Chapter Text
Since they’re reasonably sure that the target isn’t on this island, it takes the pressure off for the next couple of days, since they have a reservation at this hotel to wait out and a lot of honeymooning to get done. Shopping, eating, drinking and lots of fucking. Perfect. Hizashi has been ignoring all the pictures Hitoshi's sharing in their three-way chat, but it doesn’t mean they don’t show up as read, which they clearly are.
They still do what they can to narrow down the possibilities of where the man they’re looking for could be, an apparent toss up between what proves to be a ‘notorious party island’ Ko Pha Nang and the quieter Ko Tao, deciding on the second as it’ll be easier to determine if he’s there or not in an environment with less raves and all-night beach parties.
Shouta can’t say he’s totally at peace with the current plan of action, which is some kind of cuckold honey trap scenario, using Hitoshi as a lure in a way that he’s very used to, but Shouta sure isn’t. It’s for work, though, and Hitoshi doesn’t spend every night riding Shouta’s cock in the hotel suite to have his faithfulness called into question. Shouta trusts him, of course, but he’s still uneasy, and in that sense the extra two days they have on Samui do a lot to prepare him for that.
Hitoshi drags him round market after market shopping, they meet up with Mo again, this time at a massage place she recommends, all three of them getting foot massages in comfortable chairs while they speak about the mission, the ladies assaulting their feet with various wooden implements presumably part of the fixer’s network.
They book their next hotel, and travel to the small island most accessible by boat after those three wonderful days in the first hotel are up. The speedboat trip over is possibly the most impressive part, hurtling on a small powerboat through incredible aquamarine waters, dotted with unusual rock formations dotted with greenery, no signs of human inhabitation.
To land they end up jumping out of the boat when it reaches the shallows, Shouta holding his kit bag up above on one shoulder while an attendant from the hotel they shore up next to wades up and takes their big suitcase. Hitoshi just squeals and wades in with the handbag he’s carrying, amping up the girly drama in a way that makes Shouta smile.
“I would’ve carried you too, if you waited,” he says to Hitoshi on the shore, as they make their way out of the shallows and are directed to the beachfront reception of the sprawling hotel, buildings set like ancient temples through the denser foliage that coats the turtle-like island.
“When have I ever liked to wait?” Hitoshi responds with a brilliant flash of a smile, and they agreed already that their marriage isn’t meant to appear quite so idyllic when they’re here. This island has its own dark past with tourists, which might make it seem more appealing for another murderer of tourists to hide out on, or so they can hope.
“True,” Shouta murmurs before they head off to get checked in, shown to another bungalow cabin that’s not quite as luxuriously made up as the one they left, no private pool either, but more secluded than the others, which is good in its own way. If they’re supposed to have a strained marriage then being heard fucking loudly each and every night might be a bit of a giveaway, though there’s nothing to say their target is staying at this hotel either. It’s the one their fixer said he probably would be at, if he were here, likely meaning the most expensive and secluded, so they’ll have to hope their luck comes in at some point or another.
They decide to split up to start exploring the hotel, as they can cover more ground that way, and being separated is the most reliable way of seeming like an indifferent couple. Fuck knows Shouta can’t do much to stop himself doting on his wife when they’re together.
*
Hitoshi gets up into full girl drag, tucking panties under a new swimsuit with a kaftan and a big hat, and goes alone to do some reconnaissance down at the poolside with a cocktail while Shouta explores other areas of the hotel like the business centre, divide and conquer or something like that. Their target is Japanese, which helps narrow it down, so Hitoshi keeps an eye out for other people who look like they could be Japanese and uses it to make some friends, albeit the woman he picks up a conversation with is actually Chinese, but she speaks enough Japanese that they’re able to communicate.
Hitoshi asks his new friend, named Ling, if there are many Japanese staying in this resort, as ‘Hitomi’ says she’s ‘bored’ and her new husband ‘isn’t paying her as much attention’ as she’d like, which makes Ling titter and say that when Hitoshi’s her age she’ll be glad for a husband that leaves her alone. Ling is probably only Shouta’s age, maybe a little older, but takes a shine to Hitoshi just as planned, and promises to introduce her to some other Japanese guests she’s seen around the resort, as Ling and her second husband have been there for nearly two weeks already and gotten a good grasp of the place.
Since the plan with Shouta was to split up and not meet again until dinnertime, and Hitoshi needs something to distract him from missing his supposedly indifferent husband, he asks Ling about the good massage places locally, which leads to them both going for treatments after some more poolside cocktails at the hotel’s spa facilities. There’s a full mud wrap body scrub type thing Hitoshi likes the sound of, but plays it safe with a facial instead since it won’t require un-and-re-tucking, and gives her a chance to joke about being the ‘only good kind of facial’ to Ling, who keeps laughing and clearly decides on Hitoshi as her new holiday buddy until she leaves Ko Tao in a little less than a week.
Getting a facial means losing the makeup, but Hitoshi has big sunglasses and doesn’t think Ling is going to suspect anything now. Especially when they go for more drinks at a bar just outside the hotel boundary that Ling says stays open ‘til late and is a bit of a hotspot for tourists looking to have a good time.
The drinks are definitely strong, stronger than the hotel ones Hitoshi’s used to, and this is how Hitoshi ends up not tipsy, but straight-up drunk, by five o’ clock with her new best friend at a beach bar. Hitoshi resorts to texting Shouta to come and meet her here, because she forgot the way back to the room, which is not a joke, she really forgot.
Whether Shouta believes it or not is beside the point, and as a ‘neglected’ wife, supposedly, Hitoshi decides she’s allowed the high-pitched sound she makes when he finally strides into the open-air beachside bar Hitoshi doesn’t think she can walk out of without falling. It’s just starting to get dark before dinner, and Hitoshi definitely didn’t eat enough with Ling at lunchtime to handle the drinking they did, so she stays seated as Shouta comes over to them.
Ling is still at the table too, and Hitoshi can’t pretend not to enjoy the moment where her mouth drops open a little and she says, “That’s your husband?”
“Honeyyyy,” Hitoshi repeats more clearly as he approaches, looking gorgeous as always, albeit a little sweaty in this tropical heat. “You came.”
“You asked me to,” Shouta replies neutrally, eyeing Hitoshi up carefully, no doubt trying to figure out if the drunk act is real or not. Hitoshi kinda fucked up, so it’s all real, baby. “You know the room number is on the key, right?”
“Bold of you to assume I can still read,” Hitoshi counters, reaching for Shouta’s arm and tugging him to sit down. “I don’t remember where it is, anyway.”
Glancing over at Ling, he remarks, “Sorry about her.”
“Not at all,” Ling says with a delighted grin. “You have a charming wife.”
“So I’m told,” Shouta replies, playing it ever so cool, which is perfect for his supposedly frosty treatment of his ‘trophy’ wife, emphasis on the trophy part. Hitoshi feels like a trophy right now, a particularly top-heavy one that doesn’t stand up on its own, when instead of coaxing Shouta down to sit she’s hauled up to stand next to him. “Too bad she can’t hold her drink.”
“Ohhh I can’so,” Hitoshi slurs conversely to the point she’s trying to make, letting Shouta brace her with his side and thinking okay, she might be more think than she drunks she is.
“Thanks for looking after her,” Shouta says to Ling, bowing to the mature lady who is definitely more than tipsy herself, just holding it better than Hitoshi. “Aikawa Sho, pleased to meet you.”
“Yu Ling,” she returns gracefully, sighing and getting up with much less of a wobble. “I suppose I ought to go find my husband too.”
“We should have dinner together,” Hitoshi drawls, leaning over without realising and needing Shouta to reel her back.
“Yes, that sounds nice,” she says before teetering off down the beach, looking less like she’s searching for her husband and more like she’s going to take a nap on a sun lounger, but hey, Hitoshi’s not judging.
Maybe it’s the heat, or sitting down while she was drinking for too long, but Hitoshi’s sure the curving pathways are actually swaying as Shouta leads her back to their room, not that she’s going to be able to remember.
“You went all out, huh,” Shouta murmurs in amusement, now they’re alone and Hitoshi still can’t walk in a straight line realising that it’s not an act.
“Accident,” Hitoshi says, leaning on him for support. “She’s gonna introduce me to some of the other Japanese guests though.”
“Good,” Shouta replies, propping Hitoshi up by the door as he opens up their room. “I talked to the staff at the business centre, they gave me an idea of some possible candidates for our guy too.”
“Why would he be at the business centre?” Hitoshi questions, tumbling inside the door to this more ‘rustic’ themed hotel bungalow, the bedframe made of beautifully polished tree branches that twist and kink around the expansive mattress that Hitoshi faceplants right in.
“Keeping in touch with the organisation back home,” Shouta suggests. “Although one individual carried out the attacks, it was part of inter-villain conflict, so there’s probably connections back in Osaka he stays in touch with until it’s safe to return.”
“Hm,” Hitoshi hums, reaching for her crotch to pull the panties back and untuck with a sigh, sprawled on her front feeling very, very drunk.
There’s a potent silence from Shouta while the door shuts behind them, and then the words come out, husky and sveldt, “Someone could take advantage of you in this state.”
“Oh?” Hitoshi responds, turning her face to rest squished against the high thread count sheets. “Maybe that’s what I want, since my husband’s so negligent.”
“Ah,” Shouta practically croaks. His footsteps are soft, but the weight of him either side of Hitoshi on the bed, as he climbs on to straddle her from behind, is very real. “In that case.”
Which is how Hitoshi ends up getting fucked face-down in the mattress, wasted, too drunk to even keep it up herself, though Shouta certainly enjoys fucking her booze-loosened ass with a tight grip on her butt, swimsuit and panties hooked around his thumb to drag out of the way instead of taking them off. Hitoshi doesn’t quite manage to come, but gets off enough to be well-satisfied when Shouta eagerly blows his load hilt-deep inside her, and takes a little drunk-nap exactly where she is after he’s climbed off, ass full of cum and everything.
Still drunk when she wakes up, but also kicking into the hangover, Hitoshi downs a red bull from the mini bar, which actually originated in Thailand and comes in a small brown glass bottle, and throws herself into lazy drag for dinner that Shouta insists she must have.
They don’t see Ling or her husband during the meal, which is alright, since Hitoshi would be asleep in the room still if she could get away with it, but Shouta drags her out to keep scouting.
“You’re kidding,” Shouta comments when Hitoshi orders a stiff cocktail with her food, a chicken and cashew stir fry cooked up to order by a chef at one of the meal stations in the hotel’s main dining room.
“Look, if I stop drinking now I’ll just be hungover,” Hitoshi rationalises, slurping down the rich sugary Mai Tai and noting how the room isn’t spinning quite so much thanks to the red bull and food in her stomach. Stupid husband, being right about things.
“You’re going to be hungover either way,” Shouta retorts, and it’s a nice layer to their cover to bicker in public, as if they aren’t also desperately in love and fucking every chance they get.
“Those are problems for tomorrow me to deal with,” Hitoshi explains, making it through the meal somehow, rolling back into bed exhausted and wasted. But she isn’t joined, as Shouta announces a desire to ‘keep looking’ and heads back out alone, so Hitoshi gives into the stupor and passes the fuck out.
*
Shouta locates a cluster of businessmen drinking at one of the hotel restaurant bars, not the beachside ones but secluded and air conditioned. One of them recognises him from the business centre earlier today, as planned, and another recognises him from his ‘hot wife who was drunk off her face’ at dinner tonight.
“That’s her,” Shouta confirms wryly, finding it less strange than he thought to conceal his true feelings about his spouse in front of others, since he’s always preferred being private, and this is just an intentionally misleading use of that. “I left her sleeping it off back in the room.”
“You’re a stronger man than I am to resist that,” one of the men jokes salaciously, and Shouta could point out he really didn’t, he just already fucked her halfway passed out earlier and will wear his dick out if he does such things too much, but instead he shrugs and says he’s the kind to enjoy the chase, then asks if he could join them for a drink.
A couple of the guys are married, but even the married ones don’t seem too bothered by this when they suggest going to visit a ‘girl bar’ a short distance from the hotel. Shouta doesn’t love this idea, but since he’s gotten in with the group and this is an undercover mission, plays along and chalks up his apparent indifference to the escorts who try to hustle them at said establishment to his supposed love of the chase, preferring someone who makes him work for it. Like his wife did, though that part he obviously keeps to himself.
The place reminds him a lot of the Lost Pearl, just missing one important ingredient, who’s sleeping off her indulgence back in bed where Shouta longs to be. But this is work, not pleasure, even if the hard work is making it seem like pleasure. Which is how he ends up with one of the entertainers sitting in his lap.
Shouta plays along because it’s no worse than the kind of thing Hitoshi’s had to do, or may have to do later on this very same trip, though he’s a little uncomfortable anyway. But that gets chalked up to awkwardness, with the girl calling him ‘cute’ and suggesting he’s intimidated by such beautiful girls.
“I wouldn’t be so sure, you should see his wife,” one of the other guys heckles, pretty drunk by this point, and Shouta knows that if Hitoshi was here it’d be a toss up between the kind of possessive behaviour she showed him back in the Pearl, before he was even fully hers to claim, or, more likely at this point, utter amusement at his discomfort with what she considers a normal part of the job. While she still gets insecure sometimes, it tends to be about work and not their relationship. And Shouta’s very clear devotion to his partner in senses both professional or romantic help tends to work as a counterbalance.
Shouta feeds something back to his company about how he hasn’t done this sort of thing before. His company finds this more amusing yet, ruffling his hair with a coy smile, and Shouta swears she’d probably get along with Hitoshi. There’s an idea.
It’s worth it in the end, at least, because a ways into the night, the girl he’s been entertaining, or entertained by, hard to tell, whose name she tells him is Jade, turns over her shoulder and casually asks ‘where your other friend is’ to one of the guys.
“Oh, he’s been staying in his room for some reason,” the drunk businessman answers, and Shouta gives off every appearance of being more interested in Jade’s hand on his leg rather than what she’s saying, though he managed to get her off his lap and into the seat next to him, which was nice. She’s beautiful, of course, with long black hair that goes all the way down her back and a gorgeous face, painted expertly, but it goes with the territory surely. Shouta wouldn’t presume to guess any more about her gender than its current presentation, but then, he’s been well versed by Hitoshi, and considering he won’t be paying to have sex with her either way, it’s really none of his business.
“Aw, that’s a shame,” Jade coos, and her Japanese is really good. He wants to ask where she learned, but it doesn’t go with his cover. Turning back to Shouta, she smiles and says, “You’ll have to look after me instead.”
“Mhm,” Shouta confirms vaguely, more drinks than he’d like into this scenario to think fast enough to put together all the pieces in time to make it seem natural. What he gets is a slightly stiff, “Shall we go for a… walk?” that also gets chalked up to nerves or inexperience.
What he wants is to get the girl alone, not for the reasons everyone else might think, but to ask her some questions about the ‘friend’ who’s not here tonight.
When they've left the bar to walk down the road together, alone in the dark, Jade teasingly asks, “Are you the jealous type?” and yes, he kinda is, but not in this case.
Shouta mulls it over for a moment, then decides to take a calculated risk. “No, it’s not that, but I was wondering… would you, ah…” it’s awkward to ask anyway, so this just adds to his cover, letting it sound awkward as he fumbles out, “be willing to meet my wife?”
Shouta actually wants to see if they can trust her, recruit her as an informant, assuming she has been to their possible target what Hitoshi was to a lot of people in the past. Shouta can’t necessarily judge something like that, but if Hitoshi thought so too, then they might be willing to take that risk.
“Well, if you think she’d want to meet someone like me,” Jade replies, a little surprised, clearly, but not so shocked that Shouta believes this is the first time it’s ever happened.
This part he doesn’t hesitate about at all. “Oh no, she’ll love you,” he says assuredly. “She’s uh, sleeping right now, but perhaps we could meet up again tomorrow? If that’s alright?”
“That’s okay,” Jade replies, adjusting to the change of pace pretty well. It might be nice to talk with someone not immediately obsessed with fucking her, Shouta could dare to think. “I’ll be at the bar again tomorrow in the afternoon, so you can come by with her then.”
“Great, thank you,” he says warmly, and adds, “Don’t tell the other guys, okay?”
“Of course not,” she promises, perhaps thinking that Shouta’s trying to preserve his wife’s reputation, rather than his own reputation as a cheater.
They walk a little longer after that, up to the beach and back through a little strip of land that weaves between the hotel and adjacent plots. Shouta says they don’t have to, but Jade insists she’d like to stretch her legs, and he offers her some money for her time anyway. She takes a small proportion of what he tries to give her, telling him to save the rest for tomorrow. She’ll be paid for services rendered either way, just not necessarily the services she’s thinking of.
Shouta supposes, in theory, if they wanted to, they could indulge in the standard ones such a lady offers to tourists holidaying in Thailand, but it’s not an inherently appealing prospect. Shouta’s technically never funded prostitution yet, not with his own money, or actually following through, and would rather not start, especially not while he’s working.
Hitoshi’s passed out pretty much exactly where Shouta left her by the time he gets back and escapes from the company of his ‘new friends’, who are all increasingly drunk and more occupied with their own escorts than Shouta’s behaviour. He’s not as trashed as Hitoshi was, and probably still is, but he’s not sober either, so needs the lights on in the unfamiliar hotel room to get ready for bed without falling over and bludgeoning himself.
This wakes Hitoshi, who stirs but doesn’t say anything until Shouta’s tumbling into bed beside her, offering a sluggish, “Fun night?”
“Sorta,” he mumbles back, scooting right up behind Hitoshi, who’s naked, of course, and spooning her with all the longing having to pretend he wants anyone else ignites in him. “Missed you.”
“Aw.” Hitoshi shuffles, fitting more fully into the shape of his body around hers, mostly in the ass-to-dick area.
“I got taken to a hostess bar,” he adds with a flush of awkwardness again, not that he thinks Hitoshi will mind, but prefers to get it off his chest now anyway.
“Hah,” Hitoshi sighs, still sounding pretty drunk, but she’s young and can take it, he knows. “Meet anyone you like?”
Squeezing his arm around her, he confirms without hesitation, “Not as much as you.”