Additional Tags: Dom/sub, Sadism, Masochism, Psionic Bondage, Spanking, Objectification, Enthusiastic Consent, Masturbation, Anal Sex, Blood Drinking, Established Relationship, Dominant Armand, Submissive Daniel Molloy, Young Daniel Molloy, Brat Daniel Molloy, Brat Tamer Armand, Degradation, Possessive Sex, Rough Sex, Anal Fingering, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Sugar Daddy Armand, 70's Devil's Minion, Multiple Orgasms
“Mind your tongue, beloved,” Armand warns in his most sticky sweet, honeyed voice. “I used to take great care in putting insolent brats like you in their place.”
“Yeah? Well…” Daniel leans back and spreads his legs further, an invitation, preening under Armand’s gaze as the vampire drinks him in. He looks up beneath dark eyelashes and flashes his most provocative smile, never breaking eye contact. “They weren't me, were they?”
Caught in the spider’s web…. 🕷 okay I’m still not saying I NECESSARILY ship jayce and viktor - BUT….. 🤣💀💀💀💀💀❤️🔥 okay fine jayce… you can have him (for one night ONLY)
Process video! Final line work is so inspired by the amazing wonderful @zurka-durka. Sorry the video is all rotated and chaotic like my life 🥲
What if Yashiro will tease Doumeki, saying, hey, I'll give you a chance now---still wanna do it? Do you think Doumeki will take the bait or will he bluntly say "No" to Yashiro, that doing with him will only make him(Yashiro) want to vomit and regret it afterwards, so pass...?
An intriguing question!
Yashiro is smart. I doubt he'll make the same mistake of asking Doumeki that very same question again.
You see, Yashiro exposed himself in chapter 44. When Doumeki asked him "You told me to do it, yet why are you resisting?" Yashiro just gave Doumeki a defiant, sort of Oh Shit™-glare. Like he knew Doumeki was onto him and knew that, once again, Doumeki had seen through his mask. Because if he truly hadn't changed, why would he resist having mindblowing, possibly kinky (Doumeki pulling his hair was a clear signal, duh) sex? Is it perhaps because now, sex does mean something to Yashiro, hmm? Yashiro has, if my mind serves me right, never turned down an opportunity for sexy times.
Honestly, Yashiro should know at this point that none of his mind games work on Doumeki because Doumeki is just... built different. He reads Yashiro like an open book and has shown incredible perceptiveness since day one so why wouldn't he x-ray the shit out of Yashiro's poor little attempt at trying to regain the upper hand of the situation.
Then there's Yashiro masturbating, which gives us more clues to his change. Though there were kinky power dynamics (Doumeki fully clothed, Yashiro naked) Yashiro seemed to focus on Doumeki's softness (notice how he first fantasized about Doumeki pulling his hair but a couple frames later Doumeki is gently cupping his head while kissing him.) This begs the question, has Yashiro realized he's not so much the masochist he claims to be? Was he ever? Has it finally clicked for him, that the thing he desires most deeply is emotional connection?
Now then, how would Doumeki react to Yashiro teasing him? Well, Doumeki has grown. He seems more mature and assertive. He's not the obedient, naïve baby bird anymore. I think Doumeki knows that Yashiro still has feelings for him, and he wants to draw them out in the open. I might be reading too much into it here but I also think Doumeki knows that Yashiro casually throwing that question out is just thinly veiled code for "Actually, I'm still madly in love with you but this is the only way I know to express those feelings." Basically, Doumeki is tired of Yashiro's shit. Maybe Doumeki would say something like "If you will resist me like before, then no" which would throw Yashiro on his ass because that means he has to tear down his military fortress and be open about how much he really wants Doumeki. Idk this meta is a mess and I'm still figuring things out but there you go!
reply to @stanislovers: I love reading your thoughts on Saezuru! I keep asking myself whether Yashiro has been celibate during the time skip or if he's gone back to his old ways. I feel like he must have tried to have rough sex after he was intimate with Doumeki, but I just can't picture him going back to his previous lifestyle like nothing happened... Idk maybe i'm way off, what do you think?
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First of all, thanks for reading! I'm new to this fandom, so it's nice to meet people who love Saezuru as much as I do!!
As to your question, I think Yashiro has definitely changed in terms of sex, but I don't think he's celibate. The evidence suggests that he still has sex, but maybe not as often, and he seems to be weary of the rough sex. There's evidence to support both of my claims, but the evidence for Yashiro being less intensely masochistic is stronger.
The very beginning of ch. 36 opens with Yashiro flirting with a casino-goer. He wonders aloud if he should just take the gambling cutie to the restroom (presumably for a quickie). Nanahara asks him not to, pointing out that Yashiro can't call the police, so if the guy is a spy, they're in trouble. Nanahara also says, "Please stop picking up guys at random." This suggests Yashiro's not celibate, but YMMV. After all, it could be that Yashiro simply flirts with men (I'd argue he probably likes to flirt), but doesn't necessarily have sex with them.
I don't think he's having super-rough sex with a bunch of yakuza thugs, though. For one, he doesn't want to get re-involved with the yakuza, so he likely stays out of their circles. Secondly, he talks about yakuza he's fucked in the past tense (Ryuuzaki and Kido, in ch. 44). Maybe he's fucking others, but no one who's currently in the yakuza mentions it, and my guess is that if anyone were fucking him, we'd have heard about it. Of course, he could be having rough fucks with yakuza off-screen, but there's evidence to suggest he's not into the rough stuff as much. Third, if he's picking up blushing cuties in casinos, chances are these guys aren't particularly violent. (But that's wishful thinking on my part.)
It's during his conversation with Misumi in ch. 36 we get some sense of his sex life. Yashiro mentions he gets information from the police. Misumi asks, "Are you sleeping around still?"
Yashiro replies, "Nope. One person does me so hard, I'm dead tired afterwards." Later in the chapter, we learn this person is Inami, and we're not surprised given how violent Inami was previously. But now, when Yashiro meets Inami at a hotel to fuck in exchange for information, he greets Inami by saying, "Let's get this over with."
A reminder: Inami calls Yashiro in ch. 44 when Doumeki is with him in the bathroom. I think this is what pisses Doumeki off.
We also get this panel in ch. 36:
Yashiro is tired of Inami. He says to Misumi, "If you have someone more useful I can sleep with, I wouldn't mind."
Misumi declines (like a good doting parent, I guess), and laments, "You haven't changed a bit, have you?" Instead of answering, Yashiro changes the subject. If he were still thrilled about being fucked every which way, he'd be relishing it, wouldn't he? He reveled in it all through the first 20 chapters. But here, he doesn't even offer a breezy, "Of course I haven't. I'm still thinking about my dick 24/7."
He's changed. But like always, he never bothers correcting people when they misperceive him. (I also think this is why he insists to Doumeki that he is the same as ever, that he'll fuck anyone. Yashiro has to keep firm control of the narrative with Doumeki because Doumeki has a dangerous habit of seeing through his masks.)
In fact, that little not-quite-sex scene with Misumi might be showing us that both of them have changed, even though they keep telling one another they haven't. Despite the fact that Yashiro loves rough sex, he can't have sex with a violent Misumi. I can't decide if that's because their relationship has evolved into something more like family (meaning it's weird), or if Yashiro's no longer into violence (meaning it's no longer arousing). There's evidence for both interpretations, but it felt awkward to me? They haven't been having sex for a long time, so I don't really know what the point of this scene is, TBH. Anyway, Nanahara walks in on Yashiro shortly after Misumi leaves and asks, "Why are you all aroused?" If he was aroused by Misumi slapping him around, maybe Yashiro's still a masochist (or still pretending to be one - YMMV). Even if Yashiro is a masochist (or pretending to be one), he's likely not as intensely masochistic as before.
Given all the above, it appears he's fucking Inami at least. He might be sleeping with men he picks up here and there, but we've got less confirmation on that front. I realize that we, the audience, want Yashiro and Doumeki to be dissatisfied with anyone else now that they've had one another. We want them to have spent the intervening four years dissatisfied, uninterested, and celibate. I think Yashiro is dissatisfied, even if he's having sex. Doumeki forced him to confront the fact that he might not like rough sex as much as he claims he does. But knowing something and acting on that knowledge are two different things. And we know Yashiro doesn't always act on what he knows.
I'd argue he's dissatisfied and (maybe?) not as interested in sex as before, but he's not celibate.
This should not be comforting, if you ask me. Inami is violent as fuck, fucks Yashiro as a means of sublimating his hatred of yakuza, and is an all-around crap guy. If this is the only sex Yashiro is having, I am fucking sad. I truly hope he's fucking all those guys Nanahara says he keeps picking up.
(Sorry, fandom. This is how I am - I have very strong feelings about characters and then write straight-up dissertations about them. Ask the K fandom; they'll tell you.)
CW: rape, child sexual abuse, dubcon, violence - things Saezuru deals with, essentially.
Okay, so, now that I'm sort of back, I wanted to start by thinking through my new obsession: Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai. (Yes, yes, still writing fics for other fandoms. This is a character analysis to get me back in the headspace of writing something other than academic trash.)
Right, so, I want to float the following thesis: Kageyama fucked Yashiro up more than maybe even Yashiro realizes. While the latter may initially be attracted to Doumeki because he seems a lot like Kage, their relationship progresses because Doumeki gets right all the shit that Kage fucked up.
There's no way I'm the only one who's thought of this, but I want to highlight the subtlety of sensei's characterization. It's really stellar, and complex, and relatable, and I won’t understand it all, but I'm going to try because I have so many fucking feelings about Saezuru.
If you're familiar with my BSD metas, you know this is about to get long. Spoilers under the cut.
One of the questions I kept asking myself as I read Saezuru was, "Why did Yashiro fall so fast?" Don't get me wrong; I'm into the whole love at first sight thing, and it works for Doumeki's character [not necessarily the subject of this post, though]. It doesn't quite make sense for Yashiro to me. Because Yashiro knows what falling in love feels like, right? In the prequel, he talks about the "loneliness" of falling in love (ch.1 of the prequel about Yashiro and Kage in high school - called Though they Drift, they Do Not Sink, Nor do they Fly, I think. I'll abbreviate as TTD). Much later, when he and Doumeki are in that warehouse, he rips off Doumeki's bandage and says, "For me, falling in love feels like this" (ch. 33). He fired guys because they developed feelings for him, suggesting he finds love inconvenient to yakuza life (ch. 2). And one of the first things he tells Doumeki is that he doesn't lay hands on his subordinates because it'll cause problems (ch. 1). Yeah, we know how long that lasted: Yashiro literally has Doumeki's dick in his mouth within 20 minutes of meeting him. But my point stands: Yashiro knows love is trouble, both professionally and psychologically. He’s on his guard against love. And yet, Doumeki gets through his defenses. Why?
Yashiro culled every part of him that felt attraction or love, for lots of reasons [which I can cover in another post]. He's become an observer, even to his own feelings for Kage (Don't Stay Gold, ch. 1). So why break the rules now, for this guy? Nanahara says Yashiro's rejected guys cuter than Doumeki, so this isn't just physical attraction (ch. 2). There's something more, something about how the two of them work that lets Doumeki through Yashiro’s defenses (which are a whole fortress, let's be honest).
Of course, I could be overthinking it. After all, one answer is on the first page of TTD:
Moreover, Yashiro is an unreliable narrator:
But also:
Saezuru opens with people being full of contradictions and a mildly unreliable narrator. We should expect that not everything is as it seems - even the thoughts and feelings our storyteller communicates to us. Especially when that storyteller is telling us where his affections lie.
Keeping all that in mind, let's consider Yashiro's history with Kage. The first thing we learn is that Kage brings Yashiro bandages when he notices the latter sporting rope burns (TTD). Yashiro is initially unimpressed, joking how they're not in a shoujo manga. But they eventually embark on a physical relationship of sorts, where Kage indulges his fetish for burns and scars by running his hands all over Yashiro's chest (TTD). Yashiro lets this continue. He says it's because he finds it amusing (TTD). But he also gets hard every time (TTD). In addition, he asks his sexual partners to burn him more, meaning more burns for Kage to trace (TTD). It’s clear this isn't simply idle amusement for Yashiro. He wants Kage to keep touching him.
It's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it sort of detail that makes this series so good. We, the audience, later forget this is probably the first time anyone's ever touched Yashiro intimately without hurting him. It's also probably the first time someone thought of his body as something fascinating rather than something to be owned or broken, or, at best, ignored. Most tellingly: he wanted this touch. (This has massive implications for when Doumeki treats Yashiro's body as something to be worshipped during that legendary sex scene in ch. 25.)
Yashiro's a high school kid. Imagine how formative this would have been. Even if this isn't a touch that's loving or affectionate, per se. Even if it's just Kage indulging his own fetishes. Even if there aren't romantic feelings involved (at least on Kage's end). Yashiro still wants touch without pain.
And he wants more than touch. Look at these panels from TTD:
Yashiro likes to tease people. He's probably already developed feelings for Kage by now, and the audience knows he gets hard every time Kage touches him (TTD). Do we really think Kage can't tell Yashiro's hard through those tight ass uniform pants?
Of course Kage can. And of course Yashiro knows he knows. I think Yashiro was probably testing Kage here. The two had been carrying on like this for weeks. Yashiro had been getting hard for weeks. And Kage went on touching him for weeks, despite how obvious Yashiro's erection would have been. So, when Yashiro tells Kage he's bi, it reads to me like he's asking if the latter is attracted to him too. Remember, there's no reason to think that a teenage Yashiro would have any reference for healthy romantic relationships. He's not going to say, "I have feelings for you that go beyond friendship. What about you?" Furthermore, he probably has an outsize fear of rejection at this point, because why wouldn’t he? He's been nothing but used or neglected his whole life.
Kage doesn't react to Yashiro coming out to him (which ought to be treated with care - it's a show of vulnerability). Yashiro, being Yashiro, brings up something he thinks is more shocking: being raped by his stepfather. Throughout the series, Yashiro mentions this in passing, almost like he's talking about the weather. But we know from ch. 25 that he's not okay at all.
In TTD, Kage's only reaction is "okay." Kage stops touching Yashiro afterwards. There's no move to comfort the latter, no real acknowledgement of the horror he must have endured. Kage might have felt bad about touching Yashiro, about using him in this way (TTD). But would Yashiro have interpreted Kage suddenly stopping as indicative of guilt or a recognition that Yashiro's trauma might affect things like consent, desire, or intimacy?
I don't think so. Not if we remember that this was the only time anyone had touched Yashiro without the intent to hurt. Not if we remember it's the first time he's wanted touch without pain. Yashiro had just confessed that he's bisexual and that he'd been raped. And immediately Kage stops touching him. The most reasonable conclusion he can come to, really, is that he's repulsive to Kage. He's corrupted, or in his words, "twisted" (TTD).
As I mentioned, Kage probably had his reasons for stopping so suddenly without explanation. Maybe he was still working out his own sexuality. Maybe he felt ill-equipped to be what Yashiro needed (because he fucking was ill-equipped). Maybe he felt Yashiro needed a friend rather than a lover. Or maybe he didn’t feel any attraction to Yashiro and really wanted nothing more than a platonic friendship. Who knows? But he’d have done Yashiro a solid by telling him.
What we do know is how Yashiro sees himself. In Don't Stay Gold (ch. 2), he plays cupid for Kage and Kuga, saying Kuga shines like the sun, whereas he himself is shadow. He also asks why Kage can't love him, can't choose him. But he'd already found his answer years ago when Kage initially rejected him. And he's continued to think of himself as twisted. In fact, he's used the idea of his own twistedness to build a whole military base of emotional defenses around himself. “I’m fucked up, beyond any normal person's capacity to love. In fact, I’m so fucked up I can’t love,” he seems to be screaming at the audience.
So you have to wonder if Yashiro wouldn't fall into loving pain (or pretending to love pain) so much if the one person who didn't cause intimate hurt in his formative years wouldn't have run. If his desire for touch without pain could have been affirmed in a lasting way. (And yeah, we know Kage runs, because that's what he did to Kuga in Don't Stay Gold.)
I don't want to put all of Yashiro's psyche on Kage. The man's got more issues than JSTOR; many of us do. But there was an opportunity, for a fleeting moment, where one thing in Yashiro's life could have been something other than tragedy. And not only did Kage not step up to the plate, he didn't even acknowledge how, given Yashiro's trauma, he shouldn't have touched Yashiro. Kage should have explained why he stopped or apologized, at the very least. Because there's no way Yashiro knows what consent is. And there’s even less way Yashiro wouldn’t read it as a referendum on his own worthiness of love and tenderness and respect.
Fast forward to when Doumeki first enters Yashiro's life. While being roped into going out, Doumeki asks Kage what he thinks of Yashiro. Kage, the ass, says he pities him (ch. 7).
He also says Yashiro never acted like he needed pity (ch. 7). And yet, Kage pities him anyway. But Yashiro thinks his life is no one's fault; it is what it is. This is probably a defense mechanism to keep him from seeing himself as a victim. In fact, lots of things Yashiro does can be read as a means of seeing himself as someone who survives (and sometimes thrives) instead of seeing himself as a victim [but that's another post]. People cope because they can build mental defenses like Yashiro's. Is it always healthy? No. But it’s not Kage’s place to judge Yashiro’s coping mechanisms, particularly since he’s never offered any real emotional support.
Couple this with the fact that Yashiro is the one who saves his dream of becoming a doctor, and Kage's pity is... well, pitiful.
Essentially, Kage not only rejected Yashiro back in high school, he never explained why he rejected him, and then has the audacity to pity him. Just look at how Yashiro looks when he learns Kage still feels this way (ch. 7).
This sad, sad look prompts Doumeki to get a little angry at Kage for not choosing Yashiro (ch. 7). [No offense to Kuga, but Yashiro is so, so, so much hotter than Kuga.]
Doumeki, on the other hand, doesn't pity Yashiro. Doumeki sees this Yashiro (ch. 2). Thank you, sensei, for blessing all of us.
Doumeki calls Yashiro "kind, beautiful, and strong." These aren't words that turn someone into a victim, right? Also, I haven't looked at the Japanese raws, but if I remember correctly, the word Doumeki uses for "beautiful" in the movie is "kirei," and this matters a lot. Japanese has multiple words for “beautiful,” but "kirei" doesn't simply refer to physical beauty. It has connotations of purity or cleanliness. I think a better English translation might be "sublime" or "resplendent," but like, who the fuck would want to read that in a manga? It retains the multivalence of the Japanese, but it’s unclear for English speakers. In any case, to Doumeki, Yashiro is "kirei" (ch. 2; ch. 7).
Yashiro disagrees. Literally the whole fandom is upset because look at the motherfucker, he's gorgeous. But remember this scene from ch. 3 where he tells Doumeki to look closer because he's not so beautiful?
Given how Kage also looked and touched, but (in Yashiro's mind) was eventually repulsed, we shouldn't be surprised to see Yashiro deny he's beautiful even though the man must own a mirror. Yashiro isn’t talking about physical beauty; lucky for him, Doumeki isn’t either. Doumeki, the poor besotted babe, never stops thinking of Yashiro as beautiful, even while Yashiro thinks of himself as "shadow" or "twisted." The multivalence of "kirei" is really important. Doumeki has witnessed Yashiro getting fucked and humiliated and bruised in every which way, and all he can think is Yashiro is "kind, beautiful, and strong." Even when Yashiro abuses him, Doumeki retains these ideas and wants to stay by his side (ch. 30).
This is very different from how Kage views Yashiro. Kage admits that Doumeki is the only person he's met who doesn't fear or ridicule Yashiro, but instead respects him (ch. 7).
The funny thing, though, is that Yashiro's very early attraction to Doumeki might have been resultant the latter's resemblance to Kage. In ch. 1, Yashiro blows Doumeki, but he doesn't typically do this to subordinates - meaning Doumeki's not like other subordinates already. So who's he like? Yashiro says Doumeki reminds him of the only man he's ever held any affection for (ch. 1). And a lot of Doumeki's reactions are Kage-esque. Doumeki is pretty stoic. He doesn't react to Yashiro revealing his childhood trauma, even though Doumeki knows what trauma can do to a person. He doesn't get shocked at Yashiro's sexual proclivities, either, just like Kage didn't. Doumeki visibly reacts a very few times: when Yashiro lies about telling his sister she's to blame for Doumeki's impotence (ch. 2) and when Yashiro gets shot (ch. 8). Of course, we know Doumeki's jealous throughout, so sometimes we see his jealously spilling over into his expression or his behavior.
One interesting parallel between Kage and Doumeki is that Yashiro wants to see both of them in intimate situations. In Don't Stay Gold, Yashiro wants to see Kage fall in love with a man and subsequently spies on Kage and Kuga fucking. In ch. 2, he wants to see Doumeki's face when the latter wants to fuck badly. Well, he gets his wish in both cases.
So, maybe part of Yashiro's initial attraction to Doumeki is because he's a lot like Kage - big, dark-haired stoic guy who is safe because he’s ultimately unavailable. This is probably why Misumi recognized immediately that Doumeki was Yashiro's type and wanted the latter to fire him.
But Doumeki becomes way more than a Kage fill-in, because Doumeki doesn't blink when confronted with Yashiro's past or his being gay or his sadomasochism. Doumeki is cute, in Yashiro's mind. He’s also reliable and never runs, even when Yashiro pushes him away. In the latest chapters, he doesn't put up with Yashiro being a brat (Kage still does). There's a lot to unpack here; there are about 5 million levels of fucked-up-ness to their relationship, but part of me thinks they got as far as they did precisely because Doumeki isn't Kage. Even Yashiro realizes it in ch. 23.
"You're not looking at me with his eyes," Yashiro says. No, he's not. Doumeki looks at Yashiro with respect and affection, not pity. In softer moments, you can see the love in Doumeki’s eyes too. Poor Yashiro probably doesn’t know what to do with all that. It's much easier to be reviled; at least that’s familiar.
Doumeki not pitying Yashiro is a huge deal. Pity is what you feel when someone isn't everything they could have been because the world fucked them up. Doumeki doesn't think Yashiro is fucked up or twisted (though I suspect he'd prefer it if Yashiro would stop using men to hurt himself).
It's not all sunshine and rainbows, despite all this. I think Doumeki's single-minded narrative of "beautiful, kind, and strong" sometimes keeps him from fully understanding how Yashiro is deeply, deeply traumatized and how just loving the man won't make things okay. It's also why, although the sex in ch. 25 is probably the hottest I've ever seen in manga, it's still fucked up in terms of consent (on both their parts). It's also problematic for vulnerability and trust.
In any case, my point isn't that Doumeki not being Kage means everything's great and perfect and both of them are fine. Neither is fine. My point is that, initially, Doumeki might have gotten through Yashiro's defenses because of his superficial resemblance to Kage, but now, Yashiro is well aware that he's not Kage. Moreover, Doumeki not being Kage is better for Yashiro because pity and rejection aren't what he needs. If anything is going to save these two traumatized babes, it has to start with respect and not pity. Kage couldn't have been it for Yashiro; he wasn't careful enough to hold a broken-winged bird. And he wasn’t subtle enough to realize Yashiro’s fragile sense of self needed his respect but never his pity.
But maybe Doumeki can be all this? I’m sure I’m asking for a miracle tantamount to walking on water, but it'd be nice if they could be more careful with one another. Yes, the narrative's from Yashiro's POV, but Doumeki's been through a lot as well - enough that it made him impotent. They’ve both gone through hell, and the reason they both gloss over it is because there’s so much trauma to go around. Still, Doumeki deserves to be treated with reverence as much as Yashiro.
That's a reallllllllly good question. I've been thinking about it and I keep spinning in circles. I don't think I have a clear answer.
But I also don't think anything in Saezuru can be distilled to a yes/no answer, so maybe what we truly want to know is how sex functions for Yashiro? Sorry to bait-and-switch, but I think I'd be better equipped to consider the function of sex as opposed to whether or not Yashiro likes it. (The honest answer to the second question is "I don't know." I wonder if we're not supposed to know.)
More under the cut. CW - rape, child sexual assault, sexual violence, violence, dubcon, and everything else that's typical for Saezuru.
Okay, with the caveat that I'm rambling out loud, here are my thoughts about Yashiro and sex:
1. He uses sex to sublimate strong emotions, particularly those related to romantic affection. As early as ch. 1, this is clear. After Kage leaves Yashiro's office, sensei gives us this panel:
Two things'll come up over and over. First, Yashiro thinks of himself as "shadow," "twisted," or "perverted." Second, he says, "Anyone will do, just fill me up." He's hurt (just look at his face at the bottom left) and he instinctively wants someone to "fill him up." I think part of sensei's genius is that every bit of dialogue can have multiple meanings. In this scene, Yashiro wants someone to literally fill his ass, but also to fill the loneliness he's carried since high school. If he can't be loved, at least he can be filled.
I have less evidence for this, but I think part of his hypersexuality comes from the fact that sex will never satisfy him completely. It'll never fill his loneliness. Because he can never be filled, he needs more and more sex. With that comes more and more violence. (It seems this might have changed sometime during the time skip. It'll be interesting to see if that's the case.)
Yashiro pretends he's aromantic and hypersexual. If he really were, there'd be no problem. Yet, we learn he's definitely not aromantic. And we get hints that he may not be hypersexual, either. This is why I think he's using sex to try and satisfy an emotional need. But you can't do that when you swear that sex isn't about feelings, right? He's sabotaging himself by refusing to ascribe emotional meaning to sex and then having tons of sex to compensate for a lack of feeling.
It's a cruel cycle: He can't ascribe emotional meaning to sex, because then, he has to ascribe meaning to being raped. Giving said trauma any meaning would crush him.
2. Yashiro uses rough sex to reinforce the narrative that he's not loveable. Violent sex is what he's used to, it's the only touch he's known, and it's the only kind of sex he thinks he deserves. He's twisted and perverted, after all. Why would anyone touch him with anything other than revulsion? We see this when he tells Misumi that he likes fucking homophobe yakuza because they're likely to look down on him, insult him, and rough him up the most (ch. 10). He says it's "irresistible" (ch. 10).
Maybe he is a masochist - if pressed, I'd argue he's somewhere on the masochist scale... maybe. Still, he lies when he says he only feels it if it hurts. Yashiro feels it when it doesn't hurt, too (ch. 23-25). Nevertheless, feeling something and liking it are two different things.
So, maybe sex fulfills his masochism (if it exists) but his masochism is driven by a core belief that he's not worth loving.
It's no surprise that when someone says something warm or affectionate to him, he calls them an idiot: Doumeki (ch. 2) and Nanahara (ch. 20). That's when he's not completely pushing them away. He doesn't like affection anywhere, much less in the bedroom. Yashiro is bent on seeing himself as ruined, and rough sex lets him maintain that narrative.
3. Being hypersexual diminishes the horror of being raped. Yashiro glosses over being raped in conversation a few times. Each time, I feel my heart shatter. But all the characters seem used to it, suggesting he does it "off camera" too. In any case, getting fucked roughly over and over makes the violence of that first act merely one instance in a long series of violent sex encounters.
It's statistics: Increase the sample size, and the probability of any one instance being a source of emotional pain gets smaller and smaller. If rough sex is Yashiro's Tuesday afternoon, then all those times he was preyed upon are relegated to mundane, everyday events.
This is a very fragile narrative that disintegrates from time to time, but he works hard to keep it in place. Lots of sex helps keep it in place. In other words, he conflates rough sex and rape so he can file "rape" under "rough sex" and think of it as insignificant.
4. Sex helps Yashiro reclaim his agency over (the memory of) his stepfather. Whenever Yashiro says he enjoys being raped and/or rough sex, he's not subject to his stepfather's predation. He gets to control the narrative. And in his narrative, he's not the victim because he likes rough sex. (Remember he conflates rape and rough sex.)
Let me be clear: Yashiro never says he enjoyed being raped by his stepfather. Ever. It was wrong, and he realizes it was wrong. He compares it to Aoi being raped and says he had it worse (ch. 2-3). He tells her his body can't live without sex because of what happened (ch. 2). [This trauma comparison is shitty, BTW.]
What rough sex allows him to do is say, "It was wrong, but it didn't hurt because pain is meaningless. Actually, I like pain. I have rough sex all the time, so in the grand scheme of things, my stepfather's raping me wasn't all that important. It's merely something that happened once and I'm over it."
Dear reader, we know he is not over it.
5. Sex is empowering. We may not like it because we don't like Yashiro being hurt, but sex does empower him. Cruel, violent yakuza bastards have bent him in every which way and he's still here, smiling that half-smirk and looking out at the whole world as if he knows all its secrets. OMG, that is such a delicious power play!
I get it. Frankly, I enjoy getting in professional arguments with someone I've fucked, because they know I can shut everything down with, "I know what makes you climax." There's incredible leverage in knowing someone's intimacies. [I promise I've never used this information in nefarious ways. But I could. And that makes me feel more comfortable in testosterone-saturated spaces. Many of the women I work with feel similarly.]
Yashiro does the same shit. Look at how easily he shuts Ryuuzaki up, just by knowing some intimate secrets and coming on to him:
If being raped ever made him feel powerless, he turned that powerlessness on its head. He may have had no one to protect him back then, but he used sex to survive. Eventually, he learned he could leverage sex for power. During the story, he essentially fucks Ryuuzaki into submission, gets special information from the police, and even makes Hirata snap by questioning his sexuality.
One thing I love about Yashiro being unabashedly sexual is that he can so easily unsettle all these hardened yakuza thugs. He's no longer the teenager who couldn't fight off his stepfather. He's the one calling the shots. Sometimes, he even looks like he's having fun fucking with everyone (pun intended). It's good to see him having fun. And maybe, if he does like sex, this is what he likes about it: He gains power by fucking.
Unfortunately, this also means that abandoning his hypersexuality is dangerous. It's tantamount to abandoning the sexual power he's amassed.
So, does Yashiro like sex? I'd be tempted to argue that if he comes, he's enjoying himself. But that's not true. Enough stimulation will make him come; doesn't mean he likes it. He says he loves rough sex, though. And maybe we want to read into that and say he's lying and sublimating his trauma, but processing trauma is a valid reason to have sex in my opinion. I just want him to learn about consent, desire, and intimacy in addition to having lots of sex. I want him to get some therapy and realize he deserves love too. The sweet, tramuatized teenage boy who was assaulted by his stepfather deserves to be saved, just like Aoi was. And if sex could save Yashiro, I'd be all for it. But it doesn't. Or at least it doesn't fully save him. (Not even sex with Doumeki saves him; if he were saved, he wouldn't have run.)
Still, if we grant all this, we also have to grant that his hypersexuality and masochism come with certain advantages that have allowed him to survive and thrive. This is why it's not a question of like/dislike to me, but rather a question of what sex does for Yashiro. Whether we like it or not, it does a lot for him. Asking him to give it up for a monogamous relationship is asking for a lot - more than he feels he can give.
Anyway, thanks for the question! Saezuru confuses me but I love it, and the only way I'm going to get un-confused is to talk through it. Feel free to send your thoughts; I want to hear them.
I got a thirst question: how / when will we see Doumeki naked again?🤣 Well, to confirm if he has a tattoo or not... Shower scenes, rain scene, fight scene....?
Oooh! Well, Sensei seems to really LOVE bathroom scenes in general. Many key scenes have taken place when they were in the bathroom (Yashiro’s confession, the first time Doumeki touches Yashiro’s hair (as far as Yashiro knows), their first kiss etc.) It seems to be some sort of epicenter for them lmfao.
I stand by my theory that a similar scene to chapter 2 will happen, only reversed. Wouldn’t it be a beautiful parallel? Moreover, fucking genius foreshadowing on Sensei’s part? I hope Yashiro loses his shit at the sight of it.
CW - rape, sexual assault, dubcon, child sexual abuse, violence - it's Saezuru, so...
I want to do something different with this meta. Instead of doing any analytical work trying to figure out what sensei's telling us, I want to make a list of how many times Yashiro tries to push Doumeki out of the yakuza life.
Maybe I'll have some analytical thoughts throughout, but ultimately, this is simple accounting.
(This is also ridiculously long, BTW.)
Right, then. Here's my count (YMMV):
(1.) Ch. 2; Yashiro lies to Doumeki in order to make him mad enough to storm out: Earlier in the same chapter, Yashiro says it's fine that Doumeki joined the yakuza because the latter thought Yashiro was so beautiful. But Yashiro also says it's hard to get out of the yakuza; it sucks you in like a fine pussy. (That someone so elegant can have such coarse language is one of my favorite things about Saezuru.)
When speaking to Doumeki's sister Aoi, Yashiro refuses to make Doumeki quit because he doesn't like being told what to do. But then, he lies to Doumeki and says he let slip to Aoi that Doumeki is impotent because of her.
Cue this angry!Doumeki face:
And sure, maybe Yashiro was just fucking with him because he likes to see Doumeki break his impassive mask, but given that he has a flashback to him crying over Kage when he's talking to Aoi, and that he found the news clipping of Aoi's award in Doumeki's jacket pocket, Yashiro was more likely trying to send Doumeki back to Aoi (and the rest of his family). Doumeki may not have romantic feelings for Aoi, but it's clear he cares for her.
Now that I've read everything, I read this scene in conjunction with the warehouse scene in ch. 33, where Yashiro says to Doumeki, "Your sister is lucky she had you." Yashiro never had someone to protect him from his abuser; he'd know what it means to have a protector. Maybe he didn't want Aoi to lose hers. And maybe he knew Doumeki needed to hear that she didn't blame him.
(2.) Ch. 4; Yashiro makes Doumeki wear the cop outfit: This one isn't as obvious, but let's be honest, Yashiro's really not trying to endear himself to Doumeki by making him dress as a cop. He laughs it off as a "cosplay," but Doumeki (who is very perceptive) thinks, "I wonder why Boss wants to make me quit."
It's hard to tell if Doumeki thinks Boss wants him to quit the yakuza, or if he thinks Yashiro is making him want to quit their little fellatio sessions. I'm sure those who read Japanese could probably sort it out for us.
In either case, though, this seems a protracted ploy to make Doumeki reconsider sticking around. Later in the chapter, Doumeki asks Yashiro why the he made him dress up. Yashiro says, "It's obvious. I wanted to do a cosplay. No matter how much you romanticize me, I'm thinking about my dick all day." (That's my paraphrase of the conversation at the end of ch. 4.)
What a revealing thing to say: Yashiro thinks Doumeki romanticizes him. And so, the cop cosplay (which was probably painful for Doumeki) demonstrates that Yashiro will put his pleasure over others' pain. Maybe Doumeki shouldn't think he's so "beautiful, kind, and strong."
It doesn't work, as we know.
(3.) Ch. 6; Yashiro tells Doumeki not to come back when he's out with Kuga: I don't think this one was serious, but technically Yashiro did tell Doumeki to never come back, so I'm including it. Funny how he says it explicitly when he doesn't mean it, no? When he's really trying to push Doumeki away, it's all cruelty and subterfuge.
(4.) Ch. 22; Yashiro tells Doumeki that he's not a member of Shinseikai: This one isn't obvious either, but it comes on the heels of Doumeki saying he's thinking about moving out of his apartment because he's at the office so much - meaning he's prepared to be Yashiro's bodyguard permanently. In response, Yashiro says, "Don't do that."
Yashiro never explicitly says, "Quit this life. Go away." But the ensuing conversation is pretty telling.
If you've read through ch. 44, you know that starting here, Yashiro gets more and more intent about pushing Doumeki out. Part of me thinks it's because he can't get the image of that bullet whizzing past Doumeki's head out of his mind (ch. 20). Another part of me thinks Yashiro's tired of life, fully expects to die soon, and knows Doumeki is only in it for him. Yashiro tries to cut both their losses.
That goes well, doesn't it?
(5.) Ch. 22; Yashiro blows Doumeki: Yashiro's given Doumeki blow jobs before. But this time, it's he's doing it to push Doumeki away. Immediately before, he says, "Even though you're cute, I've also become a little afraid of you. I thought it was because you only had me. But I was wrong. I think I was relieved that you're impotent."
And then he demands to blow Doumeki. "Let me off today Boss won't work," he says. [Consent is fucked in Saezuru.]
Whhhhhew, this is a hugely important conversation because it shows us that Yashiro knows he's built a house of cards around himself. "I thought it was because you only had me," he says. "But I was wrong." He's aware that Doumeki isn't a "baby bird" who imprinted on the only thing he saw and then romanticized Yashiro because he didn't know what to do with himself. Yashiro admits he was wrong about that. He knows there are real feelings involved, not baby bird type attachment or oblivious romanticizing.
This leads us to the second part of his confession: "I think I was relieved that you're impotent." Yeah, I bet he was relieved. Because Doumeki being impotent means Doumeki is safe, both sexually (can't/won't hurt Yashiro with all that damnable tenderness) and emotionally (their relationship remains stagnant - or so Yashiro thinks). This conversation deserves its own post, so I won't say much more except that blowing Doumeki after claiming he's relieved Doumeki is impotent feels like Yashiro's "testing" Doumeki's impotence. Despite this, because Yashiro acknowledged the feelings between, he likely already knows Doumeki will get hard. If that happens, Doumeki will be fired.
And yet, Yashiro blows him anyway. Almost like he's looking for an excuse to fire Doumeki, right?
(6.) Ch. 22; Yashiro says they should have sex now that Doumeki's hard: This, to me, essentially nails the coffin shut on point #5. Yashiro's paradoxically angry that Doumeki got hard (despite having the latter's dick in his mouth the whole story). When Yashiro gets angry, he's prone to recklessness. And so, here he suggests they should have sex, knowing he'll walk out the minute it's over, because that's what he does when subordinates fall in love with him. Again, he's manufacturing an excuse to fire Doumeki.
This danger - that Yashiro's about to bolt - carries through the next few chapters. And frankly, I feel like Yashiro's been using the physicality to try to push Doumeki away this whole time. It's partially successful in ch. 22 only because Doumeki gets hard.
Doumeki had it right all along: The minute he got hard is the minute he'd be cast aside. He knows Yashiro's looking for an excuse.
(7.) Ch. 23; Yashiro's cruelty: Within the larger drama going on in chs. 22-25, in ch. 23, Yashiro says, "I want to torment him. I want to hurt him." He proceeds to do just that: He caustically asks Doumeki if the latter likes it better when he's holding someone down. This is a clear comparison to Doumeki's father, and yes, it's incredibly cruel. [We can talk about whether or not it was deserved: Remember that Doumeki did, in fact, hold him down and rim him. For a second time, consent is fucked in Saezuru for lots of reasons. You can see that here.]
In ch. 4, Doumeki said he didn't mind being impotent because it means he's not like his father. Rather, he's incapable of being like his father. Throughout the story, he has an insatiable need to "defile" Yashiro. He also steamrolls through Yashiro's refusals because he claims he can't help himself. In this way, he feels that he is like his father - another man who couldn't help himself, didn't hold himself back. [This is not an excuse for not stopping, BTW. It's always important to note that consent is absolutely fucked in this story - on both their parts.] Being impotent means he can't rape Yashiro, in other words. Doumeki holds to this like a lifeline. He doesn't realize, I think, that rape isn't about attraction or affection; it's about violence and power. He thinks sexual desire, in and of itself, is a bad thing because he thinks his father's actions were driven by sexual desire. [For a fourth time, consent is fucked in Saezuru.]
By being so cruel (again), Yashiro pushes Doumeki away (again). Part of this is Yashiro's sadism, but even then, he's knows what saying something so cruel means. He even chides himself immediately for saying something so horribly close to, "You're just like your father" (ch. 23). But in that pissed off moment when he said it, Yashiro wanted to hurt Doumeki and succeeded. He also reinforced Doumeki's negative associations between sexual desire and being predatory, which the former had been trying to separate earlier (ch. 2, when he says Doumeki's guilt would have disappeared with his father if he'd killed the man).
In ch. 24, we get some sense of why Yashiro both pushes Doumeki away and pulls him close: He's always known he shouldn't keep Doumeki around. He wants to push him away, but also wants to keep him close. Moreover, he's fucking terrified of how easily Doumeki could die for his sake.
No wonder Yashiro's tried so hard to push Doumeki away without explicitly firing him. If Doumeki leaves on his own, Yashiro can comfort himself by saying, "He wouldn't have stayed anyway; no one stays for me. Why would they? I'm not worth choosing. I'm not worth staying for." If Yashiro fires him explicitly, however, Yashiro can't reaffirm this worldview where he's not worth staying for. [Yes, it's a terrible worldview to have. But Yashiro's ability to survive rests on shitty worldviews. Destroying it means destroying him.]
(8.) Ch. 25; Yashiro leaves the morning after: He tells Doumeki to go to sleep and then leaves. That had to hurt like hell, particularly because Doumeki knew he'd be left behind. He tells Yashiro not to run away (ch. 24). After they've had sex, he refuses to close his eyes (ch. 27).
When he wakes up and realizes Yashiro's gone, he says (very sadly), "I wanted to bind him to me."
Probably doesn't help at all when Chestnut says to Doumeki, "Looks like you're the one being protected" (ch. 29). Doumeki had sworn to stay at Yashiro's side and protect him, after all.
(9.) Ch. 32; Yashiro and Doumeki's conversation in the car: This is another cruel conversation. Yashiro tells Doumeki he's never been a member of Shinseikai, to get out of the car, and to leave him alone. After all that, we get this tantalizing bit of dialogue:
These characters are difficult to pin down (because humans are difficult to categorize!), but sensei gives us clues about what makes them tick. Here, we learn why Yashiro gets so pissed at Doumeki's feelings for him. Doumeki's stubborn will to remain at his side is why the man has to go; his irrational devotion is going to get him killed. Yashiro doesn't want to lose Doumeki, but Doumeki keeps doing shit that ensures he'll lose him, either because Yashiro can't have subordinates falling in love with him or because Doumeki is going to die a yakuza death. There's no winning for Yashiro. But he's not a man who likes to lose.
In addition, he's probably also pissed because Doumeki won't listen to him when he says no. Yashiro says it multiple times: when they're having sex in chs. 22-25, and here, in ch, 32. He also blames Doumeki for how things turned out: "You knew what what happen and you still did that" [Meaning "you still fucked me" or even "you still fell in love with me" maybe? Or both? Probably depends on the Japanese.]. To add insult to injury, Yashiro ends his mean little rant by claiming all the things he said to Doumeki back in chs. 23-25 were lies. He he just wanted to let Doumeki live out a fantasy until the end.
He's so breathtakingly cruel when he wants to be. I always think of Yashiro as something like belladonna flowers - beautiful and poisonous. Nowhere is this clearer than in this exchange between the two of them in 32.
(10.) Ch. 33; Yashiro shoots Doumeki: Do we need to say much about this one? Pretty sure shooting someone is an indication of, "Go away."
(We should note, though, that Doumeki's resolved not to touch Yashiro in both ch. 32 and 33. So, he feels guilt for being so persistent physically. It doesn't matter at this stage, though. They've already crossed a line for Yashiro.)
I think Yashiro was prepared to die when facing Hirata. To me, he's trying to spare Doumeki from dying with him or watching him die. The most poignant moment in this chapter is when Yashiro says, "Your sister was lucky she had you." This feels like an attempt to assuage any guilt Doumeki might have about feeling desire for his boss and for having sex with him. I'm not sure Yashiro succeeds because they never talk about it. But he knew when he compared Doumeki with the man's father back in ch. 23 he did some serious damage. Maybe he's trying to set things right to say, "Don't have any regrets about last night." The whole conversation before he shoots Doumeki and leaves him behind reads like a goodbye to me.
(11.) Ch. 35; Yashiro's selective amnesia: Not even Nanahara believes this, but Boss' word is the law, so everyone's going to pretend Yashiro has no idea who Doumeki is. Great.
This is a transparent ploy to get Doumeki out. We, the audience, know it's transparent because when Yashiro sees Doumeki talking to his family in the hospital, Yashiro likens Doumeki to a bird taking flight. He gives Doumeki the exit he never got.
I really hate that cliche, "If you love something let it go..." It fits Saezuru, though. It's not trite in this story.
So... by my count, that's 10-11 times Yashiro tried to kick Doumeki out of the yakuza life. None of these include smaller barbs like when Yashiro tells Doumeki to go rinse his mouth after an interrupted blow job (ch. 13). Or to leave the room so he can get himself off after his hotel meet-up with Inami (ch. 15). Or the many times he tells Doumeki to stop touching him tenderly in chs. 23-25. Or when he tells Kage he kicked Doumeki out (ch. 28). If we believe him when he says he's afraid, we can read all this pushing away as him simultaneously running away.
This gorgeous bitch has been running like it's the Boston Marathon; he's pretty much a basic white girl in a scary movie, running up the stairs and tripping over dumb shit on the way - only to get caught in the end. That gives new meaning to a panel like this one, doesn't it?
And it's not just Doumeki. Yashiro runs from everyone. He pushed away one of Hirata's subordinates who fell in love with him (ch. 10). He repeatedly abuses, belittles, and pushes Nanahara away (even when they first meet in ch. 18). He avoids getting further entangled with Misumi. He keeps Kage around, but he was willing to let Kage go too (ch. 6). Even his assumption of the title "pervert" is designed to make people revile him. Doumeki never buys any of it and neither does the audience, but still, you have to admire the man's endurance.
Given all this running, you get why he's a little annoyed that Doumeki is a yakuza in ch. 41. He worked so hard to try and push Doumeki out.
(An ending note: If we did a complementary post of all the times Yashiro pulled Doumeki closer, I bet we'd have another long list. What can we say? Being contradictory is part of his charm.)
Shameless self promotion but I now have a private Saezuru account on Instagram, where I upload my art (nsfw mostly), edits, etc. I’m more active there than on tumblr. Cheers.
