Work Text:
Chapter 1 : Waltz
I only took up ballroom dancing after I moved to Japan. If dancing could earn me foreign money, then honestly, it didn’t matter what kind.
Since this was my business, I learned the scoring rules—but I was never built for staying inside a mold. I didn’t know how to obey instructions and move on command, and I never wanted to.
And yet—
“Will you lead again?”
I still couldn't escape this so-called boot boy’s waltz.
“…Sure.”
This man—his eyes like a predator sizing up its prey—smiled as he extended his elegant left hand. I took it, and instantly I was wrapped in his refined dominance. I caught my breath without meaning to—and the faint tension in my fingertips gave me away, carrying it straight back to him,the humiliation settling in only after.
“One, two, three.”
I was spun with effortless ease, and before I knew it, my body was moving exactly as he willed. By the time I recognized the sensation for what it was—pleasure—my body was already in his grasp.
Even my breathing was guided, pressed into the only rhythm where it was allowed to exist. It was suffocating, keeping me right at the edge where I could barely stand—controlling me completely as he made me dance. Through my restrained right hand, his dark pleasure flowed—so this is the kind of man he actually is.
“Double reverse spin.”
Every movement ahead was already set for me, and I had no choice but to follow. Even bound this tight—down to the precise angle of my fingertips—I felt a strange sense of release, because I knew exactly what was coming next. I was keenly aware that, right now, I was dancing beautifully—almost embarrassingly so. The hand holding me was my lifeline. Knowing I wouldn’t fall, I could afford to lay myself bare.
“Contra check.”
Exposed like this, with everything already in his grasp, shame washed over me. What kind of expression does my dominator wear right now?
The waltz, he’d said once, was originally a courtship dance. With the very hands meant to ask for love, my body was claimed—down to its furthest corners.
—Ah… I yield—yes… I do want you.
The moment I surrendered fully to that wish, he drew me in, as if to say well done.
But even when we were close enough for me to catch the scent of sweat at his neck, the choreography kept our faces turned away. Our eyes were never allowed to meet, and I found that unbearably frustrating.
“—This should be enough for now.”
The moment he let go of my hand, an inexpressible loneliness settled over me. Knowing exactly what kind of man he was, and still wanting him, despite myself—that realization tasted like a bitter defeat.
Fascination, folded deep inside that humiliation, burned hot in my gut.
As if to say, so what will you do now? Sugiki waited for my next move. I straightened my spine and offered him my left hand.
He took it with a challenging smile. A high-born princess, from a line of dominators—she naturally looked down on my crudeness, and unlike me, she didn’t seem like someone who would fall so easily.
“Watch your frame.”
But courtship didn’t belong to the noble alone.
I was never going to be a gentleman—even if I tried, I’d only end up playing the fool. But if I truly yearned, even a boot boy could find the words of love.
“Slowly. Carefully.”
If no matter what I tried, every little trick I had was already transparent to you, then I knelt. I served. I abandoned all pretense and reached for you in earnest—
“…It wasn’t bad. That waltz just now was—adequate for an attendant.”
The sharp-tongued, haughty princess had color rising to his cheek.
Chapter 2 : Rumba
People who pad out every pause with a habitual “you know?” are, more often than not, merely masking the fact that they have nothing of substance to say, mistaking that emptiness for understanding.
Looking down on people like that—and, really, on people like most—is, I’m afraid, at the core of who I am. And I am well aware that by choosing to cloak that otherwise shameful streak of cruelty in courtesy and good manners, it can be made to function—quite effectively—as a kind of gravitation.
And yet—
“See, this—your arms are too proper. This is a dive bar. No one here’s going to spare a glance for a posh little gentleman. You know?”
There was something in the way you tossed out that taunting “you know?”—a heat of superiority so vivid it threatened to burn away even the damp residue of my own contempt.
My instinct, honed over years, was to retreat to the safety of detachment, to observe from above as I always did. And yet, without the slightest hesitation, you challenged me—come down here—with your entire body. The pull of it was undeniable: confident, forceful, infuriatingly direct and—
“Two, three and four.”
Consuming—
“Dos, tres, cuatro.”
A Latin routine of touch and retreat—no sooner did I feel you than you were already pulling away. I followed the steps as if clinging to the warmth you left behind, only to have the faint unease seeping through me exposed to you at once, lit up and laid bare as though held to the flame.
Sweat gathered and slid along the sun-kissed length of your neck, caught for a moment in the gold chain shifting with your movement. From there it drew the light in, bending and fracturing it, guided by the tilt of your chin—an angle wielded with a precision far more persuasive than words—until my vision began to waver.
“Eye contact. Don’t break it. This isn’t some courtly flirtation. If you don’t lay your desire bare, nothing happens.”
You took my chin, tipping my face up until our eyes met. Then I was laughed at for it—too straight on. No sway.
Your gaze never left me, moving with the same fluid freedom as a hip isolation—winding, coiling, refusing to let go.
A choreography where the follower draws the leader’s head in, cradling it close. You leaned in until the distance blurred even the edges of my vision, your voice murmured at a range so intimate its frequency seemed to vibrate against the back of my skull.
“Are you actually dancing like you think you could fuck like that?”
Heat flared low in my gut.
“…With you?”
The gaze that had clung to me without letting go broke—snapped away as if struck.
“Don’t mock me.”
A sudden distance, just a single step, opened between us. The rhythm that seemed to pulse constantly inside your body—the music, the beat—wavered, even your heartbeat thrown off balance.
Only the sound of our breathing trembled in the taut air of the studio.
—So who was it, really, that had turned this into mockery? Me, or you?
Beyond the broken line of sight, something instinctive still remained— a thin thread of awareness connecting us. Before words could reach me, yours reached first, finding its way to my consciousness, probing it with quiet precision.
Each time we pushed back against each other, you only drew closer, like the recoil of stretched rubber—stronger, more supple, pulling us nearer with every return. I gave that force a name: obsession. And at the thought of it, I trembled—softly, in private delight.
“…You know,” you said softly,
“sometimes you look like you’re sticking to whoever you’re looking at.”
Instead of saying who, your left hand reached out and brushed my right cheek, fixing my gaze with a sweetness that felt unmistakably deliberate.
Yes—I had been looking. Ever since that day, my eyes had been stolen by you. What kind of look had I been giving you, I wondered—what must you have seen?
“That look—yes. That one. Try it like that.”
Your tongue flicked out, briefly wetting your lips—an open invitation.
—Ah. I want to touch you there, to ruin you.
The instant the thought took shape, you moved first, drawing me in through the choreography as if releasing a coiled spring. Your warm, damp breath brushed my dry lips, close enough to steal the air from between us.