A/N: A big thank you to everyone who reviewed and/or faved and/or story alerted this! It's good to know that there are so many people who enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it! And to celebrate it hitting 20 reviews, here's chapter 3, longer than the first two chapters combined! (Shhh! No talking about quality over quantity!) XD

Oh, I have to confess that I've never read the manga, so all mentions of previous incidents and other characters are based on the drama.

Disclaimer: Even if I claimed to own Akiyama & co., nobody would believe me anyway....

Quickly, before you start, 2 words you may want to know:

Sushi: rice mixed with rice vinegar, usually served in restaurants (especially North American ones) as a seaweed-wrapped roll. In Japanese households, however, it is often mix with vegetables and/or fish and eaten loose (like regular rice but yummier).

Nikujaga: "niku" being meat and "jagaimo" being potato, this delectable dish is exactly what its name suggests - a stew with meat, potato, and other vegetables.

Chapter 3 – S, M, & Kinky Sex

"I found out what S&M stood for today."

Nao's sudden statement had Akiyama choking on his wine like he had just inhaled it through his nose, which was pretty close to what actually happened.

They had been sitting across from each other in the kitchen, him on the good chair and her on the unstable spare chair that she never used unless she had a guest. The magazines from the cupboards, it turned out, were for propping up one of its legs to make it less wobbly. Being the stereotypical chivalrous young man trying to impress his lady friend, he had protested against being given the good chair, but she had insisted just as forcefully that the spare chair be hers because, in her own words, "if you don't sit on it in just the right way, it will fall apart immediately." Seeing the determination in her expression to be a good hostess, and not really wanting to test the truthfulness of that statement, he had acquiesced reluctantly.

In between them were plates and bowls of scrumptious-looking food spread out so densely that the surface of the small dining table could not been seen. Not that he was complaining, because Nao, it turned out, was an awesome cook and the more of her food he could taste, the better. Knowing her character, he had half expected dinner to be a mismatch of various different types of food, including the baguette that he always saw sticking out of her grocery bag. Instead, the feast laid out before him was completely traditional Japanese, from his bowl of sushi to the big pot of nikujaga in the middle.

When he asked her about her choice of menu, she had simply smiled and replied, "You must have tasted so many different kinds of food while you were travelling around the world, but when was the last time you had homemade Japanese food?"

Not since my mother died. His response hung in the air between them unsaid, as both of them already knew what it was, and he was touched by her thoughtfulness.

"Not that I'd be able to make the food taste exactly like what you're used to eating before," she clarified hurriedly, a pretty blush rising to her cheeks, "but maybe it'll bring back some fond memories."

He had wanted to kiss her right there and then for being so good, too good, to him, but with a whole table full of food between them, she wasn't exactly within range so he settled for remembering the urge and acting upon it later.

He did give himself a mental pat on the back, though, for his good decision in buying a bottle of red wine before coming to visit tonight. Good wine, good food, the best woman in the world in front of him chattering away about nothing important, how could life get any better? He had been revelling in those thoughts, his brain too busy basking in the warm and fuzzy feelings to pay close attention to what she was talking about, so when her abrupt declaration came, it had caught him totally off guard. Hence, his current asphyxiation problem.

"Akiyama-san!" Nao was out of her seat in a second. Grabbing a couple of tissues from the box on the counter behind her, she flew to his side and knelt down, one hand offering them to him while the other one rubbed soothing circles on his back. "Are you okay?"

"What?" he managed to sputter out after much coughing, turning to face her and wondering if, perhaps, he was hearing things, even though he knew his ears were very sharp and almost always 100% accurate.

"I said, are you okay?" Seeing that he wasn't going to take the tissues, she wrapped them around two fingers and started dabbing them over his mouth.

He unconsciously batted her hand away impatiently. "No, no, before that. What did you say before that?"

She scrunched her face up in a cute little frown, trying to remember. "Um…Oh! I said I found out what S&M meant!" Evading his attempts to keep her hand away, she resumed what she was doing, her eyes following the movements of her fingers with a single-minded concentration. "You know, back in the Liar Game when we were doing the minority voting and we had that S&M question, but you wouldn't tell me what it meant except something about one being offense and the other being defence? Well it's been bugging me ever since!"

He stared at her. Oh god, so he did hear her correctly. They really were having this conversation. In the middle of dinner. While she was kneeling beside him with her eyes focused on his mouth and her fingers running back and forth over the same spot as she became too engrossed in her storytelling to pay attention to what she was doing. Even as he groaned mentally at the torture he was being subjected to, another part of his mind nudged him slyly and suggested that perhaps this was the chance that he had been waiting for.

"The other contestants during that round wouldn't tell me either when I asked them! And neither would any of the other contestants in any of the rounds after that! They all gave me this look–"

"Wait, wait, wait!" he interrupted, "you've asked other people that question too?"

"Yeah, and–"

"Didn't I tell you not to talk about it in public, especially not to strangers?"

Surprised at the sudden outburst, she turned her eyes to the wrist that he had grabbed before looking up to meet his angry gaze. "But I've only asked the other contestants!" she protested. "They're not strangers, they're friends! I mean, after going through the Liar Game together, we're practically family!"

He tightened his grip on her arm in anger. "No, you're not. They're nothing but acquaintances at most! Do you realize what could have happened if you asked the wrong person that question?"

"Oww! Akiyama-san! You're hurting me!"

He released her immediately upon hearing her cry of pain, shocked at how he had lost control. She rubbed her abused wrist with her other hand and glared at him. He saw guiltily that there were four telltale streaks of red across her white skin where his fingers had been.

"How could you say that about our friends? Are you saying that after everything we've been through, you and I are still only acquaintances? Because I thought we were closer than that." To his horror, her lower lip trembled as tears started to well up in her eyes.

Closing his eyes, Akiyama clenched and unclenched his hands a couple of times to calm the frustration arising within him before sighing in defeat. This was not the way he wanted this conversation to go. Well, the subject was S&M, so he wasn't even sure, himself, how he wanted it to go, but making her cry was definitely not it. Sighing again, he reached out a hand, hooked it around the back of her head and pulled her head gently to rest against his chest, running his hand down through her hair in what, he hoped, was a soothing manner. A part of him was still annoyed that she had completely misinterpreted his concern for antagonism, but to have made sweet-tempered Nao mad at him, he knew he had gone too far.

"Sorry," he murmured, "I didn't mean it like that."

He smiled softly when he felt the vertical movement of her head as she nodded, knowing that he had been forgiven, just like that. They stayed in that position for a while, enjoying the closeness to each other, and thankfully, his shirt remained dry. Before long, however, curiosity got the better of him and he broke the silence with a little reluctance.

"So, who did you ask?" he prodded, encouraging her to continue her story.

"All of them."

"A-All? Y-You…every one of them?" Too shocked to even form a complete sentence, he grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back gently, peering into her face, as if he needed to make sure she wasn't lying. A sense of dread crept up his spine when she lowered her eyes guiltily and nodded. Could she really have survived asking so many people that question without getting molested even once? Then, as some of her previous words flashed through his mind, he proceeded to ask his next question cautiously, not quite sure if he really wanted to know the answer or not "And…you said that none of them would tell you?"

"Yeah!" she exclaimed indignantly, the guilt and quietness suddenly gone as she lifted her eyes back up and resumed her story animatedly. "Can you believe it? I asked all of them and NOBODY would tell me! Most of them thought I was joking at first and many of them said I should go ask you! So I told them that you wouldn't tell me for some strange reason and you know what they said? 'Poor Akiyama-san!' Poor Akiyama-san! What about poor Nao? I'm the one whom there seems to be a big conspiracy against!"

She threw up her hands in exasperation and huffed, pushing her lower lip out in a pout and he couldn't help but let one corner of his mouth curl up in a small smile, both at how adorable she looked while sulking and at how nice the other participants had been to her. Maybe she had a point when she called them friends.

"Oh, except for Yokoya-san!"

Instantly she had his full attention again. The feeling of dread that had left a moment ago came slamming back into him at full force.

"Yokoya?"

Though he and his white haired rival had somewhat come to an understanding at the end of the game and they were now, at least, civil to each other, he still wouldn't trust that guy with a cent. The bastard was just too sly, merciless to boot, his emerald eyes seeing too much, too quickly, and he had this sick, sadistic pastime of breaking what's most important to other people just to fuck with their minds. Screeching to a mental stop, Akiyama went through that last sentence again. Sadistic pastime. Sadistic bastard. OH GOD! Terror-like panic gripped his heart as he slightly shook the shoulders he still held within his hands.

"What about Yokoya?" Contrary to his inner turmoil, his voice was dangerously calm, the silence of an assassin before he claimed his victim.

Nao gave him a baffled look, not understanding why he was suddenly looking at her so intensely. "Well, Yokoya-san said…." Slowly, she got up onto her feet, gently taking hold of his hands and pushed them off her shoulders before placing them at his side. He allowed it, not understanding why she was suddenly standing up but willing her to continue so that he could find out.

Clearing her throat, she lowered her eyelids to half-mast, the sudden sultry look in her eyes causing him to draw in a deep breath sharply. Which he promptly forgot to how to breathe out a second later as she suddenly grabbed his chin between the thumb and index finger of her right hand, tilting his face up with a small forceful jerk, a small foreign smirk adorning her face while her eyes bored into his, pouring molten lava into his whole being. Helpless against the intensity of the invisible compulsion, he could only watch as she slowly moved her face down to his, past his personal space bubble, until they were almost touching nose to nose. With a deliberate slowness, her eyelids lowered all the way down and when they lifted again, he saw that her fathomless irises were now focussed down on his mouth. Feeling her breath against his lips, he didn't have to look down to know that they were only about an inch apart. Unable to take his eyes off hers, he had to forcefully suppress a violent shudder along his spine as her gaze scraped against the contours of his mouth, up over the tip of his nose and along the bridge until she closed her eyes a second time before opening them to meet his again.

"…if you really want to know," her voice was low and soft, barely a tone above a purr, but the words fell on his lips in a way that he could almost taste them, "come with me and I'll show it to you in a way that you'll never forget…." She let go of his chin to run the back of her fingers along his jaw line, down his neck, and finally letting her fingertips rest lightly on his collarbone. This time, he couldn't stop the shiver that ran through his body at the promise in her words, actions, and tone of voice.

Her gaze went down to his mouth again and this time, he reciprocated the gesture, his eyes flickering down to look at hers. He groaned as he was met with the sight of her tongue, its pink tip barely showing in between her lips, making him want to touch it with his own, to lure it out of its hiding place, to see her reaction as he tugs on it with his teeth, to feel it against his….

Then it moved, and his thoughts came to a grinding halt as he watched it drag itself over the pink flesh, leaving a wet shiny trail in its wake. That was the last straw. With a growl at the top of his throat, Akiyama's iron-will self-control snapped as he threw everything to the wind and lunged….

….and almost fell out of his chair when he met nothing but air.

Opening his eyes, he saw with dismay that his target was now a foot and a half away from him, well out of his immediate kissing range. Furthermore, with a blink, the smouldering look in her eyes was gone, replaced with her usual happy-go-lucky smile.

"That's what he said!"

"What?" he asked stupidly, unable to grasp the sudden change of pace, his mind a jumble of dissonance. What just happened? Where was the mouth and tongue that he should have been playing with by now? Why was she back to her usual self? Where did the seductive temptress go? Unless…unless… He groaned internally. It couldn't be that she was....

"That's what Yokoya-san said!" she repeated beaming at him while confirming all his fears. "Did you like my imitation of him? I was good, wasn't I?"

"Hn." He turned and sat up rigid straight in his chair, crossing his arms in a defensive pose, refusing to look at her. While a part of him grudgingly admitted that she may, indeed, have a natural gift for acting, the bigger, bruised-ego part of him was torn between wanting to curl up and die of embarrassment and being furious over being played a fool. He was also shocked at how much it hurt to realize that her act was one of imitation and not seduction.

"Akiyama-san?"

He ignored her.

With a worried frown marring her face, she knelt down beside him once more and shook his arm apologetically. "Akiyama-san? Aww, Akiyama-san, don't sulk. I'm sorry if my actions shocked you, but I just wanted to show you exactly what his response was since you seemed so interested in it. I guess I should've known to hold back a little since I was pretty shocked when he did it to me too."

He turned to tell her that dammit, he was annoyed, not sulking when the thought of Yokoya doing the same things to her stopped him and he remembered that there had been a bigger purpose to this conversation. Now that he knew exactly what it was that his rival had said and done to Nao, the previous fear that he had felt came back doubled, along with a cold fury for the man who dared to make such a bold move on his woman.

"So what did you say to him?" he gritted out, every word was now enunciated with a careful precision that promised to slice any wrong move in half. If that sick weirdo had dared to lay even one finger on his Nao, he was going to tear him apart, limb by bloody limb.

"I accepted, of course!"

"You accepted, of course!" He whipped around to stare at her in disbelief.

"Yeah, I did! But before I could get into his car, Fukunaga-san came and dragged me away. Apparently, he had overheard the whole conversation and he said that I shouldn't try and find out about it from Yokoya-san because that would be like betraying you, Akiyama-san. Well, I didn't really understand what he meant, but I couldn't very well do anything that would betray you, now could I? So I told Yokoya-san that I couldn't go with him after all." She pouted again. "And I was so close that time too!"

He let out the breath he didn't realize he had been holding in an explosive sigh and pulled her roughly to him again, this time in an awkward hug of relief, catching her by surprise. For the first time ever, he found himself actually thankful for that mushroom head's lesser-of-the-two-evils existence. Yokoya, however, had better not cross the line of his vision ever again. Show her in a way that she'll never forget, my ass, he seethed, if I ever find him within a one mile radius from her, HE will know pain in a way that he'll never forget.

"What am I going to do with you?" he mumbled rhetorically, focusing once more on the person in his arms.

Puzzled at the meaning behind his words but feeling his anxiety, Nao wrapped her arms around him and brought them up to his shoulders, patting him gently with one hand.

"I don't get it," she finally admitted. "Why is it such a big deal? It's not like it's strange or unusual."

He tightened his arms, but spoke in his usual calm tone. "It IS a big deal. I don't care what you say about any of the other people, but Yokoya is different. He, alone, you cannot ever trust. Uh uh!" he put his index finger against her lips as she opened her mouth to protest. "I know you believe otherwise and I can't change your mind, so can you at least promise me to never put yourself in a situation again where you're alone with him? You can still talk to him or whatever, just please, please, for my peace of mind if nothing else, don't be alone with him. Can you promise me that?" If he could have it his way, his rival would have been deported from the country on the next plank of wood, but he knew that Nao would not comply to any limits he set, so this was as big of a concession as he could make, and even then the jealous possessive side of him was already screaming with rage.

Seeing the grave expression in his eyes, she could only nod in reply. "Okay, I promise, if it's that important to you."

Relief filled him, draining the tension away from his body and leaving him oddly tired and exhausted in a way that only interacting with Nao would. Still, he wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

"Though…when I said that it's not a big deal, I was referring to S&M, not to Yokoya-san."

It took him a second to process that comment, and when he did he froze and then pulled back to gape at her in shock, the protective side of him feeling totally scandalized and almost violated while his common sense tried frantically to grasp onto some sort of mental sanity hook so that it would not drown as it tried to reconcile the idea of Nao and S&M in the same sentence. Yet, another part of him, a naughty part the size and shape of his groin, couldn't help but perk up at the thought, nudging suggestive and graphic scenes into his mind. He would never be one for getting sick pleasure out of someone else's pain, but if Nao doesn't mind having a little more kinky relationship, well, that certainly opens up a lot more possibilities….

Honey, in order to have kinky sex, you need to be having sex in the first place, the snotty voice in his head interrupted. Let's work on that first, hmm?

Dammit!

Out loud, he picked his words carefully. "Oh? Is that so? Well, I don't really have a problem with it either, but not everyone is as…open-minded…as you and me, I suppose."

"Well, I understand why it may be rude to talk about it in public, especially to people who are sensitive about it, but I don't know why everyone had to be so secretive."

"I think they were trying to protect you."

Her eyebrows drew together as she frowned. "If you say so, but I still don't really understand…."

He smirked. Some things will never change, he decided, and Nao's pureness was one of them. Of course she wouldn't understand why people felt the need to protect her because, ironically, it's exactly the fact that she doesn't understand that makes people want to protect her in the first place.

"I'm not so sensitive about the issue that I'd freak out once I find out about it," she continued. "I mean, I may look like an M to some people sometimes, but I am definitely an S, so there's nothing for me to freak out about…."

His thoughts paused for a second. Huh, really…his Nao had a secret dominant side, did she now? Usually a control freak, he wasn't sure how much he liked that idea, but…he was open to new ideas. A mental image of Nao on top of him doing all sorts of wicked things to him while he watched, handcuffed to the bed appeared before his eyes, sending streaks of fire throughout his body and he decided that, oh yes, he was very open to new ideas.

"And I think the people who do freak out need to take some time to search inside themselves and come to terms with who they really are…."

The rapidly shrinking portion of his brain that could still think rationally and logically, was astonished by the wisdom in her words, and mused silently that if only she wasn't so paradoxically innocent at the same time, he could have had a much tougher rival in psychology than Katsuragi Ryo.

"After all, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being an S or an M!"

He nodded absentmindedly in agreement, trying to figure out if there was any way he could speed up this conversation without offending Nao so they could get to the trying out those new ideas already.

"Or even an L!"

He caught himself in mid-nod, blinking in bemusement. "What?"

"Oh, I said there's nothing wrong with being an L! I know that Japanese society is all about being small, skinny and cute, especially for women! That's certainly the image they get for what guys want, so much so that for some, it's a vicious cycle of never being small enough, skinny enough, cute enough! Well, I think it's absolute nonsense!" She threw up her hands in frustration, her voice getting louder and louder as she became more and more impassioned in her heartfelt speech. "Who cares about small and cute? Who cares about what guys want? I say just be yourself and wear whatever you want! So what if the trend is neutral earthy colors? I like my neon coloured clothes! So what if I'm S-sized? Sometimes I buy things M-sized because the style looks better looser! And my PJs are always L-sized because that's what's most comfy! And anyone who has a problem with that can just go and…and…buy their own clothes!" For emphasis, just in case her fierce non-threat wasn't effective enough, she crossed her arms, puffed out her cheeks, and glared at the air in front of her.

If Akiyama had been in any other sort of mindset, he would probably have found the whole scene before him absolutely adorable, but as it was, his mind had gone a curious blank shade of gray and, as if someone had turned the volume dial down in his head, the gleeful chanting of Kinky sex! Kinky sex! Kinky sex! faded away to an eerie silence, leaving behind only the horrifying revelation that the kinky sex, or indeed any sort of sex at all, was still well beyond out of his reach.

Aww, poor Akiyama! Ganbare! You're closer than you think! ...I think.... I hope I didn't overkill the S&M joke, but how can I be satisfied with only that tiny little scene in the drama? Anyway, I'm sorry about the lack of lemon in this chapter despite the title *ducks the rotten tomatoes*, it just wasn't time yet. Actually, I'm still debating whether to write one for this fic or not, cuz I've never written one so I'm kind of scared that it'll turn out disappointing, haha. Well, review and tell me what you think! XD