found himself facing a boy with messy strawberry-and-chocolate colored hair and dark circles that spoke of too many sleepless nights and too much bad coffee. He had big, expressive eyes, a warm brown that reminded him of caramel. A straight nose. Cheeks slightly flushed from the effort of running to the door. His hands, restless, rubbing his thighs as if he didn’t know what to do with them.

He was handsome. Not magazine handsome. Real handsome. The kind of handsome that doesn’t know it and is therefore even more attractive.

—Hi —said Satoru, with his best stranger’s smile—Itadori Yuuji? I’m Satoru.

The boy closed the door in his face.

He closed it.

He opened it again.

Something crossed his eyes. A spark. Recognition. A silent “this can’t be” that shot across his face like lightning and left his expression frozen somewhere between astonishment and panic.

And Satoru knew.

Shit.

He had recognized him.

—You’re… —Yuuji’s voice sounded strangled, as if someone had placed a hand around his throat— You are… Gojo Satoru.

Satoru took off his sunglasses with deliberate slowness, letting his blue eyes do the rest of the work. The fourth-floor hallway was hardly a Milan runway, but he knew how to make an entrance even on a landing with peeling paint.

—The same one —he said—. Can I come in?

Yuuji didn’t move. He stayed rooted in the doorway like a tiny, terrified guardian, his yellow hoodie shining under the dim hallway light. He shook his head very slowly, as if he were processing the information in real time and his brain was a computer with low RAM.

—No. No, no, no. Wait. Wait a moment. —He raised both hands, palms open, in a defensive gesture—. You’re Gojo Satoru. The model. The… the supermodel. The one on the covers. The one in the campaigns. The… the most beautiful man in Japan. —He pronounced the last part as if it were a criminal accusation—. You can’t be S. You can’t be the one who wrote to me. You can’t… —He ran a hand through his hair, messing it up even more—. You can’t be at my door!

—And yet, here I am.

—But why!?

Satoru slipped his hands into his pockets. He rocked slightly on his heels, amused. It had been years since anyone had reacted like this to him. Yelling at him. Accusing him of being himself. It was refreshing. It was hilarious. It was exactly what he had come looking for.

—I saw your ad —he replied casually— I liked your work. I wrote to you. You replied. You gave me an address. I’m here. It’s not that complicated.

—It’s very complicated! —Yuuji pointed at the void, at nothing, at the entire universe— You’re famous! You charge millions! You were in Vogue! I can’t pay what you charge even if I sold both kidneys and part of my liver!

—I haven’t told you what I charge.

—You don’t need to! Everyone knows!

—Oh, really? How much do I charge, then?

Yuuji stammered. He opened his mouth. He closed it. He moved his hands as if doing mental calculations and all of them errored. Satoru watched the spectacle with a wider and wider smile, feeling the cement of boredom cracking for the first time in months.

—I don’t know —Yuuji admitted at last, defeated—. A lot. Thousands. Millions. Whatever. More than I can pay.

—Probably.

—Then what are you doing here? —The question sounded more vulnerable than Yuuji probably intended. There was something beneath the panic, something like hope. Or disbelief. Or both—. Is this a joke? A hidden camera? Is someone filming me?

He looked to the sides, toward the stairs, toward the landing window. As if he expected to see a television crew hidden behind the fire extinguisher. Satoru shook his head.

—It’s not a joke. There are no cameras. It’s just me, a boring Tuesday, and your photos, which I genuinely liked. —He paused—. Are you going to let me in or are we going to have this conversation in the hallway so all your neighbors can hear?

Yuuji stayed still for one more second. Then, like someone diving into a pool without knowing if there’s water, he took a step back and freed the doorway.

—Come in —he said, with the voice of someone who had just signed a pact with the devil—. But I can’t promise I won’t have a heart attack in the next ten minutes.

—I’ll keep that in mind.

The studio was small, cluttered, and surprisingly cozy. Satoru scanned it with his gaze as he took off his shoes, registering every detail: the bed pushed against the wall, the sofa, the water stain on the ceiling shaped like a continent, the crooked desk lamp, the black tatami, the box of ropes. It smelled of instant noodles, coffee, and something vaguely chemical—photographic fixative, he supposed. He liked it. It was the kind of space that smelled like real work, like hours and hours of solitary obsession.

Yuuji had remained standing in the center of the room, arms crossed and jaw tight. He looked like a cornered animal. A very cute animal, but cornered.

—Okay —he said— Let’s talk. Because I don’t understand anything.

—Go ahead.

—You’re Gojo Satoru.

—Yes.

—Japan’s most famous model.

—According to some magazines.

—The one on billboards and covers and perfume campaigns.

—The perfume smelled terrible, but yes.

—The one who charges fortunes per session.

—So they say.

—And you’re in my apartment.

—I’m in your apartment.

—Wanting to model for me.

—Wanting to model for you.

—For my photos. That I upload to an internet forum.

—For those photos, exactly.

Yuuji fell silent. He blinked. His fingers tightened on his own arms. Satoru could see the gears turning behind his brown eyes, trying to make sense of a situation that made none.

—I can’t pay you —he said at last, with a raw honesty that almost hurt—. I can’t even come close to what you charge. My budget is… —He paused, swallowed—. Basically nonexistent. What I earn on the forum goes to bills, debts, and food. Sometimes just to bills and debts. And food is optional. And I don't know why I'm telling you this...— The pink-haired girl covered her face and sighed.— Sorry, I'm sorry, how embarrassing.

Satoru tilted his head. The afternoon light came in through the window, golden and warm, painting coppery reflections on his skin. He stared at Yuuji for a long moment, evaluating him. Not like a predator evaluates prey, but like a collector evaluates a rare piece. Something he hadn’t expected to find. —I haven’t asked you for money —he said.

—You haven’t asked, but…

—But nothing. I don’t care about the money. —Satoru shrugged, the minimal gesture he had already mentally rehearsed in the car on the way— I have enough. I have more than enough. I have so much I could buy this entire building and turn it into a bowling alley and still have money left for shoes.

Yuuji looked at him as if he had spoken in another language. —Then… what do you want?

There was the question. The question Satoru didn’t want to answer completely, because the real answer, “I’m so bored I’m dying inside and you’re the most interesting thing that’s happened to me in six months,” seemed too pathetic to say out loud.

—I want to model —he said simply—. I want to do something different. Something that isn’t posing for people who already know how I pose. I want someone to look at me without knowing in advance what they’re going to see.

Yuuji frowned. He didn’t seem satisfied with the answer, but something in his expression relaxed a millimeter. —Okay —he said—. Let’s suppose I believe you. Let’s suppose Japan’s most famous model wants me, a nobody, to take his photos. I still can’t pay you. Not in money, not in…

Satoru raised a hand. —But I have one condition.

—What?

—My face doesn’t appear in the photographs.

Yuuji blinked several times. —Your… face?

—I don’t want to be recognized. I don’t want this to end up in the media. I don’t want anyone to know that Gojo Satoru poses for an indie photographer on an internet forum. —He smiled, slyly—. If they find out I’m doing this, my agent will kill me. And although that sounds fun, I’d rather avoid it.

—But… why?

—Because it’s more interesting this way. —Satoru tapped a finger to his temple—. People won’t look at my photos thinking “oh, it’s Gojo Satoru, how handsome he is.” They’ll look at them without knowing who I am. They’ll see only a body. A light. A composition. And if they like it, they’ll like it for what you’ve done, not for what I am.

The explanation floated in the air of the room, mixing with the golden afternoon dust. Yuuji received it with wide eyes and his mouth slightly open. Something changed in his face. The panic gave way, replaced by a kind of perplexed amazement. As if he had just understood something and that something was too big for him to process.

—You want… —he started, and stopped. He started again—. You want me to photograph you without showing your face. So that people appreciate the photo for the photo. Not for you.

—Exactly.

—That’s… —Yuuji searched for the word—. Very weird.

—I know.

—And very generous. In a strange way.

—I know that too. —Satoru put his hands back in his pockets and rocked on his heels—. So? Deal?

Yuuji lowered his arms. He let them fall to his sides as if he had just dropped an enormous weight. The tension left his shoulders, and what remained was a twenty-four-year-old boy with sleepless dark circles and a passion so great for his craft that it had made him stand up to Japan’s most sought-after model without realizing he was doing it.

—How much do you want to charge, then? —he asked, stubborn until the end—. Because I’m not going to let you work for free. That’s not fair.

—Charge me whatever you can afford. And if you can’t pay anything, invite me to dinner one day. —Satoru smiled, and this time the smile wasn’t a mask or an accessory—. I like ramen.

Yuuji let out a laugh. It came from somewhere deep in his chest, unexpected and bright, and for a moment it lit up the studio more than all the afternoon light combined. —Okay —he said—. Okay. Deal.

They shook hands. Yuuji’s skin was warm and rough, with gym calluses on the knuckles. Satoru’s was cold and smooth, as always. The contrast lasted exactly three seconds, but their fingers stayed still a moment longer than strictly necessary.

Satoru withdrew his hand first.

—Well —he said, nodding toward the tatami with his chin—. Show me those ropes.

The silence that followed the agreement was not uncomfortable, but it was dense, like the air before a summer storm. Yuuji rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture that Satoru was already starting to recognize as his defense mechanism when the wires in his head short-circuited.

—Well —said Yuuji, clearing his throat with a hoarse sound—. If... if you’re really sure about this, we should start. The afternoon light is dropping fast and it’s the best one that comes through this window. After eight, I’m left with just the desk lamp and a low-energy bulb that flickers if I turn on the microwave.

Satoru simply looked at him, amused by the sudden professional urgency the boy had adopted. There was something fascinating about how Yuuji tried to ignore the fact that he had a celebrity in his studio apartment, forcing himself to focus on the technical aspects.

—I had several ideas noted down in the notebook —Yuuji continued, walking toward the table where his camera rested, which looked like it had seen better days, with a frayed strap— More complex concepts, with full harnesses and partial suspension on the wall. But... since this is your first time with this, and I don’t know how comfortable you feel with movement restriction, I preferred to simplify it. I don’t want it to be suffocating. *Shibari* isn’t about hurting, it’s about structural tension. About the contrast between the body’s resistance and the rope’s rigidity. I want you to feel comfortable.

Satoru raised an eyebrow, pleased by the subtext of the explanation. —Comfortable? —he repeated, dragging the word with light mockery—. Itadori, if you wanted me comfortable you would have invited me for coffee, not to tie me up like a Christmas present. But well… —he shrugged with exaggerated indifference, though his eyes shone with something too alive to be mere boredom—. Surprise me, photographer. Show me how “simple” this can be.

Yuuji swallowed and nodded, trying to ignore the heat rising up the back of his neck. —Okay. Then... —he turned, pointing to the bed that served as an improvised studio—. You’ll have to take off your top. Pants are fine, you don’t need to remove them, but I need clean skin so the rope can draw the lines on your torso.

Satoru shrugged again with an almost insulting naturalness, although inside, a small and sharp filament of anticipation began to vibrate. He brought his hands to the hem of his high-fashion shirt and, with a single fluid movement, pulled it off over his head.

Yuuji, who was adjusting the camera lens, looked up at that exact moment. And he froze.

Physically, Satoru was an anomaly. It wasn’t simply that he was in good shape; it was the almost architectural proportion of his body. The width of the shoulders that tapered into a clean waist, the collarbone so defined it looked sculpted in marble, and skin of an almost unreal paleness, devoid of any imperfections, moles or sun marks. With no armpit hair due to the demands of his fashion work, the continuity of his body lines was perfect. A white canvas, smooth, cold to the eye but strangely magnetic.

Yuuji felt the air catch in his larynx. A sudden, violent and purely biological heat rose up his neck, painting his cheeks a bright red. He abruptly looked away toward the wall with the water stain, blinking hard, while his fingers gripped the camera so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

—Is something wrong? —asked Satoru. There was a note of lazy amusement in his voice, but also genuine curiosity upon noticing the photographer’s silent collapse.

—Nothing. Nothing’s wrong —Yuuji stammered, forcing himself to sound professional, though his voice came out an octave higher than normal—. It’s just... the lighting. It’s good. It’s going to work. Sit on the bed. On your knees, please. With your heels under your glutes.

Satoru obeyed without protest. He climbed onto the mattress, which creaked slightly under his weight, and settled into the seiza position. The contrast was already evident: Gojo Satoru’s slender and aristocratic body, a man who dined in Paris and slept in five-star hotels, posed on a worn cotton sheet in a room that smelled of instant soup.

Yuuji left the camera on the table and approached the wooden box. When he returned to the bed, he held in his hands a coil of dark brown hemp rope, previously treated with beeswax to soften the fiber’s natural roughness.

The atmosphere in the room changed drastically when Yuuji knelt behind Satoru.

The distance between them shrank to just a few centimeters. Satoru couldn’t see him, but he could feel the heat radiating from Yuuji’s body, the slightly accelerated rhythm of his breathing and the clean scent of cheap soap and fresh gym sweat.

—I’m going to touch you —Yuuji warned. His voice had dropped a tone, becoming slower, deeper. The photographer mode had taken control, dragging the nerves with it— Bring your arms behind you. Cross your wrists at the base of your back.

Satoru did so. The movement made his shoulder blades come together, tensing the muscles in his back.

Yuuji passed the first loop of rope around Satoru’s wrists. The hemp, though treated, retained a rough texture that scratched the sensitive skin on the inner side of Satoru’s arms. At the first contact, a wave of electric current seemed to run down the model’s spine; the pores on his arms closed instantly and a fine layer of goosebumps spread across his shoulders.

Satoru held his breath, an involuntary reaction to the sudden loss of control.

—Is it too tight? —asked Yuuji, stopping immediately. His fingers, rough and warm from weightlifting calluses, accidentally brushed the skin of Satoru’s back while holding the first knot. The touch of those warm fingers against Satoru’s cold skin was almost more shocking than the rope itself.

—It’s fine —Satoru replied, discovering that his own voice sounded a little denser than usual— Continue.

Yuuji nodded silently. With a skill that betrayed hours of solitary practice with mannequins or with himself, he began to weave the pattern. His hands moved with meticulous delicacy, careful not to pinch the skin but securing the right tension. He passed the rope under Satoru’s armpits, rising across his chest.

As it circled the torso, the rope crossed directly over Satoru’s pectorals. The rough texture of the hemp brushed his nipples, which were a pale natural pink, not very prominent but which reacted immediately to the stimulus and the cold air in the room, hardening under the pressure of the rope that divided them. Satoru experienced a pang of vulnerability he had never felt on a runway: there were no expensive fabrics to protect him, only a twenty-four-year-old boy deciding exactly where and how to press his body.

Then Yuuji adjusted the tension. Satoru tensed. A very low, almost inaudible sound escaped his throat. His skin broke out in goosebumps again. All across his back. Yuuji could see how the muscles contracted and relaxed under the rope, how Satoru’s breathing became deeper, more conscious.

—Breathe —the pink-haired boy told him softly, almost without thinking— Don’t hold your breath.

—Easy for you to say —Satoru replied, and although he tried to sound mocking, there was a hoarse edge in his voice— You’re not the one being wrapped up like a fucking catalog shibari.

Yuuji smiled despite himself, though Satoru couldn’t see it.

Yuuji moved to the front to secure the chest knot. To do so, he had to lean over Satoru, coming level with his face.

From that distance, Yuuji couldn’t help but notice the visual path descending down the model’s torso. From the sternum, a very fine and almost invisible trail of completely white hair, as soft as silk, began on the skin and descended in a perfect line, passing through the navel until it disappeared below the waistband of the dark pants. The contrast between that albino hair and the translucent skin was of such subtle and devastating eroticism that Yuuji had to bite the inside of his cheek to not lose concentration.

Yuuji held his breath, his fingers frozen over the chest knot, while his eyes traced that descending path almost magnetically. The photographer in him took absolute control, stripping away any trace of shyness and replacing it with a purely visual obsession: the line of white hair was so fine and soft that it looked like a caress of frost on the translucent skin, starting just below the sternum and disappearing, almost agonizingly, under the dark fabric of the pants. In his mind, the camera was already shooting; he imagined a detail shot, an extreme macro backlit where the desk lamp would outline each of those tiny albino filaments, almost imperceptible, that curled in small rebellious ringlets capturing the last golden glimmers of the afternoon. It would be a shot obscene in its delicacy, a texture so intimate and hidden that photographing it would feel like profaning a secret that Gojo Satoru showed to no one on the world’s runways.

Satoru’s eyes, hidden behind the messy white bangs falling over his forehead, followed every movement of Yuuji. He noticed the drop of sweat sliding down the boy’s sideburn, the almost imperceptible tremor in his fingers when they brushed his chest to tighten the rope, and the way Yuuji’s lips curved into a line of absolute seriousness.

—Done —said Yuuji, stepping back. His own breathing was a little shorter now. The pattern was complete: Satoru’s arms were firmly anchored behind his back, and three lines of rope crossed his chest and abdomen, framing the perfect anatomy of his torso as if it were a sculpture in a geometric cage.

Yuuji walked to the camera, picked it up and brought it to his eye. His hands no longer trembled; this was familiar territory. This was his.

The sound of the shutter broke the silence. Click

Through the viewfinder, Yuuji felt his heart skip a beat. It was exactly what he had imagined, but multiplied by a thousand. The golden afternoon light entered from the side, striking the left side of Satoru’s torso, making the skin look almost incandescent, while the right side fell into deep shadow where the dark ropes vanished like liquid shadows.

Each shot was a visual caress. Yuuji moved around the bed, changing angles, crouching to capture how the light kissed the curve of Satoru’s shoulders, how the rope sank slightly into the flesh when he breathed, how the nipples had hardened slightly from the rubbing and the air.

—Move your left shoulder a millimeter back —Yuuji requested, his voice gaining a new confidence, the confidence of an artist who knows he has a masterpiece in his hands—. That’s it. Now lower your chin. Don’t look at me, look toward the floor, where the light dies on the sheet.

Click. Click.

Satoru shifted position millimeter by millimeter. The restriction of the ropes forced him to arch his back in a way that highlighted the tension in his muscles. Every time he moved, the hemp scraped his skin, provoking intermittent shivers that Yuuji captured with the lens: the texture of goosebumps, the sheen of incipient sweat from the effort of holding the pose, the subtle contrast of the nipples brushed by the rope.

—Incredible... —Yuuji whispered to himself, completely forgetting that Satoru could hear him— The contrast is... it’s perfect. The white light of your hair absorbs all the shine in the room.

Satoru kept his gaze lowered, but a small, sly smile drew at the corner of his lips. He liked Yuuji’s tone. It wasn’t the tone of a fanatic, nor that of a pretentious fashion director; it was the tone of someone genuinely moved by the beauty of a composition.

—Do you like what you see, Itadori? —asked Satoru, with a subtext loaded with soft, almost lazy provocation—. You sound like you’re about to write poetry to my ribs.

Yuuji lowered the camera for a second, his face still flushed but his eyes shining with a fierce artistic intensity. —I like the photo, Gojo-san —he replied, trying to maintain professional distance, although the use of the surname sounded strangely intimate in such a small space— Stay still right there. Don’t move. I’m going to change the angle.

Yuuji approached the bed again, kneeling very close to Satoru’s thighs to find a low-angle shot that captured the line of the jaw and the tension in the neck, deliberately cutting the frame above the eyes to keep the promise of not showing his face.

From that position, Satoru could smell the sandalwood and sweat scent coming from Yuuji’s body. The photographer was so focused that his knee brushed Satoru’s trousered leg. Neither of them pulled away. The accidental closeness became an anchor of emotional tension that seemed to thicken the air in the studio apartment.

Click. Click.

Yuuji raised the camera again, but his treacherous gaze returned to the same point. While adjusting the focus, his eyes lowered once more to where Satoru’s pants opened slightly. That fine trail of white hair that started below his navel and descended in a soft, almost ethereal line under the warm light. It wasn’t dense, just a delicate suggestion of tiny curls that captured the light in an almost hypnotic way, some curving slightly to the sides as if inviting the lens to follow them.

“I needed to photograph this.”

The thought burned inside him. He didn’t just want to see it, he wanted to capture it. Backlit. With the golden light grazing only the edge of those pale little hairs, creating a subtle halo that marked every curve and every shadow. He wanted to immortalize how that so innocent line disappeared under the dark fabric of the boxers, the silent promise sinking further down.

Without saying anything, Yuuji changed position. He crouched a little, tilting the camera upward to catch the light exactly as he imagined it. Click. The shutter sounded. Click. Another one. He carefully zoomed in, his pulse pounding hard in his wrists. Each shot felt more intimate than the last.

Satoru must have noticed the attention, because his breathing changed slightly, a small movement of the hips that made the line of hair tense and relax under the light.

Yuuji swallowed, his cheeks burning, but he didn’t look away from the viewfinder. His fingers gripped the camera tighter. His pulse throbbed in his ears. —Tilt your hips forward a little —he requested, his voice hoarser than he intended—Just… a little.

The last light of the sun disappeared behind Tokyo’s buildings, submerging the room in a bluish, cold penumbra. The desk lamp became the only source of illumination, casting a harsh white light that transformed the aesthetic of the session from something idyllic to something much more raw, urban and psychological.

—Are they turning out well? —asked Satoru, breaking the silence with a voice that sounded more like a whisper.

—Yes —said Yuuji— They’re turning out incredibly well.

—I’m glad.

—But I need one more shot. —Yuuji lowered the camera and approached the bed— Can you lean forward a little? As if you were about to fall but holding yourself just in time.

Satoru obeyed. He leaned forward, his torso tensing with the effort of maintaining balance without the support of his arms. The rope creaked slightly, adjusting to the new posture, and the muscles in his back stood out under the skin like a topographic relief. Yuuji knelt in front of him, at bed level, and aimed upward with the camera.

From that angle, Satoru looked like a god about to collapse. The light enveloped him from behind, turning his silhouette into an incandescent outline. The ropes shone like strands of solid light. His face, turned to the side, remained out of frame, but the tension in the jaw, the arc of the neck, the shadow of the Adam’s apple, said everything.

Click.

—That’s it —Yuuji announced, setting the camera aside—. I have what I needed. —He finally lowered the camera. The silence returned, heavy, charged with a vibration that neither of them quite knew how to name—. We’re done for today —said Yuuji, his voice a little raspy—. Let me... let me untie you.

He approached from behind. Satoru felt again the heat of Yuuji’s hands searching for the main knot on his back. Due to the complexity of the tie, Yuuji’s fingers had to slide repeatedly between the rope and Satoru’s skin, applying gentle pressure to loosen the hemp. Each brush sent a direct jolt to Satoru’s stomach, who remained completely still, listening to the sound of the ropes sliding and finally falling onto the mattress with a dull thud.

Satoru stretched his arms forward, rotating his shoulders. On his white skin, the deep red marks from the ropes crossed his chest and wrists like temporary tattoos of perfect aesthetic violence.

Yuuji stared at those red marks on the pale skin, feeling a knot in his throat and a strange agitation in his chest that had nothing to do with photography. He was surprised to find himself wanting to photograph it. —Do you always do this? —Yuuji asked suddenly, the question escaping his lips before his brain could filter it. His voice sounded small, broken by the atmosphere of the room.

Satoru, who was picking up his shirt from the floor, stopped mid-movement. He turned his head back, looking at Yuuji over his shoulder. His face was in shadow, but his blue eyes shone with an almost feline clarity under the desk lamp light.

He shrugged, with that natural nonchalance that seemed to be his trademark, and an enigmatic smile that didn’t reach his eyes. —Often... —he replied, with a lightness that sounded strangely rehearsed.

Satoru put on his shirt with slow movements. He didn’t button all the buttons; he left the top two undone, so his collarbone remained visible under the white fabric. Then he turned toward Yuuji and smiled.

—When will the edited photos be ready?

—In a couple of days. Three at most. —Yuuji rubbed his palms against his thighs—. I have to review them, select the best ones, make color adjustments… If you want, I’ll show them to you before I post them.

—I’d love that. But you don’t need to ask for permission.

The silence stretched between them while Yuuji disconnected the light cables. The hum of the fan seemed louder now, and the air in the room felt denser, charged with the residual scent of warm skin and cotton rope. Satoru stood by the bed, watching him. He wasn’t in a hurry. As if he didn’t really want the moment to end either.

Yuuji ran a hand over the back of his neck, nervous. —Hey… thanks for coming. Seriously. I know this isn’t exactly what you normally do.

Satoru let out a low, mocking laugh, but his eyes remained serious. —What? Tie myself up for a photography student who uploads soft shibari to the internet to pay the rent? Nah, it’s the most interesting thing that’s happened to me in weeks. I was really bored, you know? Normal sessions are… predictable.

He took a step closer. Yuuji resisted the urge to step back. Satoru’s scent filled his nose.

—Besides —Satoru continued, lowering his voice a little—, I liked the way you looked at me while you were shooting. Not like I was just a famous body. You seemed… genuinely hungry. For the image, I mean.

Yuuji felt his face heat up. He lowered his gaze to his camera, running his thumb along the edge of the lens as if he needed something solid to hold on to. —I was —he admitted quietly—. You have… a very particular light. The way the rope marked you, how you breathed… It was hard not to want to capture every detail.

Satoru didn’t respond immediately. He just looked at him. One second. Two. The kind of silence you feel in your chest. —Well —he said at last, slipping his hands into his pockets—, let me know when you have them. Or when you want another session. Whatever.

Yuuji nodded, swallowing. —Sure. I’ll write to you.

Satoru headed toward the door, but stopped with his hand on the knob. He turned his head over his shoulder, the white hair falling over one eye. —Oh, and Itadori… —he smiled sideways, that dangerous smile again—. Next time don’t get so red when I take off my shirt. You distract me.

Yuuji let out a choked laugh, half embarrassment, half disbelief. —Shut up.

Satoru laughed openly and opened the door. The building hallway swallowed his tall figure, but the echo of his laughter lingered for a couple more seconds.

When the door closed, Yuuji let out all the air he had been holding. He dropped down to sit on the edge of the bed, still warm from Satoru’s weight. He ran his hands over his face and stared at the ceiling.

«This is going to be a problem», he thought.

Because he was already wishing those two or three days would pass as quickly as possible.

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