Three photos is all it took. The bad feeling that I had been building in my gut since morning finally spilled over as I was kneed in the stomach. My camera was taken from my hands, the strap choking me as they tried to pull it from around my neck. If they asked I would’ve given it to them. The moment I realized what had been captured in my photos, I began to delete them. All of them. Hours of work lining up the perfect shots, all gone because I accidentally wandered into the wrong part of Naafa. Once the strap was away from my person I dropped to the ground, covering my head as I would’ve if an earthquake made its presence known.

I didn’t fight back as they beat me, the last thing I wanted was to dig my grave even further. Pain bloomed through my entire body, and I tried to breathe through it. That almost made the kicks and stomps fall harder. As I struggled to stay conscious through the agony, I heard the unmistakable sound of my camera hitting the road, the crunch of glass breaking mere inches from me. I reached out to grab my prized possession, only to feel the bottom of a shoe stamp down on my hand, my camera shattering beneath it. I screamed as glass, metal, plastic, and asphalt cut into my hand. They pulled at my hair, bringing my head back and slamming it into the pavement. I spat blood onto the road, feeling weak and dizzy as the assault went on.

I tasted blood, unable to pick myself up long after they left. One hand holding onto the strap of my broken camera, the other lay there limply, the act of struggling to breathe enough to set it off. I allowed myself to drift off at the flicker of a siren in the distance. The camera strap was forced from my hand once more, my eyes having an awful time focusing as the paramedics moved me. I stared at my swollen hand, drifting in and out of cognizance. I blinked and found my hand in a cast, the discomfort blissfully numbed by the concoction of medications flowing directly into my veins. I touched my nose, feeling the bandage there and I sniffed, smelling iron. I shifted in the bed, subconsciously going to my pants to grab my phone. I turned my head to find where it might’ve ended up and I saw him.

Ice pumped through my body, my stomach in my throat as I watched him hold up my phone. He sat so close to my bed it felt like he was in it with me. The tiniest bit of red and black ink peeked out from under his suit jacket’s sleeve, blues and greens escaping the suffocation of his collared shirt at his neck. He pushed his short black hair out of his face, revealing a small scar by his eyebrow. “I apologize for my men,” he said. “They were only to delete the photos, make sure you minded your business.” He adjusted himself in the chair, leaning forward. “Let’s put this all behind us, yaa? No need for things to get…uglier.” I swallowed as he tapped away on my phone, fingers grazing my knee. “Let me know how much I owe you for the camera and the medical bills,” he pulled his own phone out, “Shimabukuro Hitoshiei-kun.”

He handed me my phone back. I finally had a name for the face of the head of the Naafa underground. “T-The-There’s no need, N-Na-Naagushi-shiku-san.”

He smiled and clapped my knee, and I winced as pain shot through my leg. “I like you, Shimabukuro-kun.” He let out a laugh, and I flinched at his continued choice of suffix. "I suggest you take me up on my offer, I don’t give handouts often.” He shoved his phone back in his pocket. “And I suggest you answer my texts and calls.”

He stood and began to leave, and I felt my mouth call out, “M-Ma-Matchoo-ch-chi-chimisooree.” He paused and faced me once more. My unbroken hand shook, all of my unconscious confidence left, and I thought it best to just tell him it was nothing, I could just text him later. Except, I felt sick at the thought of sending him a message. I took a breath as he stared me down, waiting for me to get whatever it was I wanted to say out. “E-Ev-Even if you com-comp-compensated me, I-I-I can’t w-wo-work with my h-ha-hand like this.”

Naagushiku let out a small chuckle, rubbing his chin. “An yaibiimi?” It felt like he was mocking me by asking that question. If I were to get a new camera, I wouldn’t be able to use it with my hand in a cast and certainty in a tremendous amount of pain that was masked by the pain killers. I already barely lived paycheck to paycheck, paid leave wasn’t enough to cover my meager living expenses, and getting fired might be the thing that will kill me. “If I have any, ah, jobs, I think you’d be suited for,” his eyes roamed my upper body and I suddenly felt dirty, “you’ll be the first to know.”

He slid the door closed behind him and I brushed off the gross feeling as I settled myself in the hospital bed. I looked at his Line profile, at his blank profile and cover photo. Rereading his name, it couldn’t be his legal name, right? Surely he wasn’t that dumb. As I stared at the profile, debating whether or not to unfriend him and pretend that the entire conversation never happened, my phone buzzed. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, as if coming out of a sleep I was never aware had taken place. Time had moved, hours had passed, without my noticing. My heart hammered in my throat as I went to check who the sender was, calming slightly when I saw my boss’ name, and it doubled at his message.

The deadline was approaching, I knew that, so why didn’t I have any photos or notes for the article? My excuse of being admitted to the hospital wasn’t good enough for him, nor were the awful photos taken using my nondominant, shaky hand of me with my bruised face and broken nose enough. I bit my lip as I waited for the inevitable phone call and chewing out and the threats of being fired and being told anyone could do what I could. And he was right, anyone could take a simple photo, go from location to location taking notes and trying to capture the essence of a place. I wasn’t special. I would never be special. My phone buzzed again, this time I caught the message in my notification bar. Naagushiku Hiroshi: Tell me when you’re discharged. Immediately.

I did what I was told days later. I was too scared to know what he’d do to me if I ignored him, it would probably be worse than what his men did. A few days in the hospital was bad enough, that turning into weeks or months wasn’t preferable. I found myself in a shady back alley in Naafa, staring up at a neon sign that read Kinjou, the scent of cigarettes and liquor leaked out onto the street. I looked between the sign and the location he sent me and when neither changed, I opened the door, keeping my eyes firmly on the tiled floor.

Someone grabbed my elbow, sickly sweet perfume flooded my nostrils. “Ai, yatchii,” a high-pitched voice spoke in my ear, “I’m performing soon, doo. I’d love it if you…watched me.” She placed a glass in my left hand. “On the house, yatchii, and many more if you ask for me later.”

I was about to tell her I was here because Naagushiku sent me when a firm hand clamped my shoulder. A few drops of alcohol spilled over the rim of the glass onto my hand. The glass was taken from me, and I was guided through a door that read EMPLOYEES ONLY. I wasn’t sure what to make of the room I was dropped off in. Bright lights illuminated a white photography backdrop, leaving the rest of the room in relative darkness. Naagushiku was standing at the edge of the set, paper in hand, talking softly to two women who were wearing so little they practically weren’t wearing anything at all. I stood in front of the closed door, eyeing the camera already set up on a tripod.

“N-N-Naagushi-shiku-san,” I said quietly.

He handed the paper to the women and turned around. “Finally,” he pointed to the floor by his feet, “get over here, Shimabukuro-kun.” I heeled, standing awkwardly in front of the three of them. “I’m sure you’ve already figured out why you’re here?”

I had already pieced it together, but there was one flaw in his plan. “I c-ca-can’t take ph-pho-photos with my h-ha-hand like th-thi-this.”

He took his time lighting a cigarette. “Would you rather be on the other side of the camera?” I shook my head, and he blew smoke above my head. “Figure it out, yaa?” He walked into the dark of the room, leaving me with the two women.

I tried not to stare at them too much as I familiarized myself with the camera. It was hard to change the settings for portraits with my left hand. I looked at the lens, reading its depth and swallowed at how shallow it was. “N-Na-Naagushi-shiku-san,” I said into the dark. “Ano…Do you h-ha-have a sh-sho-short teleph-photo lens?”

“What for?” I caught his sitting form in the dark. “They’ll let you get as close as you want without touching. Touching’s going to cost you, of course.” I felt my cheeks warm, and I tried to explain why the lens I had wasn’t best for what he wanted. “What you have is what I want you to use, yaa? Get moving or I’ll break your other hand.”

I mumbled out an “Uu,” and turned back to the camera. I leaned over to look through the viewfinder, finishing my last minute adjustments, before switching it over to live view. I kept my eyes focused on the LCD screen as I took burst photos of them. They groped and kissed each other, hands roaming their own and their partner’s bodies. As hands traveled closer to the waistband of the tiniest panties I had ever seen, I felt Naagushiku’s presence behind me.

The women froze and he bent over my shoulder to get a better view of the screen. He kept his voice quiet as he said, “Zoom in. I want you following their hands for the last set of photos.” I bit back any objections I had to that request and zoomed in as far as I could, focusing the lens as I looked through the viewfinder. Their movements resumed once I found my footing again. “Are you paying attention, Shimabukuro-kun?” My eyes shifted up from the camera, taking in what the two women were fully doing. Obscene noises filled the room and I looked at the floor as I realized where manicured fingers had ended up. The sound of the shutter going off only added to the noise. “They want you to look, so look.”

My finger pushed down on the shutter button harder, his hand tilting my chin up. Embarrassment took hold of me, in more ways than one. Naagushiku was right behind me, so close his body was almost touching mine. His steady breathing near my ear, the scent of his cigarette clinging to the air around him. I soon found myself much less interested in my models and more on Naagushiku’s presence. A thrum went through me imagining what it would’ve been like if I had been on the other side of the camera. Would he watch me as I engaged in sordid acts? Eyes taking in every one of my movements as the camera captured it all. I sucked in air at his declaration we were done. My hand shook as I removed it from the camera, wanting to linger in that fantasy.

I bit the inside of my cheek, trying not to let my breathing betray me. It didn’t help ease my mind, I was sure he knew what I had been imagining, and that only made it more exciting for me. He hooked a finger through the belt loop of my jeans, keeping me rooted in front of the camera as the women collected themselves and left. The thought that there were other people hiding in the dark ran through me, I bit my cheek even harder. He slid something in my front pocket, then said, “You’ll get the rest once we review your work.”