Chapter 1.
Life on Easy Mode
Anything. He just needed something to make him feel the thrill. Banri Settsu, a 27-year-old Yakuza, he'd been longing to find a point to his living. Sex, crime, or intellectual stuff... He had tried everything in his life and could beat anyone at anything without much effort. The men of his circle were no match for him, not to mention the women. Many girls pined for him, but he didn't care – he fancied men as long as he could remember. He always wanted to meet a man who would fire him up, but there was no one like that around...
He always did and got what he wanted. All members of his well-to-do family always pampered him, especially his older sister, who doted on him, which was sometimes quite annoying. There was no reproach or disapproval even when he came out to them as gay. His parents said it made sense and that they loved and accepted him for who he was. His sister was excited about him being gay and shared his interest in fashion shopping. His life was on easy mode...
He was bored in school and then in university, which he quit in the second year when he decided to join the Yakuza. He thought the mafia was the right place for him when he saw some cool-looking Yakuza dudes dressed in luxury suits and driving around in luxury cars. He hoped that among those men he would find the one for himself, but it didn't happen...
Most of the Yakuza turned out to be calculating and brutal gangsters obsessed with money, power, and sometimes women. He wasn't like that at all. Nevertheless, he quickly rose through the ranks of the clan hierarchy due to his keen intellect on one hand and his good looks on the other.
No doubt he was very attractive: fairly tall and athletic, but at the same time slender, he had fine, handsome features and mischievous blue eyes. He kept his straight, light-brown hair in a mid-cheek length, and his face clean-shaven.
Unsurprisingly, some of his superiors started hitting on him as soon as he joined the clan. He knew he'd better not turn them down unless he wanted to be "accidentally" shot or stabbed somewhere in a dark alley. That was how he became a whore. He slept with Yakuza bosses, reaping benefits of their favour. He serviced them individually or few at once, depending on the mood and wishes of his benefactors. Sometimes he was taken anally and orally at the same time, another time he was asked to dress like a geisha or wear lace lingerie, and some other times it was BDSM.
He had a whole collection of role-play costumes, fetish clothes and sex toys including all sorts of BDSM leather garb, dildos and vibrators. But he never really got satisfaction. He couldn't say he had ever had an orgasm, even though he always achieved the release. Sometimes it was pleasant, sometimes not so much, but he knew he had no say in this. He was a whore, and his customers were his masters.
Servicing high-ranking cops was also part of his job – the clan had to appease the police to make sure it didn't poke its nose where it wasn't wanted. Some of the cops were real sadists. It seemed that inflicting moral and physical pain on someone from the Yakuza was the only way available to them to vent stress. Some colonel guy liked to spank him pretty hard before entering; another police major enjoyed biting him during sex. Some corrupt chief prosecutor always slapped him across the face and called him a "dirty whore" while banging him on his desk.
Some of the cops liked to use handcuffs, which was certainly a professional habit. Therefore, oftentimes during the "private meetings" he got his hands cuffed together while his legs were strapped wide apart. He moaned and rolled his eyes, convincingly faking an orgasm, but deep down he hated it all. He felt used and drained when the sex was over, and after his visitor left, he just lay sprawled and naked in his office, blankly staring at the ceiling.
The only joy he had in his life was fashion and beauty care. Being an elite prostitute, he had to keep himself fit, well-groomed, and well-dressed, and he liked doing it a lot. He was a regular at top-class gyms and beauty salons and paid special attention to his skin and hair. He bought his clothes in high-end boutiques, opting for casual masculine style for everyday life, but had a secret soft spot for audaciously sexy clothes like form-fitting leather pants or highly revealing tops. He also liked piercings and accessories and owned a collection of earrings ranging from inexpensive stuff to elaborate ear jewelry made of white gold and platinum. Besides earrings, he liked to adorn himself with either of his rings, bracelets, and necklaces.
However, it wasn't entirely true that he slept his way to the top. It wasn't only for his charm and intimate service skills that he got promoted to second lieutenant of his clan when he was only 27. He was just as smart as attractive and could solve complicated problems in a snap of his well-manicured fingers. Money laundering, tax evasion, bypassing the law... It was all so easy. He couldn't wrap his head around why others struggled and tried so desperately to achieve their goals.
The other thing he couldn't comprehend was envy. He didn't expect that many of those who couldn't keep up with him would be jealous of his promotion. The more successful he was, the more envy he aroused. He realised it when it was too late. He was framed by his covert rivals who had been waiting for a suitable moment to get rid of him. Such a moment came when he was gambling in one of the casinos on his turf. After winning the jackpot, he put on his jacket that was hanging on the chair behind him, and headed to the nearby bar to celebrate the win when two cops in civvies got in his way, saying they had an anonymous tip-off about him smuggling drugs. When the cops searched him, they found a zip-lock plastic bag full of heroin in his jacket pocket.
He had never been involved in drug trafficking. No doubt the stuff was planted in his jacket when he wasn't looking. Yet, only his fingerprints were found on the plastic bag with the drug. The only thing he knew was that the other day he binned a similar-looking plastic bag in his office...
There was no way to prove that the heroin wasn't his while the evidence, although falsified, was impossible to refute. He was sentenced to eight years in prison. After the announcement of his verdict, his clanmates whom he considered his friends "comforted" him, saying that the likes of him are very much liked in prisons. A taunt, schadenfreude, that's what it was. He didn't know he had no real friends...
Banri sighed, reflecting on his life in a police van that was transporting him to South Hill prison, where he had to serve his sentence. Upon arrival, he was told to strip naked and take a shower before he was given a medical examination. Thankfully, the prison management spared him from the misery of getting his hair trimmed off. As for the rest, all his clothes and belongings, including his smartphone and money, were confiscated. He was given a change of underwear, a black and white striped tank top, a prison uniform consisting of a grey jacket and pants, prison shoes and socks, and essentials for personal hygiene. From this point on, he was inmate number 0109.
Banri put on the prison clothes with his number tag sewn to the jacket before the prison guard escorted him from the inmates' reception block to the prison grounds. The prison territory was quite large and surrounded by a high concrete wall with an electric barbed wire fence and security cameras on top of it. Clearly, escaping South Hill would be impossible. But even if he managed to run away, he wouldn't have run very far from the armed prison guards with their trained service dogs. Besides, South Hill was in the middle of nowhere with no transport other than police cars for miles around, and he wasn't trained like a Rambo to survive alone in the wilderness before reaching civilization.
With these thoughts running through his head, Banri walked past the infirmary block and a small shop next to it when he saw a building with a banner saying "Culture House" on its front. Out of curiosity he asked the prison guard about the Culture House and learnt that it included a library, auditorium, and workshop rooms where South Hill inmates took up various club activities like amateur theatre or music bands.
Turning his eyes in another direction, Banri saw sports grounds with enclosures for workout, basketball, and football. Behind them were a large orchard and a vegetable plantation. The weather was warm and sunny, and a group of prisoners were playing football while a few other prisoners were working in the garden. Answering Banri's question, the guard explained that all the fruits and vegetables for daily consumption in South Hill were grown by the prisoners themselves.
Having reached the main prison block, Banri was led into the office of the prison manager, whose name was Matsukawa. Manager Matsukawa turned out to be a dorky but otherwise nice middle-aged fellow with bushy brown hair and round glasses. He spoke at length and with great enthusiasm about South Hill being known as one of the best penitentiaries in the country because of its excellent conditions of detention and respect for the human rights of all the prisoners without exception. Banri learnt that thanks to the advanced security system, South Hill inmates weren't locked in their cells and could move freely within the prison territory from 7:00 am to 10:00 pm. By 10:00 pm, all inmates had to be back in their cells so that the wardens would check on them before locking the cells for the night. There were also several other prison rules Banri had to learn from the booklet Manager Matsukawa gave him.
It was already quite late in the evening when he was finally led into the dormitory part of the prison. Apparently, the arrival of a new inmate was quite an event in this locked-up little world: Banri felt many curious glances the other prisoners directed at him as he was led down a long corridor with barred windows on one side and metal doors on the other. At last, the guard ordered him to stop at one of the doors and, unlocking it with a magnetic key, let him into the cell before locking it behind him.
Left alone, Banri looked around. There were two beds and bedside cabinets along the opposite walls on either side of the entrance door, across from which there was a small barred window with a table and two chairs beneath it. There was also a toilet compartment in the corner next to the entrance door. Opening it, Banri saw a toilet bowl and a metal sink with a frameless mirror on the wall above it. Although the cell was designed for two, he was the only occupant at the moment, which was probably a good thing. Closing the toilet door, Banri lay down on one of the beds, resting his head on the prison pillow, and stared up at the window. This place was going to be his home for the next several years. What kind of life was waiting for him here in South Hill?..
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Author Note
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Hello everyone and thank you for reading this provocative JuBan fic!
The idea of a prostitute Banri came to me when I was writing my other fic "How Wonderfully Badass" and browsing A3! cards.
I mean, just look at Banri's pictures at A3! Wiki:
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?title=File:(Premonition_of_Blooming)_Banri_Action_SR%2B_
?title=File:(Actor%27s_Cafe_OPEN)_Banri_Comedy_R%2B%2B_
With all those languid poses, hair plays and come-hither looks, he's like saying he's gay and wants to be taken, isn't he? 😂
The original A3! play "South Hill Prison" was also a source of my inspiration, of course, but it's going to be completely different in my JuBan-centric fic. For plot reasons, I also changed some details like prison uniforms, as you may have noticed. In this fic, they aren't orange jumpsuits (I think they actually must be very impractical) and look more or less like prison uniforms in Japan (separate pants and jackets in quiet colours).
