Adolescent Adam

The man’s name was Shibaki.

He was not all that smart a man, but at the age of 40, he had begun to dabble in philosophy. What did people think about? Why was he here? He was engrossed in those mildly tricky questions he had never considered while younger.

After dyeing his hair in middle school to look like a certain entertainer, he had quickly fallen away from the straight and narrow. It had started with no more than smoking cigarettes, but the classes in high school were much too tiresome for him and he dropped out after a year and a half. From there, he had started a minor gang where he earned enough to live off of through phone scams and cheating at pachinko by modifying the machines.

He had had seven friends working with him at the time, but not one of them was still with him. Two had apparently taken a high school graduation equivalency exam and became insignificant office workers, but three had overdosed on drugs and damaged their heart or brain and the final two had been out of touch for a decade after some rumors that they had taken out life insurance policies.

Shibaki had lived comfortably to the age of 40, but only because he had been lucky.

He had always been fairly attractive and he had a knack for picking up on the subtle moods of a partner, so he was popular with women. He was confident in his skills in bed and he was confident he could live for quite a while just by sponging off of a lonely woman or an unfulfilled wealthy married woman.

His fate had changed when he met a certain woman at the age of 25. She had lived a wild life of moving from one man to another, but they had hit it off oddly well and they had naturally started living together. It had not been official, but they had effectively been married and even had a kid. So when she had disappeared 5 years later, there had been no avoiding being saddled with her debts.

He had changed his lifestyle to repay them, but he had not signed a life insurance policy like his friends. That may have been the one wise decision he ever made. He had instead utilized his talents in the workplace and sold his body to unfulfilled wealthy married women. Thinking back, that too may have been a wise decision.

One of those had been the wife of a certain family of politicians.

In exchange for a deposit large enough to repay his debts, she had told him to use his talents in the country’s largest human trafficking organization.

His life was just one lucky break after another.

“Hey, Shibaki-san. Good morning.”

“Morning.”

A few members of a minor gang were clearly uncomfortable in their black suits as they bowed. It was like looking at himself 20-odd years before.

The familiar sight felt somehow hollow to him, but he still asked for a report while jerking his chin toward a giant home built prominently in this mountainous region.

There was also a terribly ugly concrete building in an overgrown yard.

They were in south Fukui Prefecture, deep in the mountains on the border between Kyoto and Shiga.

This was the Kurosaki Villa.

The land belonged to Kurosaki, an old family dating back to the Muromachi period. They had 18 villas around the country, they had more than 70 around the world, and they used this one as their western base after moving their main residence to Kantou in the Edo period. 𝗳𝗿𝐞ℯ𝙬𝗲𝗯n𝗼νel.𝒄𝑜𝘮

A comfortable single-floor inn was built on the bank of a small lake in the mountains and it even had a golf course and pool. The large hot spring facility may have been better described as a spa. There was no actual spring there, but hot water was pumped over from a nearby Tanba hot spring they had bought up and the bath was large enough to hold more than 100 people. The size and luxury made it seem like the ultimate leisure facility.

But it was actually a secret brothel.

It was a leisure facility belonging to the Kurosaki Family, the country’s largest human trafficking group. It contained everything the rumors suggested.

The golf course, pool, and hot spring were no more than diversions for visitors who wished for a change of pace. Lately, people’s phones were enough to kill some time, so the golf course had not been seeing much use.

The guests here were only interested in one thing.

“Shibaki-san, we finished ‘training’ the 8 members of the Veronica idol group. Although 2 were still virgins, so we left them untouched.”

It was a brothel for only those wealthy enough to easily spend millions.

Shibaki had worked here for 8 years now. He had made a name for himself as a “trainer” and he was somewhat known even in the political world.

“Good work. Then leave those 2 be and have the other 6 make their show debut tonight. Sell them for 10 million, give the girls 100 thousand for the show, and give them another million if someone buys them.”

“Yes, sir.”

Once he had given them their instructions, Shibaki walked toward the concrete building.

“Oh, Shibaki-kun. …Stop here.”

On the way, he came across a group of men on a golf cart. A small man in a hakama bearing a family crest spoke to him from the backmost seat.

“Welcome, Ookura-sama. How long will you be staying this time?”

Shibaki had made a name for himself, but only as a trainer – an employee. He made sure to bow his head and greet the guests.

When the Diet was not busy, they would have a lot of politicians and he had to be a lot more courteous with them than with the nouveau riche types.

“Hah hah hah. For about 5 days with my friends here. You need get some exercise to do your job right, after all.”

The cheerful man went on his way.

Ookura was a politician who served as the ruling party’s Deputy Prime Minister and he had long controlled the primary general contractor in his local region. Whenever the Diet’s budget included funding for repairing aging roads, almost 10% of it filtered right into his pockets. And he spent around half of that having fun here, so he was a lucrative customer.

“…”

Shibaki grew oddly philosophical at times like this.

He did not drink, smoke, or do drugs. For a trainer, alcohol and drugs were poisons that dulled the mind and a lot of women were turned off by the smell of cigarette smoke. He had removed all his excess hair so his nudity did not disgust them and he used a razor every day to remain freshly shaved. He looked after his health for his job and he made sure to get 7 hours of sleep every night. He had a good complexion and decently handsome features, so he left a good initial impression with both men and women. He got along well with the politicians he often interacted with.

He had only strayed further and further from the straight and narrow, but he looked after his appearance and health more than the friends who had taken their high school graduation equivalency exams and become office workers. In fact, he did so even when compared to the normal classmates who had taken the honest route of hard work ever since middle school. Life could be strange like that.

…Of course, the people he maintained himself for and bowed down to were all complete garbage who happily spent embezzled public money on human trafficking.

Life could be ironic and things just worked out the way they worked out. He wondered if he could have come up with something more insightful if he had read a few philosophy books when he was younger.

What could he even say if he met that woman again?

The woman who had changed his life when he met her at 25.

He entered the concrete building.

It was the one and only mossy and ugly building on a property with a refined Japanese-style home and garden. The exterior was horribly gloomy, and…

“Nooooo! Stop, stoooooop!”

A piercing scream reached his ears as soon as he stepped inside.

It might be ugly, but the concrete ensured these indecent cries did not escape. The man showed no sign of concern as he got some coffee from the server at the front desk and continued further in.

The back wall was made of glass that gave a view of smaller rooms with a single girl in each one. They were all nude and half had passed out from exhaustion. The other half were engaged in a variety of lewd acts: being gangbanged by several men, riding a massive dildo, being forced to masturbate while tied up, being tormented with whips and candles, etc.

The showcase could be described as a marketplace of sex, but Shibaki had seen it all over the past 8 years and he walked right past it without so much as a glance their way. He entered a room with a business desk and a few documents.

After making sure they said “Veronica”, he did not bother checking the actual names, glanced only at the facial photo and full-body nude photo, and stamped them “approved”.

He shoved 6 of the documents into an envelope and left out the 2 with red marks.

“Thank you.”

“Oh…You’re welcome, Riselle-sama.”

Someone suddenly spoke from the back of the room. Shibaki was a little surprised, but he said nothing since he could not complain about her being here.

Riselle. He did not know her real name, but she was a secretary raised with great care by Shibaki’s employer, a man named Kurosaki Shuntarou. Not even a trainer like Shibaki had been allowed to touch her.

“Hm? Who is that?”

Riselle was not alone today. Another girl stood behind her, wearing the same sort of clothing as her: a gothic lolita apron dress.

She was nothing like Riselle, who drew the eye with light purple hair and skin that looked like it was made of milk. She was a plain girl. Based on the light chestnut hair and skin color, she was probably Japanese.

“This is Kisaragi-chan, a friend of mine. Say hi, okay?”

“R-right. Nice to meet you.”

The girl gave a nervous bow.

Shibaki looked back at the documents, but she was not one of the girls he was meant to train. She must really have been a friend.

Although he felt like this was not exactly the best place for girls to hang out.

“Hee hee. Hey, Shibaki-san. What do you think about this girl?”

“What?”

“Would she make a good product?”

Riselle was clearly joking, but Kisaragi still frowned nervously.

This was only the secretary’s cruel joke, but the difference in status meant Shibaki had to answer her seriously. He stared at the other girl with the appraising eye of a professional.

She was plain in just about every way and was not especially beautiful, but her facial features were well formed and that gave her a cute look. She was not blessed with a sexy figure, but her chest and hips were clearly still in the process of growing. And then there was that reaction when he stared at her.

“I believe she could make a fair amount of money if I trained her first. Shall I?”

“Hee hee. Unfortunately, she is a favorite of my master’s. But this means Shibaki-san thinks you’re attractive. Isn’t that great, Kisaragi-chan?”

“Y-yes. Thank you very much.”

The two girls exchanged cruel smiles.

Shibaki wanted nothing to do with this, so he shrugged.

“This is for you.”

But Riselle handed him a document. Just like the 8 for the Veronica girls, it had a photo of a girl’s face.

Her name was Haramiya Koishi…but Shibaki did not check the name this time either.

“Oh?”

But he reacted very differently to this photo than to the other 8.

“My master likes her, so he wants you to train her.”

“Oh, so I have work to do.”

After 8 years, Shibaki now managed the younger trainers here, so he only supervised and did not do it himself. He had been planning to do the 8 Veronica girls like that today.

But he would have to do the work himself with a direct order from Shuntarou.

And a veteran like Shibaki could tell at a glance that this girl was well worth the direct order.

“…?”

Kisaragi must not have been told what this place did because she looked puzzled by the conversation. However…

“We need her ready for sale immediately. You don’t need to preserve her virginity, so just give her the sensitivity and obedience we need. The rest is up to you.”

When Riselle rattled off terms like “ready for sale”, “virginity”, and “sensitivity”, Kisaragi must have caught on because she hung her head.

Then the two girls turned around.

“Make sure you don’t hurt her. Bye.”

“…”

The man could not tear his eyes away from the photo even after they had left.

Haramiya Koishi. She was apparently hurting for money after running away from home.

They had agreed to meet at a café at Kobe Harbor and she appeared with only a single bag.

“Are you the one offering me a job?”

He showed her a stack of a million yen and handed her 100 thousand of that.

She immediately asked where she needed to go and climbed into the car Shibaki was driving. He first took her to an acquaintance’s salon and had her take a bath. Her paperwork said she had no history of disease, but he still had her wash up and took a saliva sample to check.

He confiscated her bag, her clothes, and her accessories. Instead, he bought her some more showy clothes and checked to make sure there were no bugs or tracking devices attached. The Kurosaki Family had leverage over the police, the politicians, and the mass media, but they still took precautions to ensure no information leaked out.

While she bathed and changed clothes, Shibaki watched her through a one-way mirror.

An actress of unparalleled beauty, a model worth billions, and a once-in-a-millennium idol. Shibaki had slept with 500 local and foreign women said to be perfect – at least in appearance – and they had all become captives to his technique.

But not even he had seen a girl of this caliber in a long time.

Her facial features had a dignified look without being too much. Her build was slender, with the perfect amount of muscle and fat. She had a mature appearance, but that was nicely balanced by the childish pink of her areolae, although the pink may have been a little too light a shade.

“Damn, she’s hot as fuck.”

The men who worked in the salon cackled.

Shibaki smiled bitterly when he nearly agreed out loud with their crude assessment. She was the perfect girl. Appearance-wise, anyone would have fallen for her.

“…”

That thought led his recent philosophical musings to a painful conclusion: He was no more than a piece of garbage who had strayed so far that the straight and narrow was no longer visible behind him.

Even when he saw a girl this attractive, he felt no desire to sleep with her. He had no positive feelings about her at all. He only saw her as a product and tried to work out how much money she could bring in.

It was no longer possible for him to fall in love. He could not care for someone and he could not want the best for someone.

The realization that he had lost the ability to love was a painful one.

What if he once more met that woman he had met at 25? What would she think of him now?