Please, check out my first ORIGINAL NOVEL! The Breaking of Poisonwood by Paradise Avenger. (Summary: People were dead. When Skye Davis bought me at a slave auction as a birthday present for his brother, I had no idea what my new life was going to be like, but I had never expected this. It all started when Venus de Luna was killed and I was to take her place, to become the new savior… Then, bad things happened and some people died. In the heart of the earth, we discovered the ancient being that Frank Davis had found and created and used to his advantage. The Poisonwood—)

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Inspired by Megan McCauley's song, "I'll Pay You to Shoot Him." It's an interesting song.

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Anyway, I have MOVED this story COMPLETELY to another site. You can find this STORY and all its subsequent UPDATES here, just remove the spaces and asterisks (*): h*t*t*p :/ archiveofourown. o*r*g /works/1143346

I have the same penname there as I do here: ParadiseAvenger

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The first time Hattori picked up the prostitute it was pouring rain and Yoite was sleepily propped against the window in the backseat of the slowly-moving car. Lulled by the rain and exhausted from a long day of work, Yoite didn't bother to open his eyes when he felt the car stop. He knew that they hadn't yet arrived at the apartment he shared with his guardian, Yukimi, and didn't much care why they were stopping. What Hattori did was mostly his business save for when he paraded the orphaned Yoite around in front of the cameras to make his political campaign look better.

There was the sound of the window being rolled down and the patter of rain falling into the car. "How much this time?" Hattori asked.

"Twenty for an hour," a man's deep voice said. There was a loud splash and a muted thump followed by a small cry of pain.

Curious, Yoite cracked open one eye to peer out the window. Hattori had driven into a seedy part of town where the road was deeply rutted and puddled with rainwater. Storefronts with boarded windows and graffiti lined the sidewalk, huddled close like people gathered around a fire in the middle of winter, and interspersed with squat little trailers that looked just as dilapidated. Yards here were brown and overgrown with weeds, barking dogs were caged with chain-link fences, and children's toys lay strewn behind the barriers. Even though it was raining, a fair amount of scantily-dressed people stood out in the terrible weather. They all wore jealous and mean-spirited smirks, blurred through the rain sliding down the window.

Standing at the driver's side door, looking in through the open window and speaking with Hattori, was a tall man in his late forties with dark hair. He was standing under an umbrella and his face was mostly cast in shadow so Yoite couldn't make out his expression save the downward line of his lips. He had a bottle in one hand, half-empty, and was gripping the shoulder of a scrawny boy with the other. The boy must have made that little pathetic sound of pain when his small body collided with the side of the car. He was soaked to the skin, shivering in his shorts and tank top with the straps sliding down over his shoulders. Wet dark hair was plastered to his face, hiding his expression from Yoite's position in the backseat.

Hattori must have been able to see the boy's face clearly because he gripped his chin and angled it. "Anything goes?" he asked the man.

The man snorted, tipping his head back to take a long drink from his bottle. From the expression twisting his lips, it must have been something strong. "Anything you want, just use this." He passed a jar of Vaseline through the open window to Hattori. "I don't want him ripped again."

Hattori's lips curved into a smirk. "No problem. Took me a while to get the blood off my pants anyway."

The two men laughed as Hattori handed over a crisp twenty-dollar bill and the man under the umbrella walked the boy around to the passenger side and shoved him into the car. The locks snapped down like a prison, the sound jolting Yoite into opening both eyes. Yoite studied the run-down streets in silence, still leaned against the windows to feign sleepiness, as Hattori drove around the corner and parked. For a moment, the only sound was the rain drumming on the roof.

"Let's get started, shall we?" Hattori said eagerly.

"I… I don't do double," came a small voice.

Hattori barked a laugh and shifted in his seat. "Don't worry," he said. "He won't be joining us and that kid sleeps like the dead."

Yoite's heart pounded. What was going on? What was Hattori going to do with this boy who couldn't have been older than Yoite was? (In fact he certainly had to be younger. He looked barely fourteen.) He had an idea, but he didn't want to believe it. After all, Hattori had taken him in when no one else would and his political campaign was the support of orphans and the protection of children everywhere. It didn't seem possible that something as corrupt as this was happening.

"Take off your clothes," Hattori said to the boy in the passenger seat. He reached under his own seat, pulling the handle that allowed the seat to slide back, and gave himself as much room as possible. "And climb over here."

Keeping his eyes closed, Yoite suddenly wished he had truly fallen asleep. He didn't want to hear this! But the sounds cut easily through the rainfall as if to spite Yoite and his naïve belief that he could ignore what was happening right in front of him. He could hear every word, every rustle of fabric, every slap of skin on skin, every little whimper and moan and dirty disgusting word. He could hear everything. And even though it was like a terrible accident that he didn't want to see, his eyes cracked open and he just couldn't help but watch as well.

(A thousand words of Mature Content removed. Please, read this story in its original content on Archive of Our Own.)

After what felt like an eternity to Yoite, Hattori finally finished with a long sigh of bliss. His back rippled as he emptied himself within the boy's small body and pulled out.

Yoite was far from naïve about the relations between men and women (or men and men, or women and women). He knew sex between partners was supposed to be kind. It was supposed to be based on trust and love or else passion at the very least. There should have been some level of care between even a prostitute and the one who had purchased the time. Yoite was half-expecting Hattori to give the boy a little kind gesture—a soft kiss or whisper of how nice it had been—but instead, Hattori discarded every illusion of such care completely now that he had gotten what he wanted.

He threw the boy hard into the passenger seat, so hard that the boy's head cracked painfully against the glass. For a moment, Yoite glimpsed green eyes before the boy doubled over to clutch the back of his head, whimpering quietly. Still, Hattori showed him no kindness and gripped the boy by his dark hair, dragging him forward and forcing the boy to use his mouth to clean up the remains of their sex from Hattori's flaccid member. When he finished, coughing quietly, Hattori threw him aside again like a child who had broken a toy and was finished playing with it.

Still terribly naked and exposed, the boy lay crumpled in the passenger seat with his legs drawn to his thin chest and his arms wrapped around them. Bruises were already developing on his pale wrists from the force of Hattori's grip. Through a veil of dark damp hair, green eyes stared right into Yoite's own and he realized he had been caught. With a wry little self-deprecating smile, the boy shivered and turned back towards the window without saying anything to give Yoite away.

"That only took half an hour," Hattori muttered to himself. "Maybe I should wait a little longer and fuck you again."

Through his lashes, Yoite saw the green-eyed boy tremble in the passenger seat and draw his thin limbs closer to his body as a meager shelter. His bare skin was painful to look at, peppered with bruises as it was, and the shine of semen and lubricant glistened between his legs. He had been thoroughly used by Hattori and probably many others yet there was no apparent end in sight for him. The day was long and the night was longer.

"I suppose not," Hattori said with a deep sigh. "I've got to get the kid back to Yukimi before I have to hear about it." He reached across the space between the seats and gripped the boy's chin firmly, pulling his face forward from the shelter of his folded arms. "You lucked out this time, but next time I'll spend the whole hour with you." He slammed the boy backwards when he finished speaking and turned his attention back to the rain-soaked road.

The drive back to the seedy corner where Hattori had bought the boy from the man under the umbrella was a short one. The rain was beginning to ebb, pattering softly on the roof of the car in a soothing way. Hattori rolled down the window and called a short, 'Hey!' to the man. Slowly, drinking contentedly from a fresh bottle, the man approached.

"Finished so soon?" he asked and looked at his watch. "You still have more than twenty minutes."

"I have to get going," Hattori said and jerked his thumb at Yoite slumbering in the backseat.

The man under the umbrella barked a long laugh. "You've got kids of your own and you still come here to buy my little slut."

Hattori joined him in laughing and it made Yoite's heart skip a beat.

The boy was still naked, though trying to redress in his soaked clothes, when the man under the umbrella circled the car to open the passenger door and pulled him out into the rain. The boy yelped, his entire body exposed to the cold rain and hard pavement. Hattori grabbed the jar of lubricant and tossed it to the man who caught it nimbly despite being apparently drunk.

"He was good, better than last time," Hattori said. "Keep the change."

Yoite mimed waking up as they pulled away from the seedy block. He glanced out the window, taking a good look at the green-eyed boy as he was dragged back to the corner and made to stand in the cold drizzle completely naked. His body was so thin, so slender, and marked with endless signs of use.

"Where are we? What are we doing here?" Yoite asked, not certain what kind of answer he was hoping for. Did he want the truth that was so obvious after what he had witness? Did he want Hattori to lie to him and continue the charade of a kind man? Or did he still hope there was a reason for all of this, some politically adult idea that he could neither see nor understand? "What's going on?"

"Did you have a nice nap?" Hattori asked him kindly. "You can sleep through a brass band, can't you?"

Yoite nodded, hoping his expression didn't betray him. "Where are we?"

"The ghetto," Hattori said without a moment of hesitation. "This is where all the whores sell their bodies to greedy perverts. When I'm elected to office, I'll take steps to clean all this up and get the poor children off the streets."

Yoite's blood ran cold when he heard Hattori's potent and obvious lie. Suddenly, he had no idea what to think.

…

"I'm back," Yoite called as he toed off his wet shoes in the doorway and entered the small apartment he shared with his guardian, Yukimi.

The apartment was a wreck with books, papers, dishes, and clothes scattered everywhere. Yukimi was a writer and he often had to write multiple articles for several different magazines and newspapers all due by the same deadline. Yoite could always tell how hard Yukimi was working, how many articles were due, and when the deadline was by how messy the apartment was. This indoor tornado read that Yukimi had a lot to do, but still had a fair amount of time left to do it.

Yoite gathered up some dishes as he made his way through the apartment. "Yukimi? I'm back," he called again.

Yukimi's head poked around the threshold of the kitchen, soda and sandwich in hand. "Hey, Yoite. It's about time Hattori got you back. I was just about to call him. Did you eat? Are you hungry?"

"Which of those would you like me to answer first?" Yoite jokingly despite himself and deposited the gathered dishes in the sink. "I'm not hungry."

"Get a lot done on the campaign today?" Yukimi asked.

Yoite froze reaching for the fridge, but quickly pulled out a soda to hide his reaction. "Yeah, sure," he said.

Yukimi nodded, leaning against the counter to show that he was giving Yoite his full attention and biting into his sandwich.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Whatever," Yukimi said. "What's on your mind?"

Yoite flushed, still surprised by how easily Yukimi could read him. Thankfully, he couldn't read him well enough to know exactly what was bothering Yoite. "Do you think prostitution is a bad thing?"

Yukimi took a long moment chewing and swallowing and then taking a drink. "I've heard it's one of the oldest professions in the world, right up there with blacksmith and baker. People have always been selling things and their bodies are something they've always had. It's easy to see why it happens."

"But do you think it's okay?"

Yukimi eyed him curiously. "You're not thinking of running away and turning tricks, are you?"

Yoite slid him a narrow-eyed glare. "No, of course not."

"Just checking," Yukimi chuckled. Then, he took a sip of soda and continued, "I wish I had something better to tell you, Yoite, but I really don't. I'm on the fence about it. I think prostitution should be legal so that it can be regulated and we wouldn't have women being raped or murdered and so that their pimps couldn't take their money in exchange for 'protection.'" Yukimi made some finger quotations and a disgusted face. "But on the other hand, I wish women didn't have to sell themselves for money. I wish we lived in a world where that didn't have to happen."

"And what about children?" Yoite ventured.

Yukimi's expression soured. "I know there are some real sickos out there that are into children. But I think it's wrong under any circumstances for a child to have to sell their body, even if they seem to have a good reason in the fine print," he said vehemently. "I hate seeing kids on the street, getting screwed by the world."

"Is that why you joined Hattori's campaign and agreed to take me in?" Yoite asked.

Yukimi sighed and pulled Yoite into a one-armed hug. "You could say that," was all he said.

…

The second time Hattori picked up the green-eyed prostitute with Yoite pretending to sleep in the backseat, it was almost midnight. The night was clear and lit brightly with moonlight. The boy was standing alone on the corner of the seedy block, but he kept looking around as if someone stood in the shadows with a gun trained on him if he dared leave. It was very clear that he didn't want to be there, but had to be for whatever reason.

Hattori pulled up to a stop a few feet away from him and rolled down the window. "Come over here," he called to the boy.

Yoite watched through the curtain of his half-closed lashes as the boy approached the car. He kept glancing back over his skinny bare shoulder, the moonlight shining on the pale flesh. He appeared to be wearing the same too-short shorts and pale tank top as the previous time, but Yoite wasn't certain because he hadn't paid much attention about the boy's clothes before. He had been too shocked by Hattori's corrupted activities. Now, all he could say for sure was that the boy had been severely beaten.

As he approached the car from the shadowed wall he had been leaning against, he walked with a terrible limp. One of the boy's eyes was darkly bruised, bloodshot, and swollen. His lower lip was badly split and his tongue occasionally ghosted over it as he spoke softly to Hattori. Bruises circled his wrists and ankles like shackles and more of the same probably lurked beneath his tight clothes. The injuries all appeared a few days old and were beginning to show signs of healing, but that didn't make them look any less painful.

"How much tonight?" Hattori asked.

The boy glanced into the backseat and then over his shoulder again. "Forty for an hour and that's just for you," the boy said firmly.

Hattori chuckled, grasping the boy's chin and pressing his thumb down on the split in his lip. "Your last double didn't end so well, did it? Did they rape you?"

The boy pulled sharply away, his green eyes narrowing yet fear showed through on his face.

Hattori smirked, obviously knowing that what he had said was true.

"Make it sixty for an hour," the boy said bitterly.

Hattori snared him by his wrist, digging his grip in until the boy cried out. "Forty for an hour and I won't be too rough with you." He smirked broadly like the cat that had finally caught the tasty canary and was looking forward to feasting. "Unless you'd like to be raped again."

The boy tried to pull away, but Hattori's grip was too tight. "Fine," he hissed.

"Get in and then I'll pay you," Hattori said and released the boy's wrist.

The boy circled the car, climbed in, and pulled the door shut with a bang. Hattori pressed two twenties into his hand and watched the boy count them before folding them and stuffing them into the pocket of his shorts. The drive was silent as Hattori pulled around the corner out of the sight of the other distantly-positioned young men and women peddling their bodies. He put the car in park but left the engine running so the interior lights wouldn't drain the battery.

"Take off your clothes," Hattori said to the boy and watched him with greedy eyes as he stripped.

As Yoite had suspected when he saw the boy's beaten face and Hattori had apparently somehow known, the boy's body was peppered with more painful bruises beneath his clothes. Someone had even bitten the curve of his hip, leaving a hideous red rose circled by the thorns of teeth, and his collarbones were marked with plentiful bouquets of hickeys. Whatever had happened to him—if he had been raped like Hattori had suggested—it had been brutal.

When the green-eyed boy saw Hattori watching him so closely, he lifted his hands to cover the many marks at his throat. Once he had laid his thin hands over the hickeys, he paled as he looked down at his body and realized there was so much else he wanted to cover but didn't have enough hands. "What?" he snapped at Hattori.

The older man grinned, clearly amused by the boy's reaction. "Nothing," he said. "Now, point your ass over here. I'll play with you a little before I take you. Did your old man give you lubricant?"

The boy searched the pockets of his discarded clothing and then shook his head, stricken.

"Guess I get to enjoy you dry," Hattori said. There was a cruel edge in his voice that made Yoite's blood run cold.

The boy shuddered, having heard it as well. His green eyes darted throughout the car as if seeking an escape route, but they lit on Yoite for an instant. When he realized Yoite was feigning sleep just as he had the previous time, relief flashed across his features. But Yoite quickly closed his eyes and redoubled his illusion of sleep. Recognizing that Yoite wasn't going to help him, the boy had no choice but to do as Hattori demanded. His thin arms trembled, fingers knotting into fists, as he draped his vulnerable body into Hattori's lap.

(A thousand words of Mature Content removed. Please, read this story in its original content on Archive of Our Own.)

When he finished, spilling into the boy's body, a harsh breath of relief escaped the green-eyed whore. Hattori appeared to consider striking him, his hand raised in a threatening manner, but the boy's terrified flinch placated him.

"Good boy," Hattori crooned. Then, he moved to cast the boy into the passenger seat.

Yoite wasn't sure what exactly happened in that moment because he had closed his eyes completely so as not to see the boy's painful nudity, but suddenly the boy's body slammed down hard in the backseat beside Yoite. Hattori cursed and Yoite jumped, startled from his illusion of sleep. For a moment, silence reigned thick and heavy in the air.

"What's going on?" Yoite asked finally and hoped his voice sounded sleepy.

Hattori managed to answer him quickly. "I picked this boy up on the street. We're giving him a lift home since this is such a bad neighborhood."

Yoite glanced at the boy crumpled beside him on the seat, naked and shivering with the signs of his body's use dripping down his inner thighs. He realized this was the perfect moment to confront Hattori with his corrupt activities. "Why is he naked?" he asked.

Hattori didn't have an answer readily-prepared for that question and silence stretched like a rubber band between them. When it reached its breaking point, Hattori would either have to answer and admit his crimes or else he'd have thought of a politician's segue from the uncomfortable topic.

Much to Yoite's chagrin, it was the green-eyed boy who gave Hattori an excuse. "Some thugs were just about to rape me," he said quietly. "He stopped to help me. He's—" the boy faltered, betraying his outward calm "—a kind man."

For a moment, Yoite didn't understand what on earth had prompted the boy to come to the aid of a man who was practically raping him even if he was paying the boy. His mouth gaped open as he stared at the naked figure curled up beside him.

Then, the boy continued and Yoite understood. "He was going to give me some money so I could go to the clinic," he said with tears in his voice. "I was so afraid and then this nice man came and saved me."

Needing to keep up appearances in front of Yoite, Hattori had no choice but to follow what the boy said. He forced a smile and said, "Of course." Then, he pulled out his wallet, leafed off two more twenties, grabbed the boy's discarded clothes from the passenger seat, and handed both to him.

"Thanks for driving me home," the boy said as he accepted these things. He pulled on his tank top and shorts, smoothing back his dark hair with as much casual calm as he could muster. He ghosted his hands over his pale bare thighs, rubbing his bruised and swollen knees nervously.

"My name is Yoite," he offered lamely to break the endless silence. "What's yours?"

The boy glanced over at him sharply, his green eyes wide with shock. It looked as if he was trying to remember the last time someone had asked him his name and with the profession he was in, Yoite wondered that too.

Hattori angled the mirror so he could look at them in the backseat. "Go ahead and tell him," he said.

The boy jolted and a tremor ran through his bare shoulders, goose bumps rising on his naked skin. He turned quickly back to Yoite and said in a voice soft enough that Hattori wouldn't be able to easily hear him, "Miharu. I'm Miharu." Then, he shivered again and his teeth chattered quietly.

"Are you cold?" Yoite asked kindly. The night was deep and cool and the boy was barely dressed.

Miharu nodded slightly and slid across the seat to press close against Yoite's side. For a moment, Yoite froze, uncertain of the young prostitute's intentions for moving so close, but Miharu didn't make any sexual advances. In fact, he merely cuddled close to soak up Yoite's body heat. At least, that was how it seemed until he felt Miharu's hand press insistently against his arm and he heard the crinkle of paper. When he glanced down, he saw that Miharu was offering him the two twenties Hattori had just given him.

"What are you doing?" Yoite whispered.

"I'll pay you," the boy whispered. Miharu crumpled closer against Yoite's side, shivering faintly like a bird that had fallen from the nest, and Yoite could feel the chill of his body seeping through his clothes. The bills in Miharu's hand crinkled against Yoite's thick sweatshirt sleeve.

"Pay me?" Yoite choked out.

"I'll pay you," Miharu repeated, "to shoot him."

Yoite's blood froze in his veins and he stared at the boy with wide eyes. "W-what?" he gasped.

But then Hattori was speaking to Miharu, asking him where he lived, and the boy turned away from Yoite to direct Hattori. The only sign that he had ever asked for such a thing were the bills that still peeked out between his clenched fingers. Finished directing Hattori, Miharu sat back and spoke to Yoite from the corner of his mouth.

"I'll pay you more than this," he said. "Just shoot him." His voice softened with pain and fear. "You don't know what he does to me," he whispered so quietly that Yoite barely heard him.

"You want to kill Hattori?" Yoite choked out.

Miharu glanced at him and appeared about to answer him when Hattori pulled the car to a stop in front of a dilapidated little trailer painted pale vomit-inducing green. Without another word, the boy got out of the car and practically ran to the front door. He disappeared inside and Hattori cursed quietly. Yoite stared at the trailer as Hattori drove away, memorizing everything he could and trying to find a house number or street sign so he could find it again.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns?

Review, please! Tell me how interested everyone is in a Yoite/Miharu pairing.

Please read this story and all its updates in its intended content on the new site, Archive of Our Own.