Final part of the Undercover Cop story. Continued angst. Also sex and a tiny bit of fluff, as promised.
And an ending that is highly suggestive but also highly ambiguous. Hope you enjoy!
Massive thank you to KatBlack for her love and support while I wrote up this little AU, and for inspiring Nanahara's line about 'taking the rat for a walk' (and for dealing with my 'SHOULD I PUT UP THIS STORY SEPARATELY' dilemma lol). You're a gem, mi amor!
anahara felt himself slowly turning into a watchdog. Doumeki was thrown into the basement room of one of Shinseikai's front companies and despite Nanahara's standing as Yashiro's #1 henchman, or so he thought, he was posted outside Doumeki's door around the clock. He had the distinct feeling he was being punished for his part in the rat fiasco.
'Don't know why Boss hasn't just killed you,' Nanahara would growl as he walked Doumeki to the can and back.
Doumeki, as ever, remained silent.
In fact, Nanahara wondered why Boss was dragging his feet on that count. He had always suspected that Boss and Doumeki had been doing the dirty for a while, but he didn't think something like that would hold Boss, of all people, back.
The first day or two stretched into a week. Food would be brought down and Nanahara occasionally was relieved by an underling. Yashiro never showed. And the order to get rid of Doumeki never came down.
And so Doumeki was left alone to nurse his failures and self-loathing.
He was left alone with the weight of how much he had hurt Boss.
More than any of it, he missed Boss with a near-physical ache.
Yashiro's world had turned into a series of bleak, chrome montages that slid past, past his vision and his hearing, without his having a say in it. It was a similar place he had descended into during his childhood. When those he had trusted had turned on him. And he was left alone.
He went to work and to meetings. He oversaw drop-offs and transfers. He gave orders and took orders.
But Misumi noticed. As did everyone else. He simply wasn't the same.
Gone was the snark and the laugh and the smile that reduced the world to a punchline. Just smoke rising from his mouth and half-lidded eyes that were too weighed down to be considered mellow. Like they were seeing something, or someone, who was elsewhere.
'The longer he's alive the more he's a liability,' Misumi tried telling him, gently enough given the circumstances. 'Especially if he doesn't have a chance to report back to his boss, they'll suspect he's been made and then –'
'I'm handling it,' Yashiro said, a little more sharply than he intended.
The mention of Doumeki's 'boss', his real boss, had left yet another wound in the same place. A place where he doubted the scars would ever heal, if such small, unassuming words like that could leave such a deep gouge.
Misumi pursed his lips and said nothing.
From morning to evening, Yashiro was shielded from the world by a thin, clear film. Only when he slipped under the covers at night did this barrier of numbness threaten to crack. He knew the questions and thoughts that had been hovering like vultures would descend and start tearing.
How long?
The whole time?
The whole fucking time?
Maybe not… maybe he changed his mind. Maybe somewhere along the way, he decided –
Then why didn't he tell me? Why didn't he just come to me and –?
Don't be a fool. Of course he didn't change his mind. He didn't even defend himself, except for that one pathetic 'No, Boss' which could have meant anything. He lied. He lied from the beginning. He played you from the beginning.
You're pathetic.
How much of what he said… and did…?
How much of it was… his job?
I can't –
I don't –
– have the strength for this.
He knew that after everything else he had been through, this would be the one thing – the final straw – that would bring down the weight that he had kept at bay his entire life.
Thankfully, sleep always managed to find him before then.
'Know how much Boss hates me?' Nanahara said sourly. 'They're off doing some big deal, pretty much all hands on deck, and I'm left here to babysit your rat ass. I'm lower than the underlings now.'
Almost a week on, Doumeki was still being held in the basement room.
Each day melded into the next with no distinction.
His wounds healed by themselves. Nothing broken, everything bruised.
And Nanahara didn't hear him speak a single word in all that time.
Despite this, Nanahara had gotten so used to playing jailer that he let his hatred of Doumeki occasionally slide. He occasionally let himself fall back into the typical one-sided conversation they used to share. Occasionally.
So the moment that changed everything owed to an off-hand comment on one of Nanahara's occasional moods.
He stood inside the door, smoking in spite of the smoke having nowhere to go, and watched Doumeki staring uninterestedly at the bland food that had been sent down.
'And it's in the Tsuji complex,' Nanahara continued. 'A million levels underground in the parking lot. No cell phone reception or anything. Plus it's with the new Matsubara leaders, so who knows if they're out for blood or not. If shit hits the fan, I won't even know about it until I read it in the papers.'
Tsuji.
The name plucked a string from his memory. From months ago. The commissioner's dry, brittle words in his ear.
When you and all the other informants have enough, we'll round up all the roaches in one big hit at Tsuji.
Doumeki's head snapped up.
'But, hey,' Nanahara drawled on, resplendent in self-pity. 'Who needs Nana for real mob stuff when I can be here taking care of your sorry –?'
'It's a set-up,' said Doumeki suddenly.
Nanahara almost jumped. It was the very first thing Doumeki had said in almost a week.
Doumeki explains the mob/cop situation to Nanahara in bullet points:
–Both Shinseikai and Matsubara have been infiltrated by undercover agents (Doumeki, technically, being one of them).
–When they gather enough dirt and evidence on their gang, they organise for their bosses to make the deal in a pre-determined place where the police can ambush them immediately.
–The transfer takes place in full view of undercover agents and police, and would be the final piece of evidence needed to make arrests and put people away for a long time.
–The fact that it is happening in Tsuji means Shinseikai and Matsubara were both walking into their own arrests.
Nanahara's cigarette fell from his lips. It rolled away on the concrete floor.
'We have to warn Boss,' Doumeki said unnecessarily.
'No cell phone reception,' Nanahara repeated numbly.
'Then we have to go. Now.'
'It might… it might not be a set-up. Tsuji could just be a coincidence.'
Nanahara was dialling Yashiro's number, knowing it would be futile, and reached for the door handle. Doumeki took a few steps towards him.
Nanahara turned.
'The hell are you doing?'
'I'm coming too.'
'Are you high? There's no fucking way I'm taking the rat for a walk.'
He hung up and swore under his breath when his call went nowhere. He barely registered Doumeki; in his mind he was already in the car, flying towards Boss. Perhaps even getting the chance to play hero.
'I'm not a rat,' said Doumeki suddenly.
Despite everything, the tone in his voice made Nanahara turn. Doumeki had, after all, revealed something that would undo years of undercover work. If he was telling the truth.
'And I… I know who the undercover agents are in Matsubara. I have to be there.'
I have to prove who I am.
The bullet wound in Nanahara's shoulder spiked in pain, as it often did when he was stressed. Or when he was caught in an impossible decision.
A decision that would see Nanahara as having played the hero or played the fool. Again. And just based on the question he was about to ask, he had a feeling it would be the latter.
'I'm going to ask you this once,' he said carefully, even as his pulse steadily picked up. 'Are you on their side or not?'
He waited for an impassioned speech that would rid him of the responsibility. So he could at least defend himself if it turned out to be the dumbest move in the history of the Yakuza.
'I – I was,' Doumeki said. He paused for a moment with his mouth slightly open.
He was suddenly assaulted by all the thoughts he had kept at bay for the past week. The past few months. Ever since he had sat across from Yashiro for the first time. He tried to funnel it all into the impassioned speech that would exonerate him.
Nanahara waited.
'I was,' Doumeki repeated. He squared his shoulders. 'But I'm not now.'
Nanahara stared. He waited for a few more precious seconds before it became clear that Doumeki was done.
'That's it? That's your amazing defence?'
A deadpan stare. Balled fists. Nothing more to offer except for what was right there. The impasse between Doumeki and Nanahara could have lasted a long time. But they didn't have a long time.
And for some reason, Nanahara was remembering the wet thud of his fists and foot pummelling into Doumeki's face and body. It was accompanied by a feeling uncomfortably close to guilt.
'Fuck,' he assessed as he ran a hand through his hair. 'Okay. Fine. Fuck. Let's go.'
'What?'
'Let's go!'
He handed Doumeki a gun and they flew down the corridor.
Nanahara dryly considered it a good sign that Doumeki hadn't yet shot him in the back and fucked off.
They reached Tsuji with only minutes to spare.
Everyone tensed when a car hurtled into their midst from the upper levels. Thanks to Doumeki's reckless driving, a mere ten minutes had passed since Yashiro and his men arrived.
The members of Shinseikai were on the point of opening the trunks of cars to fish out their end of the deal; briefcases and duffel bags and files. All the usual Yakuza shit, Yashiro thought again, almost bored. He leaned against the trunk of the Lexus, his cigarette on its last embers. His mind, as ever, on Doumeki. And as ever shrouded by the thin, clear film of numbness.
On the other side of the underground complex was the Matsubara, gathering their gear together in the same way. They eyed one another across the echoing space. Ever since Yashiro helped Ryuuzaki find his woman (whose treatment at the hands of Hirata had motivated Ryuuzaki to quit the Yakuza life for good), new leaders had stepped in to fill the void.
In a few minutes, a new alliance would be forged in Tokyo's underbelly.
The last thing he expected was for Nanahara's car to come tearing down the ramp and come to a screeching halt near them.
And for Doumeki, of all people, to climb out.
Yashiro's stomach lurched.
The other gang stared at the sudden arrivals. A few hands went to holsters.
'What are you doing?' Yashiro demanded, his tone caught somewhere between dazed and angry.
Doumeki's heart thudded madly when he saw Boss – the shine of his hair, the cut of his suit, the line of his jaw, everything that he had been unable to shake for the past week – but he had to try to focus. He strode quickly towards Yashiro while keeping his eyes on the members of Matsubara milling about on the other side of the concrete expanse.
Yashiro felt the anger threaten to take over him again.
'Doume – Nanahara, what the hell's going on?'
Nanahara followed close behind Doumeki, gun cocked and at the ready. He heard the dangerous tone in Yashiro's voice and wondered again whether he was playing the hero or the idiot.
He stepped close to Boss' ear and began to explain in an undertone just as Doumeki spotted them from across the parking lot. Two of them. Members of the OCD and long-term undercover agents. They recognised him too.
That was all the confirmation he needed.
'It's an ambush,' Doumeki said, turning to face Yashiro properly.
Yashiro's breath caught in his throat at the sheer size of him and the blazing look in his eye. The words took a moment to catch up.
When they did, and even with the fragments of information Nanahara had told him, he still couldn't come to terms with the full import of what Doumeki had done. It would take him hours to do so.
'Stop,' he said suddenly, snapping his head around to the men who were on the point of unloading the cars. It was an order based almost entirely on instinct.
That was when the first shots were fired.
The mob/cop situation in a few more bullet points:
–The unexpected arrival of Nanahara and Doumeki, and the fact that Yashiro looked like he was backing out of the deal, makes Matsubara suspicious that they're about to get screwed over.
–They start firing.
–The cops who have been waiting in the shadows, figuring that the transaction isn't going ahead, spring out and subdue the guys of Matsubara, knowing that they have enough to get one gang at least, if not Shinseikai as well.
–Shinseikai, thanks to Doumeki and Nanahara (who comes off, in the end, as a hero of sorts), manage to avoid any arrests or casualties. They fire a few shots in response, jump into cars and take off.
–The undercover cops recognise Doumeki and deduce that his sudden appearance was the reason Shinseikai was tipped off. Doumeki's loyalties are revealed.
When the crack of bullets ripped through the air of that underground lot, Doumeki's instincts kicked in. He grabbed Yashiro's arm and pulled him behind the cover of the car. Nanahara swore again and fired a few rounds before ducking.
Bullets glanced off the car in loud, tinny ricochets.
Yashiro was suddenly breathing in Doumeki's musk and felt the strong grip on his arm. He tried to focus. He called out to his men to fall back.
Doors slammed and tires screeched.
That was when they heard the barked orders of the police begin to join in the general cacophony. Doumeki spied them from over the car's hood; fully decked out in bullet-proof vests and little curly ear-pieces. His former life.
And crouched beside him then, his new life. The only life he wanted.
'Are you okay, Boss?'
Boss' mouth was slightly open in a pant, but otherwise he seemed unfazed. Unfrazzled. His usual self. It occurred to Doumeki that he hadn't once seen Boss like that day he sat in the corner of Doumeki's bathroom. He had never seen that helplessness before or since. Not even here, during a mob-versus-mob-versus-cop showdown.
The suddenness and the urgency of their close proximity behind the car ought to have made Yashiro's body flush with anticipation. He ought to be feeling the most profound relief over what the past few minutes meant.
But the hurt was still there. Doumeki's betrayal was still right there, at the forefront of his mind. It felt like it would never erode even slightly. Being close to him like that again only tracked a fresh cut into the wound.
He pulled his arm out of Doumeki's grasp.
'Don't touch me.'
The words, though delivered quietly, landed on Doumeki like the lash of a whip.
'Move,' Yashiro ordered.
Doumeki shifted backwards and Yashiro opened the car door and crawled onto the seat, keeping his head clear of the window.
'Get in front,' he said.
Doumeki obeyed.
His body grazed Yashiro's as he clambered over the top of Yashiro and into the front seat, all while the back of his head and neck burned, expecting a bullet to burst through a window at any second.
'Go!'
Theirs was one of the last cars to leave Tsuji. Every one of Yashiro's men managed to tear their way out of Tokyo's underbelly. Not even a shoulder had been nicked by a stray bullet.
As Doumeki gunned the car up the ramp, Yashiro caught a glimpse of the far end of the parking complex where the new leader of Matsubara was being slammed against the hood of a car and cuffed.
That could have been us, Yashiro realised. All of us.
He flicked a glance at the back of Doumeki's head.
Over the phone, a distraught and relieved Misumi told Yashiro to go into hiding.
Yashiro refused point-blank.
'They don't have enough on me, or anyone at Shinseikai. Why else would they have waited so long to spring? They needed to see the transfer, and it didn't happen.'
'What if they have enough just because you showed?' Misumi pressed.
'Then they'll find me soon enough,' Yashiro said, his adrenaline rush slowly giving way to a kind of righteous exhaustion. 'I'll be waiting with my feet up on my coffee table and enjoying a scotch. Not hiding under some rock.'
He hung up in the middle of Misumi's protests.
Doumeki listened silently. They wound their way through the streets back into the heart of Tokyo. Doumeki knew the way to Boss' apartment without needing to think.
The rain that had been threatening to fall for days suddenly let loose on the city. Streetlamps swam by in a blurry haze.
Yashiro leaned back on the seat.
It almost feels, he thought, as though nothing had changed.
Neither said a word until they pulled up outside Yashiro's apartment. By then, Yashiro had processed everything that had happened. He understood a great deal more than he did before. And he had managed to break down the situation in which Doumeki now found himself.
(The Doumeki situation in two bullet points:
–Doumeki is now in deep shit with his former cop bosses for having definitively switched to the dark side.
–Doumeki is still in deep shit with the Yakuza for being a rat.)
Doumeki waited for Yashiro to get out of the car. He didn't look into the rear-view mirror. The silence that hung between them was like none of the ones they had experienced before.
'Where are you going to go?' Yashiro asked.
Doumeki stared at the dashboard.
'Home,' he said.
The tiny apartment with the rust-speckled towel railing.
'You'll be arrested before you even walk in the front door,' Yashiro said.
'I know.'
Drops danced on the roof of the car in a softer imitation of bullets. Yashiro sighed loudly and opened the car door, letting in the steady sound of the downpour.
'Get out.'
It took Doumeki a few seconds to process Yashiro's quiet command. He then blinked and stepped out of the car into the rain. Yashiro didn't turn.
Doumeki followed him inside.
First the suit jacket came off. Then the vest. Then the sling. Then the shirt.
Each item landed on the floor in a soft swish.
Confused, heart pounding in his ears, Doumeki succumbed to muscle memory and followed in Yashiro's wake, picking up what he dropped.
And when he straightened, Yashiro stood before him, his chest and arms bare, at the doorway to his bedroom. His eyes were blazing in a whirl of emotions Doumeki didn't understand.
'Boss –'
Yashiro pulled him forwards by his tie. The kiss was hard and smouldering. Angry.
Boss' clothes fell from Doumeki's arms to the floor and he was suddenly pulled forward until Boss was crushed between him and the doorframe. The hand on Doumeki's face and neck was hungry and insistent. It clawed at his shirt, damp from the rain. Pawed at the buckle. Made up for its counterpart, which hung limply by his hip.
Doumeki surfaced from the kiss only to be pulled back in. He felt himself stiffening helplessly. His hands worked of their own accord and pulled Yashiro into him harder, so the full length of their bodies were pressed together. He then palmed his way heavily up Boss' back and into his hair. His soft, wonderful hair which he clenched hard in his fist.
He knew they ought to stop. He knew he shouldn't stumble so willingly towards the bed, being led by his dick, being led by the desire to make Boss his once more, if only for now. There was something about the look on Boss' face that scared him.
But he was there, kneeling between Boss' legs, kissing and biting his neck, seeing him prone and panting beneath him, hair askew. And he knew nothing would stop him then.
By the time he had taken Yashiro's pants off, Yashiro had managed to tear away the last button of Doumeki's shirt but didn't get a chance to peel it off him. Doumeki had reared back and pulled Yashiro's legs up high until they were pressed against his chest.
There was that same ferocity in Doumeki's eyes that Yashiro had seen in the back seat of the Lexus right before Doumeki did exactly what he was about to do.
His tongue, hot and wet, thrust deep into Yashiro's hole. His fingers pulled his cheeks apart as he delved.
Yashiro moaned and his head arched back into the mattress. A shiver raced through his body at his helplessness in Doumeki's hands. At the way his every muscle responded to the deft flicks and jabs of Doumeki's tongue and fingers.
Doumeki.
To his utter humiliation, tears stung his eyes.
'Enough,' Yashiro gasped, only just managing to hold back his tears. 'Fuck me.'
Doumeki drew away and tried to think clearly through the cloud of lust. He had barely stretched Yashiro open.
'Boss –'
'Fuck me right now. Right now.'
The urgent tone spilled into angry desperation. Doumeki had reached the end of his tether. Boss was spread wide in front of Doumeki, his cock stiff and leaking, his entire body quivering and waiting for him. For Doumeki.
Yashiro shivered once again at the sight of Doumeki looming over him, the hard muscles of his chest and stomach revealed through his open shirt. His hair was slick from the rain. A single drop had left a trail down his long, solid jaw. His eyes were alight with a single-minded purpose.
And his cock found Yashiro's hole.
And then he tore his way in.
And then he paused.
The way Yashiro cried out, the way he gripped the sheets, managed to cut through the haze of pleasure brought about by the unearthly heat and tightness.
'Boss…'
Yashiro writhed, his legs spread, his eyebrows arched in pain. Moans emerged in short puffs. Doumeki's cock twitched inside him.
'Boss, are you –?'
'Shut up,' Yashiro said in a hoarse whisper. His gaze was ruthless again.
'But –'
'Fuck me. Fuck me hard.'
Fuck me until I bleed.
Fuck me until I'm broken.
'Do it.'
And so Doumeki, against his better judgment, against all the voices in his head, succumbed to his primal urge to defile.
He pulled out until just the head of his cock remained. Then he plunged back into Yashiro's body in one merciless thrust.
'Ah!'
He pushed in again.
And again.
Each time, it pulled a new, tortured sound from deep inside Yashiro. The friction was so great that even Doumeki felt the pain interlacing the pleasure.
'Harder,' Yashiro urged. 'Deeper!'
Doumeki complied.
He held Yashiro's hands down on either side of his head, the good one and the dead one, and hung his head low so he could see the full force of each thrust on Yashiro's face. So that his mellow eyes and serene, enigmatic smile were a distant memory.
'Hit me,' Yashiro hissed beneath him.
Mellow eyes.
Serene, enigmatic smile.
A side of Boss he hadn't seen for a long time. A side of Boss he feared he might never see again.
'Hit me, Doumeki.'
Please.
'Doumeki –'
Hearing his name emerge like that from Boss' throat almost pushed him to the edge. He stared down at his defiant, imploring eyes and tried to imagine it. He grit his teeth. He knew what he was capable of. And what he wasn't.
So he closed his hand on Yashiro's hair again, almost painfully, and kissed him. His cock never let up even for a moment.
'Mmmh!'
Yashiro tried to pull back. His fingers tried to get a grip on the cropped hair on the back of Doumeki's head. Tears smarted his eyes yet again.
Hurt me.
And finally when Doumeki reared, he pulled out completely and flipped Yashiro over onto his stomach.
When he plunged back in, Yashiro's cry was muffled in the blanket. Doumeki planted his arms on either side of his body and pounded. Sweat and rain dripped from his hair onto Yashiro's back.
'Ugh! Ah, Doumeki… ugh…'
Doumeki pulled Boss' hips up and held his head down, eyes narrowed with lust. He took in the curve of Boss' back and neck before he started thrusting again.
'Doumeki...'
Why won't you hurt me?
'Nngh… Doumeki…'
You've already done so much worse.
'Dou –'
How could you?
And the tears spilled without any further warning. They poured hotly from his eyes and his throat. He gripped the sheets beneath him as Doumeki's cock kept carving its way into him, pushing breath and tears from his body.
How could you?
The weight of everything that he had been keeping back finally cracked. The weight of Doumeki's betrayal had finally caught up and the vultures swooped in. Feathers flew everywhere, dank and muggy. He couldn't breathe for the tears.
It took Doumeki another few confused thrusts before he noticed. The strange little tremors were new. He didn't understand why Boss was curling into himself. Why he suddenly seemed so much smaller than before.
And then he heard the quiet sobs.
Doumeki's heart sank to the bottom of a well.
'Boss…'
For a moment longer, he held himself there, buried inside Yashiro and watching him cry as though from miles away.
Then he pulled out, bent low over Yashiro's body and gathered him close. He held Yashiro fast against his chest. For a while, his mind was a complete blank.
'I'm sorry,' he then heard himself say.
Yashiro felt it all without really feeling it. There were arms and words spoken into the back of his neck. But he felt as though it was happening to someone else. He wasn't there. He was still hidden somewhere behind the dank, muggy feathers. And still the tears poured.
Doumeki squeezed him tighter as though frightened he would slip through his arms into a place where he couldn't follow.
'I'm sorry,' he insisted, his voice breaking. 'I'm sorry, Boss.'
Yashiro heard it then. He heard the words in Doumeki's deep, broken voice.
And gradually the tightness of Doumeki's hold became real. The breath on the back of his neck was there. It was warm.
He felt himself slowly fading back in, weighing down the bed, pressed beneath the weight of another's body. Doumeki's body.
Doumeki.
After a foreboding build-up of days, the rain itself lasted less than an hour. The last few drops swatted half-heartedly against the window. Dawn hunkered at the edge of the skyline.
An exhausted, drained Yashiro extricated himself gently from Doumeki's arms. He lay a little apart from him, reclaiming his breath and staring straight ahead at the blue-black colour that the wall would always take at that particular time of night.
Doumeki sat up slightly, leaning his weight on one elbow, his knee bent slightly in the air. Waiting.
Yashiro's rain-streaked hair was drying slowly. His back was still turned. Doumeki had the feeling that the next thing that was said would somehow determine everything –
'Cigarette,' Yashiro said, softly but suddenly.
Doumeki stared.
Then he slowly pulled his pants back up over his hips, got out bed and rifled through the pockets of Yashiro's discarded pants.
Yashiro turned to watch him. His huge arms and broad back hunched over on the ground. Doumeki Chikara. The silent man with a big secret. A few big secrets.
Doumeki handed him the cigarette and wasn't sure what to do with the lighter. When Yashiro placed the cigarette to his lips and dropped his hand, Doumeki moved forward and lit it for him.
He watched the way Yashiro's skin was lit up in the sharp amber glow. How his cheekbones stood out like they were designed that way. How his eyes reflected the colour of the flame in that one moment.
Yashiro took a drag and the blue-black of night claimed him again. But his eyes were different. Familiar. They watched Doumeki steadily as though seeing him for the first time.
Just as Doumeki dared to allow himself a thimbleful of hope, Yashiro sighed once more.
'Lend me your lap.'
It was well after Yashiro stretched and rested his head against Doumeki's lap that it caught up with him.
And he found it was his turn to be brought right to the brink of tears. He didn't know how he managed to hold them back.
On his lap, Yashiro smoked and listened to the rain dying down.
Long minutes passed in silence.
'When?'
Doumeki looked at him.
'When did you change your mind?' said Yashiro. 'When did you… stop working for them?'
The day came to Doumeki immediately and vividly. He had pushed Yashiro backwards into the elevator doors, tie in hand, anger surging powerfully to his head. He had then raced down the stairs to his sister, who had told him gently, tearfully, of all the things Yashiro had said. And after he had gotten over his moment of numb shock, after sitting down with his sister for the first time in years, he understood the magnitude of what his boss had done for him.
That was the day he decided.
That was the day he had gone to Yashiro's apartment and waited for him. Where he had felt three foot tall under Boss' benign but inscrutable gaze. And where he had picked up the trail of clothes Boss left behind him. He had seen Boss' naked body for the first time, flush with the incandescent light in his bathroom, behind the humid cloud of vapour. He had knelt behind Boss and hung his head and begged to remain by Boss' side, no matter what.
That was the day.
He hesitated. He wondered how he could tell Boss that. He wondered if he even should.
'It was –' he began falteringly. 'That day when Aoi… when you talked to her and… and then –'
'Ah.'
The day came to Yashiro just as vividly. He remembered Doumeki's voice from behind him, low and soft and echoing in the bathroom, asking to remain by his side, no matter what.
He looked at Doumeki again. The hurt in Doumeki's eyes was only too clear. The self-loathing and the regret and the immense guilt.
'That soon, huh?'
He smiled when he remembered how he had repeated the words almost exactly when he asked Doumeki about his first erection.
Milestones all over the place. From impotence to allegiance.
He chuckled. The sound reminded Doumeki of dappled sunlight.
'You know what I keep thinking about? The day I made you dress up like a cop.'
He crossed his long, bare legs ponderously. Doumeki's eyes were drawn to them yet again.
'Little did I know, huh? Nanahara even came in and had a fit seeing a cop in my office. So many levels of dramatic irony there, I can't even keep up.'
Doumeki remembered how his heart had pounded as Yashiro made him stand there in his uniform, behind the badge to which he was still technically bound.
'Life's funny like that sometimes, isn't it?' Yashiro mused, sounding like a jaded veteran of an old, merciless war. 'A real riot.'
There would be cops at Doumeki's door. Misumi and the rest of Shinseikai wanting his blood. The vague possibility of cops breaking down Boss' door and placing him under arrest at any moment.
But he was lying in Boss' bed, with Boss' head in his lap, and against all odds, despite everything that had happened over the past few harrowing days, Boss seemed to have forgiven him for the worst of his secrets.
And so life, whether funny or not, suddenly didn't seem so bad.
'What was your plan exactly?' Yashiro wanted to know.
'Plan?'
'If you really did stop working for them. And kept it all up just so they wouldn't get suspicious. What was your plan? Your end game?'
Doumeki considered the question. He had considered it himself, if somewhat more abstractly. In truth, ever since the day he decided, there was only one thing that drove his every move.
'I wanted to stay with you,' he said. 'And protect you. From everyone. The cops and the Yakuza and anyone else. I just wanted to stay with you. Boss.'
Silence.
'Were you ever planning to tell me?'
Another silence.
I was afraid to. I knew you would cast me aside, exactly like you did. I couldn't bear to see the look in your eye that I saw that day.
'I don't know, Boss.'
Yashiro tilted up his chin and met Doumeki's eyes. The emotion there tugged at Yashiro's heart in a very real way.
'I wanted to,' Doumeki added quietly.
Though Yashiro's own hurt was still there, curled in a little ball in the pit of his stomach, he tried to imagine everything from Doumeki's perspective. Now that he knew, now that the thinnest and most impossible of voices had been vindicated and he knew Doumeki had been his almost from the start, he tried to empathise.
He tried to mentally track everything Doumeki had been through over the past few months, right until he blew his own cover that night.
And he stepped onto a familiar prickly bed of anxiety.
Doumeki had been entirely too reckless. He had put himself on the line far too many times. Bullets skimming past his head. The knife wound on his face. The bullets he took for Yashiro. The finger he sliced off for Yashiro. The job and the life he forsook for Yashiro. All for Yashiro. Always for Yashiro.
Dawn poured slowly over the buildings, weak and watery behind clouds. Doumeki remembered how bright it had seemed that day. His first day on the job.
Yashiro, his eyes also on the breaking dawn, thought of Ryuuzaki. How he had escaped it all. How it had taken one final push and he was now a ghost.
He found himself wondering how easy it might be.
The thought flitted about in his mind, playful and dangerous and tempting. It was still there by the time he lifted himself slightly so Doumeki, who looked about ready to drop, could slide onto the bed and rest his head.
Yashiro lay his head on his chest. Doumeki's arm circled him. Boss' hair was soft on his skin.
He took the cigarette butt Yashiro handed to him and placed it on the nightstand.
'The commissioner will know you've been made,' Yashiro observed almost lazily. 'And everyone on this side of the fence will want you dead. Misumi might even do it himself. Well not himself. Doubt he'd get his own hands dirty like that. He'd send one of his minions. Either way, if I were you, I would sleep with one eye open. Every night.'
Doumeki heard the faint note of mischief in Yashiro's voice. Like he was working his way up to something.
'Unless...' Yashiro said. The word hovered in the air above them.
Doumeki waited. Unless?
Then Yashiro laughed suddenly.
'You remember Kou-sensei, right?'
'Yes.'
'Remember when I told her we weren't about to give up the Yakuza life and open up a bed and breakfast anytime soon?'
Doumeki remembered. But he was too drowsy to try to piece together what Boss was trying to say.
In the pause that followed, Yashiro sobered a little. He took a deep, thoughtful breath.
'No such thing as a Yakuza happy ending,' he said to himself quietly, echoing what he had said to Yoneda.
His fingers slipped beneath Doumeki's open shirt and gently grazed his chest. Doumeki tried to keep his eyes on Boss for as long as he could before falling asleep. He longed to know what Boss was thinking.
I'm not afraid of you. I'm afraid of what it'll do to me if I lose you.
Doumeki fell asleep. And Yashiro kept thinking.
