Warning: Somewhat disturbing sex ahead

As he closed his front door, Yashiro realised his fingers were still tightly holding the small white case. How the hell had he even paid the cab driver? He tossed it into a corner and fell on the couch.

Doumeki had stared and then staggered and then fallen. He didn't once resist or defend himself. It probably never even occurred to him to do so. Yashiro could, theoretically, for the sake of science, have kept on pummelling him. Kicked and hit him until he was nothing more than bruises. Would he really have taken it? Would he have let Yashiro kill him slowly like that, on the floor of his own apartment, over a twenty-year-old contact lens container?

Yes, Boss. Obviously.

It suddenly occurred to Yashiro how large his apartment was. Why did he ever think he'd need all that space?

He had a few problems to deal with. For one, it was clear that Doumeki knew him and his long-standing demons far too well. Also, Doumeki had stolen something from him. Also, he'd beaten Doumeki up.

But the problem that was causing him most grief at that moment was an unreturned text message. He lay on the couch for over an hour, waiting for the phone to light up.

When it finally rang, he answered without looking at the screen.

'How's your nose?'

'My what?'

It was Kageyama. Yashiro felt hollow disappointment as well as an unfamiliar surge in his gut.

Oh, hey. I just beat up my bodyguard because he knows I'm in love with you.

'Nothing. What's up?'

'Have you seen Kuga?'

He chuckled softly. 'Nope. How many times have you lost him now?'

Kageyama grunted. 'Lost count.'

'You should consider getting him microchipped.'

'Think he's causing trouble somewhere?'

'Maybe. When'd you last see him?'

'Yesterday. We… we were having a fight. He blew up at something I said and left.'

'What'd you say?'

'It's not important.'

'Tell me.'

'I… I said he was so self-centred sometimes he reminded me of you.'

'Gee, thanks.'

'He didn't take it too well.'

Yashiro closed his eyes, tired and amused. 'Glad I brought you two together.'

'You'll tell me if you see him?'

'Sure.'

'Thanks.'

Kageyama paused and Yashiro could just picture him scratching the side of his face, brows knit together just slightly.

'You okay, by the way?' he asked. 'You sound off.'

Yashiro opened his eyes a fraction.

'I'm fine.'

'Okay. I'll see you later.' After hesitating: 'If he contacts you, tell him I said I'm sorry.'

He hung up.

Yashiro checked his screen. Still no reply from Doumeki. He sent another text. Something about betrayal and the threat of death. To liven the mood.

Looking back up, his eyes fell on the low bookshelf against the living room wall. It was nearing evening and he hadn't switched on the light so most of the titles were in shadow. The only one he could make out was Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.

A delighted laugh escaped his throat. An implausibly huge, bumbling halfwit devoted to his frequently abusive friend. If there was a better modern-day Japanese version of George and Lennie somewhere, he sure hadn't heard of it. He then remembered the ending and his smile faded. His apartment was quiet again.

He sent another text. About the ending of Wild Sheep Chase. Surely it had to be better than George and Lennie's fate.

The phone rang almost immediately after that. Yashiro stared at the name on the screen for a long while before answering.

He didn't say anything and, for a few seconds, neither did Doumeki. Until:

'I'm sorry, Boss.'

His voice sounded strange, Yashiro thought. He'd probably kicked his face a little too hard.

'It's fine.'

Loud silence filled the air.

'How's your nose?'

'Bleeding.'

'Not broken?'

'I don't think so.'

'Must be off my game.'

He thought of Lennie and felt an actual prick of guilt, which disturbed him. He tried to switch gears.

'Actually, it's good you called. Do you remember the place where you changed the tire that time? Really depressing, abandoned parking lot, two pathetic little restaurants.' Unanticipated first kiss. 'Know where that was?'

'I think so.'

'Find out the name of one of those restaurants. I'm thinking of inviting Nakazawa out to dinner. You're coming too.'

'Yes, Boss.'

Yashiro smiled at the hard edge that had crept into Doumeki's voice.

'Make a reservation for three. Four, actually. He'll probably bring a friend.'

'When should I make it for?'

Yashiro stared out the window. A small bird had perched on the balcony railing and was hopping to and fro uncertainly. Its head was a demure blue leading into an inky black on the wings and tail. Blue rock thrush, Yashiro thought, without the faintest idea how he knew that.

'Not done hating you yet, so in a couple of days.'

Pause.

'Okay.'

He hung up feeling both better and worse. After a few more hours lapsed and he forced himself to get up, change his clothes and crawl into bed, he realised he couldn't remember where he'd thrown the contact lens case.

Mob situation in bullet points:

-Nakazawa doesn't know Yashiro knows anything.

-Nakazawa doesn't really question Yashiro's strange choice of restaurant (maybe the Shinseikai owned a love hotel nearby?) or why Yashiro has both their bodyguards sit with them. Slightly put off by the waves of hatred emanating from guy with scar on cheek. But ignores it, focuses on Yashiro's unfairly enticing half-lidded gaze. Wants to wreck him again.

-He also figures that a restaurant isn't the best place for Take II on Yashiro's life, so the pressure's off all round. He prepares to just shoot the breeze with Yashiro and, most likely, end the night with a nice hard fuck.

-They talk shop. Hirata this and Hirata that. How to stop him. A bit about Misumi's awkward position in the middle of it all. Update on Ryuuzaki's condition.

-Conversation lasts a long time; the waiters politely remind them that they're about to close. Outside, only their two cars are left in the parking lot. Not another soul.

-Yashiro says a few clever things that set Nakazawa's teeth on edge. Suddenly wishing he'd brought more goons.

-Suddenly, Doumeki's elbow is thrown in the other bodyguard's face, who falls. Nakazawa reaches for his gun and whirls around to point it at Yashiro but the one-armed bastard disarms him without breaking a sweat. He aims a punch which is sideswiped and then Doumeki barrels into him from nowhere and he hits the ground.

'To summarise,' said Yashiro, shooting Nakazawa's bodyguard in both legs to put him out of order. 'I know you're working with Hirata and that you tried to kill me. And Doumeki over here hates you for various personal reasons. You're about to die.'

Nakazawa was gorgeous even sprawled on the ground, inches from death, Yashiro thought. Maybe because of that, actually. Long hair and long legs splayed, eyes glinting with fear.

He was so busy ogling he didn't notice that Nakazawa's hand was reaching for the small pistol in his belt. Doumeki did. He aimed and shot Nakazawa's hand without flinching.

Nakazawa and the goon's cries rang loud in the night. Tokyo turned a deaf ear.

Yashiro's eyes darted from Doumeki's sphinx of a face, the hard line of his body as he stood over Nakazawa and the bloody, mangled mess of Nakazawa's left hand. He was hard in seconds.

'Do it,' he told Doumeki, almost breathless.

Nakazawa whimpered, flecks of spit flying. He stared up at Doumeki with an expression that only the certainty of death could inspire in a man who valued pride above all else.

Doumeki returned the gaze impassively and flashed back to one of Yashiro's monologues. How Nakazawa had taken his ass cheeks in his hands and stretched them apart for so long and hard that he thought his hole would tear. He lifted his foot and pressed it down on the front of Nakazawa's pants, grinding hard. Another strangled cry.

Jesus Christ, I might come on the spot.

'Enough, Doumeki,' Yashiro said. 'Just do it.'

Doumeki made sure he was looking Nakazawa in the eye. Channel every part of you that wants to cause hurt. Focus it into one sharp, lethal little point.

He raised the gun.

What happens after that is beautiful.

The shot echoed. Nakazawa's final expression remained frozen on his face under the new hole in his forehead.

Yashiro stepped to Doumeki's side and stared down at the body. Doumeki suddenly noticed his boss' uneven breathing and flushed face. Fear seized him. Did he get hit somehow?

'Are you okay, Boss?'

Yashiro was hypnotised again. The blood trickling from Nakazawa's head into his hair. The permanent fear in his lovely eyes. He couldn't take it anymore.

He turned, grabbed Doumeki's tie and yanked it towards him.

Doumeki took a split second to register that Boss' lips were on his own, then he responded with full force. He held Yashiro's face in his hands and his cock sprang to attention. Yashiro's hand pawed at it hungrily. Doumeki pulled him closer, in the process nearly stumbling over the dead man's legs.

Dead man.

Idea.

Yashiro leaned back, pulled the front of Doumeki's shirt and they fell in a heap on top of Nakazawa.

'Boss…'

'Shut up. Don't think, just do it.'

By then, they were both long gone. The need to fuck was like a magnetic force. They only had time to wrench Yashiro's pants free of his hips and pull Doumeki's cock out through his fly. Doumeki spat on his fingers and tried to ease the way as best as he could but Yashiro was insistent. He entered him in one thrust and Yashiro cried into his ear.

Despite the image in Yashiro's head, it was logistically impossible to have sex squarely on top of a lifeless body. He had to settle for lying sideways across Nakazawa, his left arm thrown over his chest and Doumeki pounding into him from above.

Doumeki couldn't explain it. Why he felt none of the disgust and all of the thrill. He was fucking Boss over the top of a man he hated whom he'd killed.

He'd won.

Tears gathered again in the corners of Yashiro's eyes from the pain of being fucked raw. He reached his arm up and grabbed the back of Doumeki's collar as his climax built far too quickly.

'Yes! Ugh! Fuck, I'm so close. Don't stop!'

Doumeki growled. 'Can I come inside you, Boss?'

'Where the fuck else would you come?'

Yashiro replayed the image of the straightness of Doumeki's arm, his finger pulling the trigger, Nakazawa's head whipping back and hitting the pavement.

He came.

Doumeki came.

Nakazawa didn't move.

His bodyguard was lying nearby, still clutching his legs and whimpering.

'I always knew you were messed up, Yashiro. But this... this is a whole new level.'

Misumi still had a bad taste in his mouth from what he and Amou had witnessed through the car window. He glanced uneasily at Doumeki, whose poker face remained as resolute as ever. Weren't you supposed to be impotent?

He and Yashiro stood in the parking lot watching Amou and Doumeki throw the body in the trunk.

'What?'

Yashiro smoked, looking supremely relaxed and satisfied.

'It's not necrophilia if it's on top of the dead body. Unless… is there a radius involved or something? I wouldn't know. I'm not a lawyer.'

Sometime during Nakazawa's last dinner, Yashiro had texted Misumi their location. He needed Amou's know-how to get rid of the body. Plus he felt the need to show Misumi that he was dealing with his problems without needing his Oyaji's help. Except for body removal, of course. Even children who have moved out occasionally come back to have their laundry done.

Misumi was somewhat impressed with Yashiro's efficiency. One dead body, about to be missing forever (acid and a few other tricks), and one injured bodyguard to run home and tell the tale. Hirata would be seething. He might, with any luck, back down. Misumi might have a chance at peace.

He noticed that Yashiro's eyes never once left Doumeki as he worked.

'I'm thinking of calling a holiday tomorrow,' Yashiro said, loud enough for the others to hear as well. 'A compulsory holiday for bodyguards everywhere. To stay at home and have sex with their bosses all day.'

Doumeki looked up briefly but made no response.

'Oh, and the same goes for personal attendants too,' Yashiro added. 'Or assistants or wives or whatever you are, Amou. Wouldn't want you to miss out on sex with your boss.'

Misumi and Amou avoided eye contact. The thought of the two of them together almost made Misumi smile.

'Thanks for your help, Oyaji,' Yashiro called before he and Doumeki got into the Lexus.

'Stay out of trouble.'

'Always.'

Setting: Hirata's office

Cast: Hirata

Train of thought: Body image issues; Nakazawa's death; hatred of Yashiro; world domination

Hirata sighed as he considered his girth in the dim reflection of his office window. He concealed it well enough behind suits. He looked solid, he decided. Intimidating. Not fat.

The news of Nakazawa's death last night was yet another blow. His hatred of Yashiro was pushed to new limits. That hatred had become a real thing by itself, made of its own colours and feelings. What kind of a world would let a reprehensible pervert like that even survive, let alone thrive? It made him sick. It made him… something.

He picked up the phone when it rang. He knew who it was even though the number was blocked.

'Why is it,' the voice began tersely, 'that we struggle so hard to kill Yashiro and still fail, and yet when Yashiro wants someone dead he just snaps his fingers and it's done?'

'He does things in the open,' Hirata said, who'd been pondering the same question. 'We keep trying to make it look like we had nothing to do with it.'

'That is quite a disadvantage.'

'Besides that, he's as slippery as a fucking eel.'

After a brief pause, the voice said, 'So let's get a bigger target to lure him out somewhere quiet. One that doesn't move as quickly. And is easier to see.'

'Who're you talking about?'

'The bodyguard.'

'The big guy?'

'Yes.'

'Why would Yashiro put himself on the line for a bodyguard?'

'Trust me.'

A reluctant pause.

'Fine.'

'I'll text you the address,' said the voice. 'When can you get it done?'

'Soon. Today.'

'Good.'

Amou lowered the phone to his hip and pressed the hang-up button without looking. Edging around the garage, he headed up the stairs to the back door. He moved through the large house quietly. As he'd done for years.

He had a feeling about it this time. A feeling that had been confirmed after seeing them having sex over Nakazawa's corpse. There was something there. If that mastiff was caught and chained up and kicked around a little, its owner would come running.

Reaching the door to the study, he raised his chin and knocked.

'Ready, sir?'

'Just about.' Misumi's head was down as he scribbled away. 'Tell me again why I have to go to this stupid dinner?'

Though it was probably rhetorical, Amou reminded him patiently of his obligations. Misumi sighed, closed his ledger and stood up.

Amou put away his files, helped him put on his coat and followed him out the door. As he'd done for years.

Yashiro had been dead serious about the compulsory sex holiday. On the drive home, he'd explained calmly to Doumeki from the backseat that he was to come over at nine am sharp the following morning and they would spend the rest of the work day fucking.

'You have no say in the matter,' he was told.

'Yes, Boss.'

'Everyone deserves a holiday.'

And so the next morning, when the bell rang, Doumeki's head was filled with anxious, arithmetical thoughts of the potential of his inner sadist (Boss hated me at sixty percent but liked one hundred percent but I keep feeling sick after one hundred percent but I want boss to feel good what about ninety percent how can I stop after ninety without going to one hundred). Thankfully, these complex calculations were also sprinkled throughout with fantastic thoughts about Boss in various contortions.

Meaning he was caught entirely off guard when he opened the door to three guys he'd never seen before.

He still hadn't totally shaken the image of Boss in various contortions even as one of the guys swung something heavy into his face, then again on the back of his head. He passed out.

Such specific happiness. The thought that one was about to have a huge, beautiful cock all to oneself for hours on end.

When nine am came and went with no Doumeki, Yashiro didn't think much of it. He bathed and dressed. Even made himself coffee.

Sorry, Boss. Kuga came by and wouldn't let me leave. He complained about Kageyama for hours.

Or: Sorry, Boss. My shitty Subaru wouldn't start so I had to run all the way here.

Or: Sorry, Boss. I was so worked up over the idea of fucking you all day I actually couldn't make it out of bed.

He couldn't wait to hear the excuse.

The grey skies of the past few days had been wiped clean and the world was covered in gratingly cheerful sunshine. Yashiro made a list. Kitchen counter, couch, coffee table, balcony, shower, bed (obviously), ironing table. Where else? Oh, washing machine. Bathtub. They could get creative with dining table chairs. Doumeki sitting there and Yashiro clambering on his lap. Or turned away, lowering his hips like he was about to give him a lap dance but really just cutting to the good stuff. He tingled imagining the way Doumeki would be watching him the whole time.

When Doumeki finally rang him, he was humming and pouring coffee.

'You're late.'

'Yashiro.'

His grin fell away. He recognised the voice but had a hard time placing it.

'Ota?'

'Good memory.'

'Hey, long time no see. How've you been?' His voice remained smooth and calm even as his skin prickled. He slowly set down the coffee pot, mind whirring. 'I'm sure you've heard that I killed your boss last night. Well, I didn't personally. That was Doumeki. We had sex over his dead body though. Almost a threesome. Say, didn't you me and Nakazawa also have a threesome? Funny how things work out sometimes.'

Ota seemed a little thrown by this but he recovered fast enough.

'We have your bodyguard. Took him this morning. He's in bad shape.'

A long, important silence followed.

'For fuck's sake,' Yashiro snapped without warning. He sounded exasperated. Thoroughly annoyed. 'I am so fucking sick of the Yakuza bullshit.'

'What?' It wasn't exactly the reaction Ota had been expecting.

'Just… never mind.'

He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. It eluded him why life couldn't just be about having sex all the time, every day. Why did everyone always insist on making it more complicated than that?

'Where and when?' he said in a dull, robotic tone.

Ota gave him the address of an abandoned warehouse (of course).

'No one else. Just you.'

'Naturally. Wouldn't be because you want to shoot me as soon as I get out of the car, would it?'

'We just want to talk things through. Work out a deal that suits everyone.'

'Whatever you say.'

At first, Doumeki expected to be killed as soon as they dragged him away.

When that didn't happen, he took the beatings silently, expecting to be grilled for information he most likely didn't have.

When they didn't ask any questions and largely appeared to stand around waiting for something between beatings, it occurred to him that he was being used for leverage, ransom or as bait.

The thought confused him a great deal (though this was also probably due to the multiple head wounds he'd recently suffered). What in the world led them to believe he would make good bait? He was the bodyguard. It didn't make sense.

The toe of a heavy boot smashed into his nose. It reminded him wistfully of how Boss had done that to him a few days ago.

And he found himself daring to wonder if it made some kind of sense. Maybe one kind of sense.

He was hauled upright onto a chair for better access to his face. Blood spurted from his mouth as the fist(s?) pounded and pounded. He tried to sit up but his body sagged heavily against the ropes between each hit. One of his eyes began to swell closed.

The one kind of sense went away almost as soon as it arrived.

Boss was smarter than that.

I'm a goddamn moron, Yashiro thought just outside the warehouse as he clicked the safety off his gun. I must have caught it from that idiot.

Getting there had been an ordeal. He'd always hated driving even when he had the use of both hands. He got out of the Lexus and bent low to inspect the new scratches on its fender, paying no attention to the multiple guns no doubt trained on his every move. Brand new car, he thought, annoyance steadily increasing.

Annoyance was all he was able to feel. If he let in any more than that, he suspected he wouldn't have been able to function.

He was George and they had Lennie.

'I'm here,' he declared loudly.