The Japanese say you have three faces. 

The first face, you show to the world. 

The second face, you show to your close friends and your family. 

The third face, you never show anyone.

Rain

"Be at my office in one hour to sign your NDA."

One hour.

Suga had given me one hour, and I was trying to put myself together while all I wanted was to get rid of this fucking suit, sprawl myself into his bed that still smelled like him, and come until my fingers were soaked and my knees wobbly enough not to be able to walk. 

Then go to my fucking meeting to sign the NDA thoroughly self-fucked and dirty. 

Because I wouldn't drop my ego as far as asking permission for a fucking shower.

See? I don't need him.

Only that I do. I really, really do. 

The hot and heavy feeling was mixed with my anger in a physically painful way. 

I legitimately wanted to seduce him here and fuck his brains out.

Then, kick him out of his own fucking room. 

But —weirdly— I wasn't that stupid. I saw his game, and I was going to make it hard for him. And make him hard. 

Make no mistake; my head was 100% set on my goal. 

I wasn't going anywhere, and Suga was clearly playing hard to get. 

He was going to torture me till the end of time. 

So why not torture him as well, meanwhile?

White skater skirt.

Baby pink fishnets. 

Dr.Marten boots.

And a plain white cropped T-shirt that I just wrote with a neon pink sharpie Oyadaddy. 

#aesthetic

I changed into those and sent a picture to V to ask for an opinion.

"Damn, I look so hot I'd wife me." I grinned at the mirror as my phone ringed from V's reply.

V: What the fuck are you trying to do? Except give me a boner.

RR: You can get a boner from me?

V: You can give a boner to a blind nun. 
V: Why tho.

RR: Just fucking things up a little. So yes or no?

V: Remove the bra.

RR: My shirt is white.

V: Exactly.

RR: What if it rains?

V: Exactly.

 I snorted a laugh, admitting the man has got a point. 

RR: You are a cunning little gangster. 
RR: Where are you anyway? 

Dots moved in reply but then stopped. He was probably busy. 

And I had to go. 

Next stop: My former office in Itaewon.

It was a beautiful night, so I opened the hood of Jin's car, gave into the bite of the breeze to my skin, and let the meaning from the lyrics of You make me wanna die from The pretty reckless dissolve into my soul like morphine.

What had my father accused me of since I remember myself? 

Oh, yes. Ruining my life. 

I had to keep up with the theme.

After all, bad decisions make good stories.

Suga, sprawled in his chair across the desk from me, with his face lazily planted on his fist, was the portrait of angelic arrogance. 

Vibing dark, violent energy like an invisible wave around him.

The spell had broken only for a fragment of a second —when I had walked in, and pure shock had shone in his eyes—but he had immediately rearranged his features back to his usual ice-sculpture indifference.

The way he pressed his lips and inhaled through his nose, restraining himself with teeth and nails from not making a remark like "Leather couch porn interviews are last door down the hall," was even better.

Let's see how long he could keep this new I'm serious and powerful, and I don't give a fuck about shit thing going on.

However, he didn't comment on my appearance.

I would pay anything to know what kind of thoughts pass his weird mind.

I came all the way from the loft here, supposedly to sign. It made zero sense. We were literally in the same house, and we left to come here when he could have asked the lawyer he had appointed to make the contract to send it with a PDF.

But if there was a thing I've found out by now about Suga, it was that Nanami's kill two birds with one stone mentality had been willingly or unwillingly imprinted on him. 

One bird was me signing the NDA.
The other, I supposed, was to slap to my face what else I lost along with his trust. That the nice office I had selected in the 69-floor skyscraper—it was random, I swear— was now his. Along with my fuckable secretary —okay, maybe that wasn't so random— the stuff, and the loyal, remaining founding clan members. 

All his.

Including me.

He offered a small smile like appreciating the fact I got rid of the suit. 

When he ran his eyes once more over me, they lingered on my bare arms. "Why have you gotten those stars?" 

Come again? 

What had that to do with anything was beyond me. 

"You didn't call me here to talk about my tattoos." I crossed my arms. Btw, thanks for the no-bra lifehack V. The temperature here is barely above arctic. 

"I'm curious what they mean." 

Suga tonight had the smirk.
That smirk that would make women moan his name even if he was on another continent.

"Have you gotten some kinky fixation with my tattoos lately?" I arched an eyebrow.
Don't think about when he traced them with his fingers. Don't think about when he traced them with your pocket knife. 
Oops, too late for that.
Is it too late at 26 to renounce that I might have an unexplored knife-play kink?

"No. I always had." He relaxed into his leather seat, his grin unwavering. "What do they mean?"

"Everyone in the fucking earth knows what tattoos on elbows mean." I shifted on the spot I was still standing. I didn't want to sit. And there weren't any papers on his desk yet.

Of course, everyone knows. His arched eyebrow revealed. I just want to hear you say it. "Just answer the question."

"Fine." I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. "That I will never beg."

"Interesting. Do you have more lies tattooed on you?" THE smirk. He is up to something.

"I know you do," I sneered back. "Is there a fucking point for all this, or it's just your daily free dose of Sugarogance?"

Like a switch, his eyes turned cold after my remark. What I said had hurt him. Not the Sugarogance. The his tattoo is a lie part.

"The point is that you still think you can do whatever the fuck you want. The point is that we can't work this way." He exhaled, crossing his palms on the desk. "I will stop giving you a hard time, and you will stop giving me sass. I will stop being an ass as long as you will stop being a brat." He said in a natural and serious manner. 

Which made me blink twice slowly, wonder if he is kidnapped by aliens and replaced by a robot, then burst into uncontrolled chuckles.

"And the sun will stop shining, and the sea will stop being wet," I added, mimicking his tone with a pinch of extra drama and then laughed even louder.

He didn't find my poetic addition funny. At all.

"Nonetheless," I calmed myself, " I have accepted that things have changed and that you are in charge."

"You have?" He didn't believe it for a second. He looked at my shirt, then me, pointing out that I was lying. 

Oh, come on. If you don't find this funny, I swear I'll make everyone wear Oyadaddy shirts.

He tapped his chin with his laced index fingers, his lower lip poking out. "Prove it."

"Yeah, just let me swear a live-binding oath real quick. Oh, wait." I drawled, raising an eyebrow. "I already did."

We held each other's stare in the challenge of the silence. Like a kinky version of whoever blinks first loses. Only that no-one was going to strip from clothes but truths.

"Tell me what you really want. Why you got into so much trouble, swearing your life away. Because you're not fooling anyone with this act. This isn't you. You never do squat if it's not for personal gain."

Ouch. 

Also: true. 

"What exactly do you want?" He leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs on my former desk. "What is it?"

You.

Like you would ever say that out loud. Pfffttt. My subconscious snorted with audacity.

Instead, I went with something that wouldn't need to make me speak the truth. And also won't make me want to drown after.

"I told you. I want to be a member of your clans."

"Why." It was definitely a demand and not a question.

It wasn't working. And it had to. I was selfish indeed, but there was more. Violet counted on me. People's lives had depended on me. And behind all that, there was still the big secret of Nanami's plots.

So I went with the second truth on my priorities list. The believable one.

"Nanami." I blurted out. "Because I want to find out why she did the pseudocide. Why she lied. I want to know. I need to know. Why she waited for the storm. And most importantly..." 

I inhaled. 

Held his stare. 

Played my card.

"I want to know what she told you. What was that big secret she waited for a fucking thunder to say."

In the span of a few seconds, I watched as his expression changed from shock to terror —his eyes going wide and wild and his nostrils flared— then to disappointment.

And judging from that, the secret was a big fat juicy one. 

Something that still troubled him. Something he still faced.

And he didn't know I had figured out that Nanami told him something.

He expected me to confront him but not to have thunder-secret-scenario figured out.

Okay, let's be real. Only a psychopath or a genius would figure that out. 

He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, his midnight storm eyes holding mine captive.

"That's the only reason?"

"Yes."

He didn't like my answer.

"You are giving up your life to find out Nanami's ...plots." Listening to him saying it like that sounded way more ridiculous. It fell flat. Nonetheless...

"Yes."

His jaw ticked in annoyance, and his eyes narrowed.

He didn't believe shit.

"You will do anything for that?"
He made that sound like something way more significant than what I said. Like he knew what I wanted.

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"See for yourself, because frankly, I'm getting fucking tired of your little interroga—"

"Kneel."

The word lashed on me like a whip.

It echoed on an invisible barrier on me, bringing chills up my spine.

It was like the aura of the room had changed, dropping to a temperature resembling an industrial freezer.

"What?" My reflex word was between a scoff and a mirthless chuckle. And weirdly, in a tone hushed. Like I was bound with invisible chains I couldn't outspeak— I couldn't defy. 

Suga didn't repeat his order.
He just raised a cocky eyebrow in wait.

An Oyabun never kneels before others, Jungkook had informed me, and now those words came back to haunt me.

And just like that, I immediately knew why Suga had ordered that.

Kneeling simply meant accepting that I'm no longer Oyabun. Through and through, all the way.

Wasn't my fucking loyalty-for-life pledge enough??

No, I had to show it.

Or as Suga had put it, actions are what matters, not words.

And in reality, as he had just proved to me, I had a statement in the form of forever ink that I will never beg. A statement we both knew was a lie.

Suga's cruel intention was to expose my real self to the world.

Unmask me.

Rip my cold and emotionless facade of me like a cheap piece of clothing that wasn't fooling anyone about what sad, broken thing lay beneath.

Don't do it. 

Don't do it. 

Don't you fucking dare...

Suga always hated it when I told him what to do.

He always hated when I ordered him. And I hated that he had not once listened.

Was it a request to kneel to him as my Oyabun?

As the man that had saved my life?

As my enemy that won?

Or as my everything?

A test.

It all rounded up to be a test.

The Rain that the world knows would gladly tell him to shove his order far up his ass.

The Rain that the world knows, naturally, would never yield.

The Rain that the world knows is a coward hiding her feelings behind an impenetrable facade, afraid to show she has a softer side.

The Rain that the world knows was dead.

And tonight was her funeral.

The real one wanted to get out. To live the first day of the rest of her life.

The real one under the mask screamed that it was her turn.

That she will break everything.

Like he had done for her.

She reminded me that the oath I took was to myself.

That I had sworn that I'd break the back of love.

Sacrifices were like vices.

You make them give up something in order to get something else. 

With an unsteady inhale, I began to lower myself to my knees.

I pressed my eyes shut, determined not to see what was on his face as I stripped off my dignity for him.

He had done the same for me.

He had kneeled down to pick up the pieces of my broken heart.

I bowed my head down, and when my knees touched the carpet, a groan of pain and delinquency and self-hatred escaped my mouth.

I hate you.

I hate you.

I hate you.

So tell me, why would I do anything for you?

The first was an angry lie, and the second was the unadmitted truth.

And I needed to show him that this was my truth. That I was willing to break further. 

Or as I had promised, this was real.

"Come closer."

I kept my lowered eyes on the carpet. Felt my body stiffening in shameful submission.

A growl of frustration and anger escaped me as I obeyed, dragging my knees on the carpet, betting on how much he was enjoying this. On the other hand, I didn't have to bet. His smirk said it all. He was enjoying it too fucking much.

I, Ryuzaki Rei, was kneeling before him.

The utter humiliation.

The biggest form of degradation.

An Oyabun never kneels.

"Closer."

Biting the insides of my cheeks, tasting my fury and shame in my blood, I dragged my knees further.

You are just another obedient little bitch, after all.

I stopped a few inches before him.

At least the blinds of the hall's windows were closed.

Nails digging on the carpet, another groan of frustration escaped me. How far will you go this time?

"Usually, girls produce different sounds when they are kneeling between my legs."

I looked up. And swore the devil himself was jealous of Suga's smirk at that moment, as anger, red hot, and fiery bloomed through my face, sending my teeth grinding and my fists balling.

This was way past the testing stage.

This was humiliation.

Sending me mental images of him with others to make me feel how he felt.

Jealousy.

A feeling that I know I had induced in a lot of people.

But I've never, ever, felt jealousy before.

And it was utterly effective.

It was like being stabbed in the heart from the inside.

My stomach tightening into a ball, hot and fiery, ready to bring me to my knees, lower than I already was.

I pushed it down. Buried it deep inside me. Locked it with my demons to drown after.

 No, I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of showing it affected me.

My reply was a glare and a silent curse. You can go fuck yourself sideways. And I hope you pull a groin muscle and break your dick.

"How good are you at keeping secrets, Rei?" He smirked at me. 

I saw a light in his hard eyes, tantalizing and playful and daring and warm like opening a hand to reach—

A knock on the door kept me from pouncing like a tiger and clawing his face out.

I stilled.

Suga immediately ordered whoever was on the other side to come in.

The door opened before I was able to stand, another cold wave of shame washing over me as I turned to see who was the lucky one to bear witness to my humiliation and get a bonus hard-on of seeing me like that.

But from this angle—sandwiched in the space between Suga and his desk and lowered to kneel, I couldn't see. 

And thankfully, I realized with relief, whoever was at the door, couldn't see that I was there either.

A bored expression had replaced the rueful smirk on Suga's face, as without looking at me, he landed his palm gently on my shoulder behind the desk.

Squeezed once.

Signaling me not to move. 

To keep quiet. 

To play along.

https://youtu.be/txBfhpm1jI0