Author's note: The climax of the story, some pun intended. Few more chapters to go!

Mob situation in bullet points:

-Amou working with Hirata all along, reasons unknown.

-Nakazawa dead.

-Doumeki stolen by Ota (second in command to Nakazawa).

-Yashiro, annoyed that his sex holiday was ruined, goes to fetch Doumeki.

-In warehouse, Ota is there with his lean face and swimmer's build and four or five goons. Doumeki is lying on his side on the floor, tied up and beaten pretty badly, one of the goons' guns pointed unmovingly at his head.

-Something white-hot and overwhelming rushes through Yashiro's body like a ripple when he sees the bruises on Doumeki's face, the boot prints on his shirt, the blood smears and spatters, the familiar glint of his eyes through the swollen lids. It's a miracle Yashiro manages not to spring a boner right there. He tries to smother that particular emotion with a different one; indignation and anger that these new, far superior wounds now completely outstripped the few meagre kicks he'd given Doumeki only a few days ago.

-Ota seems a lot more confident now than he was in Nakazawa's shadow. Yashiro almost believes that he was actually brought here to negotiate, rather than be immediately killed.

-Typical hostage-in-warehouse dialogue. Stuff about Yashiro silently handing over the reins to someone else. Anyone else, handpicked by Hirata. Someone who would be better suited to Hirata's evil plot when he branches off with his own group. That way, no one suffers, no one dies, no more random drive-by's. And, best of all, grandpa Misumi won't have to get involved. Yashiro asks why Hirata himself isn't here to read out the terms. A viable excuse is given.

-Yashiro confirms that if he says no, they would kill Doumeki. 'And probably me, too, right?' he adds. Ota confirms.

-Yashiro randomly asks about Ryuuzaki's woman. 'She's been missing for a while. I assume you and Hirata are behind that too?' Ota looks confused. Asks why Yashiro cares about that all of a sudden; isn't Ryuuzaki Yashiro's prisoner? Yashiro says he's just curious. He genuinely sounds like he is.

Boss, what are you doing?

It was still bright outside and Yashiro stood at the opening to the warehouse, slightly silhouetted in the glare, gun held causally by his side. Doumeki's blood ran cold. There was one of Boss and six of them. And here he was tied up on the floor, more useless than a pile of firewood. If he had to watch Boss get shot again…

'That's a good look on you, Doumeki,' Yashiro suddenly said. He was smiling calmly, chin up, eyes down.

He flicked his eyes back up and stared at Ota. He remembered the kind of face Ota made before he climaxed. A lot of under-bite. Having that intimate knowledge was a kind of power in and of itself, Yashiro mused.

'Fine,' he said. The word hung in the air.

'Fine?'

'I agree. Or whatever. I'll step down. I'll make it sound like I got sick of the Yakuza bullshit. Mostly because I'm really fucking sick of the Yakuza bullshit.'

Boss…

'Just let the big idiot go and we'll all head home.'

Ota was equal parts relieved and suspicious. He stared.

Yashiro shrugged. 'It's just me with one gun. I don't have room for any tricks. Except for the grenades in my sling. I'm kidding!' he added in irritation as one of the goons snapped his head up. 'Whatever happened to all the humour in hostage negotiations?'

'How do I know you'll actually do it? Step down, I mean.'

'You don't. But you've made your point. I don't want to spend more of my future in abandoned warehouses, negotiating. You'll have to take my word for it. Just like I'm taking it at your word that you're not just about to kill us both right now.'

And so on. Eventually, Ota gave a stiff nod to his men.

Doumeki's ropes were undone, though his hands were still bound behind his back, and he was raised to his feet. Yashiro grinned at how it took two men to do the job. Once up, Doumeki swayed but stayed up. He was given a sharp nudge. He walked across the warehouse floor towards Yashiro.

As he approached, Yashiro eyed his wounds again. His face was a real artwork. Soft purples, angry reds. One eye nearly closed.

'Wish I'd seen how they turned you into that.' Yashiro put one hand on his shoulder as he drew up alongside him. He was warm. 'Please tell me you were slightly turned on while they were doing it. Just a little bit?'

Doumeki tried to reply, but a rumbling, constricted sound was all he could manage.

'Good God. You guys've got him saying even less than before. I didn't think that was possible.'

'Enough,' said Ota, a little nervous now without the hostage as leverage.

'I agree,' said Yashiro, voice suddenly cold.

Doumeki only felt his boss' hand on his shoulder and the words 'Get down' being murmured in his ear. He obeyed.

Ota didn't know where the bullets came from. One after the other in quick succession, two of his men fell. In a panic, the others cast their eyes for the source and even got a few shots in before they fell too. Ota was suddenly alone.

Despite seeing that Yashiro, crouched on the ground beside Doumeki, hadn't lifted his gun even once, he was Ota's only conceivable target. He raised his gun but Yashiro was too quick. The bullet missed Ota's left arm by inches but it shocked him enough to drop the gun.

Yashiro sprang to his feet, covered the small distance between them and kicked it out of reach before Ota could even draw breath. He stood near Ota, gun trained steadily at his heart.

'My left-hand aim is still so shit,' he muttered to himself in the sudden silence.

'It really is,' said a voice at the door. Doumeki craned his neck up.

The new silhouette was Ryuuzaki's. He held a rifle in his hand, still tense, but looking largely pleased with himself.

'But at least I did an amazing job. Huh?'

'Yes, yes. Well done. Both your fucking and your marksmanship are top notch.'

Heat rose to Ryuuzaki's face and he scratched the back of his head.

'Sitting in the trunk of that car was what killed me most,' he complained stiffly.

Ota took in gasps of air, trying to piece it together. Yashiro came to his aid.

'Tell Hirata "no deal",' he said. After a pause, he considered his words. 'Actually, figure out a far less movie-cliché way of saying that, then say it. And tell him that Ryuuzaki's woman -'

'She has a name, you know.'

'- had better be alive or things are going to get much worse for him. Even worse than they are now. Do you have all that? I could text it to you if you like.' He turned to Ryuuzaki. 'Speaking of movies, can you help Doumeki into the car?'

'What? Why do I have to?'

'I want to keep an eye on Ota until we're good to go. In the movies, this is around about the time when people stop paying attention to the guy on the ground who's still alive. Then some schmuck gets shot.'

'Whatever.'

Doumeki heard Ryuuzaki draw near. After helping him stand, they headed out of the warehouse slowly. Ryuuzaki was muttering under his breath but Doumeki's eyes never left Boss, who stood near Ota with his gun pointed.

A small movement out of the corner of his eye. That was all it was.

And suddenly he bolted back inside.

'Boss!'

He saw Yashiro turn to him in surprise before he slammed into him.

Two shots echoed.

They landed hard on the floor.

Ryuuzaki, pulse pounding hotly in his ears, tried to focus. He saw one of the goons on the floor, evidently not yet dead, his gun still smoking. He took him out with the rifle then ran to where Doumeki and Yashiro had fallen.

It was hard to even see Yashiro beneath Doumeki's huge form.

On his back, two pools of red were steadily growing. They seeped, rich and wet, over the blood smears that had already dried.

Yashiro lay crushed beneath the dying Doumeki and almost felt at peace.

He'd heard the shots and didn't feel them. He'd felt Doumeki tense. So it hadn't been hard to figure out.

Doumeki's face was tilted slightly so Yashiro could see his battered face, unfocused eyes. He tried to imagine the pain of it. The bullets in his back. Similar to what he'd experienced. They had that in common now. How sweet.

He was still breathing. Making a few noises. I want to feel that pain, Yashiro realised. The pain of dying. He tried to move his arm to touch him but Doumeki was too heavy for him to move a muscle.

'Shit, he's been hit! Yashiro, can you hear me? Doumeki, get the fuck up!'

It took Ryuuzaki's voice for Yashiro to snap out of it.

Doumeki's eyelids fluttered and closed. Boss was safe. He'd done it right this time.

'Doumeki.'

And there was Boss' voice. Nice that it would be the last thing he heard.

'Doumeki. Get off me, right now. You're crushing me to death.'

Used his last remaining strength. With the help of Ryuuzaki. And Boss too. He heaved himself up and rolled away.

Then everything went black.

Blood gushed through Yashiro's fingers. He watched it, trying not to get pulled into the trance again. He sat up beside Doumeki and pressed his only good hand on the wounds as hard as he could.

Stop bleeding. Now.

'Call an ambulance,' he said. His voice shook.

'What?' Ryuuzaki looked up from where he was busy tying up Ota with Doumeki's old ropes.

'Do it.'

'If we do that, the cops will get involved.'

'I don't care. Just do it, now.'

The blood wasn't coming from near his heart or lungs. It was a lot lower. Kidneys, maybe. Maybe nothing at all. Maybe a flesh wound.

Revealing little, the blood kept pouring.

Ryuuzaki had to take the initiative. After Doumeki and Yashiro sped away in the wailing ambulance, he finished tying Ota up and threw him in the trunk. He handed him over to Shinseikai with a brief, bullet-pointed outline of what had happened.

Then he raced to the hospital.

There, he joined the cast of characters who, at some point or other in the next two days, were shocked at the change that had taken place in Yashiro.

Misumi, Nanahara, Sugimoto, Kageyama and Kuga (who had returned) all saw it, one by one. It was unnerving. Not a single smile. Not a single joke. He barely spoke.

He sat outside the emergency room at first, hands and clothes covered in Doumeki's blood. He only roused himself to tap cigarette ash into the pot plant beside him. He studiously ignored the nurse who reminded him there was absolutely no smoking in hospitals.

Then, when the surgeon gave him the all-clear, he migrated to the chair beside the bed and barely moved from there for the next day and a half.

One by one, after trying their hand at reviving him, everyone left him alone.

Before waking up fully, there was one moment when Doumeki rose almost to the surface of consciousness. In that moment, he thought he saw the outline of Boss, the colour of his hair at least, somewhere not far from him. Then he sank back into the comfortable depths.

From the outside, Yashiro observed this small change. Doumeki was lying on his stomach, face turned to him, the wounds on his back heavy and padded with bandages. His breathing was faint but steady.

Yashiro saw the eyelids flicker, perhaps even open for a split second before closing again. After that moment, Doumeki seemed different. Relaxed. Like his body had spent the past day fighting and was now resting. There wasn't anything in particular that had given him away. But Yashiro had noticed. He considered himself an expert in this vein.

As he sat there, Yashiro slowly returned to himself. It was almost a physical sensation. Like blood seeping back into a limb that had been constricted. He smiled, got to his feet and stretched.

Then he went home and took a shower.

And so Doumeki was the only one who never saw Yashiro the way the others had.

When he finally opened his eyes, it was like no time had passed since Boss was behind him in the backseat, reminding him in that smooth, golden voice about the following day's compulsory sex holiday.

In fact, the very first thing Yashiro said was, 'You're late. Forty-seven hours late, to be precise. I told you to show up at nine for our sex holiday and you never did.'

Yashiro put aside the novel he was reading. He dog-eared a page as a bookmark.

Doumeki tried to lift his head.

'Boss…'

His voice was rough and hoarse. Yashiro felt a sudden, powerful surge of lust and welcomed it. He hadn't felt anything of the kind over the past two days.

Doumeki grunted and felt out the insistent, intrusive pain in his lower back that radiated everywhere. He was in a hospital robe and his whole body was stiff and sore. Amazingly heavy. Reluctant to be conscious.

But Boss was there. Legs hooked casually over the armchair rests, smoke rising from the cigarette in the ashtray, head resting on his hand. Familiar, feline smile.

'What happened?' Doumeki asked thickly.

With a bored sigh, Yashiro gave him the rundown. As he spoke, he stared at the cuts and bruises of Doumeki's face, some healing already, others trying on new colours. He wanted to run his tongue along them.

'…which, most importantly, has left me quite sexually frustrated,' he concluded.

Doumeki processed it all slowly. Outside, the sky was rich with the red of evening. He heard birds first and traffic second. The hospital bed was starchy.

'Sorry, Boss,' he said. 'I shouldn't have let them take me.'

'No, you shouldn't have. But that's okay, you can make it up to me now. I mean, you came close by taking two bullets for me and nearly dying. But there's still more you can do.'

'Yes, Boss.'

For a few moments, they held each other's gaze. Then, taking his time, Yashiro stood up.

'I'm curious. Can you still get hard under all that?'

Doumeki's body, despite everything, felt a surge of something when he saw the look in Boss' eye. The strong, lean frame beneath the suit.

'I'm… not sure,' he answered honestly.

Yashiro came close and crouched by the bed. At first Doumeki thought he was going to kiss him, but he just breathed near his ear and pulled the earlobe gently with his teeth.

Doumeki hung his head and felt his cock stir. The pain everywhere else in his body was still there, just as strong, but something else had taken centre stage.

'I,' said Yashiro slowly, in a voice that washed over Doumeki in slow, cresting waves of lust. 'Need to be fucked. Right now. You have no idea how badly.'

'Yes.'

'What do you mean "yes"?'

'I can still get hard.'

'Oh. Wonderful.'

But Doumeki could barely move. Every shift of his muscles, especially those of his torso, sent red warning flares through his body. He almost certainly couldn't turn onto his back.

Yashiro straightened and assessed.

'Let's figure this out.'

First he went to the door and closed it. Then he turned, unbuckled his belt and stepped out of his pants. He spat on his fingers and reached a hand behind him. Doumeki watched as his lips parted and he let out a small moan. The blood flowed painfully to Doumeki's cock.

'Try to lift up onto your elbows,' his boss ordered.

Doumeki concentrated and lifted at the same moment that Yashiro eased himself gingerly beneath Doumeki's huge body. Doumeki felt his wounds call out in alarm but he could only think of the warmth of the body beneath him and the pressing fact that a half-naked Yashiro was manoeuvring himself so his asshole would line up with Doumeki's rigid cock.

They both breathed heavily as Yashiro tried to navigate and Doumeki tried to stay still. He dropped his head against Yashiro's neck and inhaled deeply.

Yashiro chuckled. 'This is how we were for a while after you got shot.'

Doumeki broke Yashiro's concentration by lifting his head and pulling him into a kiss. At the same moment, his cock found the mark and he instinctively pushed in. Far too hard.

Pain tore through Doumeki's body. His head reared back and he let out a tortured groan. Yashiro had never heard him make such a sound, even when he'd been shot. He craned his neck to see the bandages covering Doumeki's wound. They were suddenly soaked through with blood.

'Shit,' he gasped, feeling Doumeki's cock twitch inside him at the same time. 'That's insanely fucking hot.'

Doumeki groaned through pleasure and pain worse than he'd ever felt in his life. Yashiro's hole clenched and released him in agonising waves while Yashiro himself wore a look that made him want to come immediately. He wanted, more than anything else, to move. To fuck him senseless. But he couldn't. In a word, they were stuck.

'Okay,' Yashiro breathed finally. 'You stay still. I'll fuck myself on your cock. Okay?'

It sounded like an amazing plan.

Yashiro pulled his hips back. It was an awkward, uncomfortable action but he persevered. Then he pushed himself back up slightly faster, feeling Doumeki fill him again. He moaned. Doumeki panted, concentrating on staying still.

He felt his wounds pulsing and pleading for him to stop. He was sure he was losing blood. His head was dangerously light. But if he was going to die like this, he would die the happiest man in the world.

Yashiro heard Doumeki's breaths come out in haggard, unsteady bursts. He couldn't be sure if it was because he was close to dying or close to coming but either way, he didn't stop. He kept pushing up into Doumeki's cock, trying to feel about for his own climax.

It was slow but it did the trick.

At least it would have done if there hadn't been a quick rap on the door followed by someone coming in.

Later, all three had to come to terms with the possibility that, just by interrupting them, Kageyama had saved Doumeki's life.

Yashiro was back on the armchair, smoking, as Kageyama tried to tend to Doumeki's wounds. Blowing smoke, he grinned at the endless stream of chastising.

'What the hell is wrong with you, Yashiro? Practice restraint for once in your fucking life! He was shot twice!'

'I was shot three times,' Yashiro reminded him.

'But no one was molesting you in bed while you were recovering!'

Yashiro met Doumeki's eye. They flashed to that day on a different hospital bed, Yashiro's grip on Doumeki's shirt and Doumeki bending over to take the boss' cock into his mouth for the first time.

'Right. Good point.'

'You're unbelievable.'

Kageyama peeled back the sodden bandage on Doumeki's back.

'Where the hell is that nurse?'

His face was still bright red from the scene he had witnessed, like he was still seeing it in front of his eyes. He pushed his glasses up his nose and sweated. Yashiro watched him fondly, placing his cigarette between smiling lips. Still a grouchy old man. Just as he'd been at age sixteen.

Doumeki, pushed into the background, tried to hold back a scaly, ugly emotion.

That look on Boss' face. He could barely stand it.

'Jesus, these bandages are soaked through.'

That look spoke of something Doumeki could never reach. A past they shared that he could only see from the other side of a glass wall. A feeling his boss had formed and nursed and held in the solitude of his own world for decades. A feeling he protected by using anyone and anything else around him to fill the void, Doumeki included. He'd known and accepted it for a long time.

But suddenly, the feeling of Kageyama's hands, his nearness, was too much to bear.

'You're still bleeding out.' Kageyama threw the bandages away, rang the buzzer for the nurse again and, with nothing else on hand, tried to soak up the blood with a nearby blanket.

'I'm fine,' Doumeki said suddenly.

'Just hold still.'

'Get off.'

Yashiro heard the tone. He looked up.

'Give me a second, the nurse will be here soon -'

'Get off!'

Doumeki tried to pull away and his back seared with agony. He grunted and clenched his teeth.

Kageyama, thoroughly confused, stepped back and stared.

'What's wrong with you all of a sudden?'

Yashiro was quiet.

He gently turned it over in his mind. All of it. He turned over the decades. And the days. The past few days especially, during which time a lot of things had lined up. Unlikely things like Steinbeck and Murakami. Gherkins.

He smiled, allowing himself just one last private moment with someone he once was, before speaking.

'He's jealous of you.'

In the terrible silence that followed, Doumeki's ears rang.

Kageyama turned to him, nonplussed.

'What?'

Yashiro continued smoothly, 'He's jealous of the fact that I've been in love with you since high school.'

Absolutely nothing changed in Kageyama's expression.

'Very funny.'

'It's not a joke. In fact, it was very painful. You were so oblivious.'

Another silence. Yashiro crossed his legs thoughtfully.

'I've had sex with hundreds of men, literally hundreds, and in that time I've only ever been in love with the one who I could never have. Isn't that such a cliché?'

Kageyama tried in vain to hear the tone in Yashiro's voice that meant he was joking. He couldn't hear it. In fact, he'd never before heard Yashiro put on a voice like this. His heart thudded painfully.

'I even pushed Kuga your way because I knew he would make you happy. That's how much I love you.'

'Jesus, Yashiro.'

His face burned under Yashiro's gaze. It was like he was meeting him for the first time. The weight of years fell squarely on his shoulders. There was nothing he could possibly do or say.

It may have been one of the worst moments of Doumeki's life. If he was able to move, he would have fled the room.

He imagined Kageyama saying something like You should have told me sooner. He imagined the look on Yashiro's face as Kageyama moved to him and kissed him, pushed him into the wall, started fucking him. Would they notice Doumeki was still there? Probably. Yashiro would make him watch.

Kageyama of the real world cut into his reverie.

'This isn't funny.'

'I'm not joking,' Yashiro patiently repeated.

'Yes, you are.'

'I'm really not.'

Pause.

'But you -' Kageyama grasped at straws. 'Then why the hell would you be telling me this now?'

Yashiro looked at Doumeki for the first time.

'Because that clumsy oaf is the only one who figured it out. He's not as dumb as he looks. And he's been jealous of you ever since.' A soft, mean chuckle.

Humiliated, Doumeki felt himself flush. He turned away to glare at the starchy sheets of the hospital bed, praying for the ceiling to cave in. His back throbbed angrily. Pathetically.

While Kageyama's brain raced for something to say, Yashiro's eyes traced out the knife scar on Doumeki's face.

Careful, now.

'What he doesn't know,' Yashiro said slowly, and both men heard a subtle, important change in the quality of his voice, 'is that I've fallen for him.'

Doumeki's heart stopped. The air in the room froze.

'In fact,' Yashiro continued, eyes lazily focused on the glowing tip of his cigarette. 'I'm more in love with that clumsy oaf than I've ever loved you, Kage. And that's saying something.'

Another truly awful silence followed.

Yashiro waited patiently, like he had all the time in the world, for Doumeki to look up. When their eyes finally met, Yashiro smiled again. Lightly. Ironically. With his eyes half-lidded, of course.

It was a trick. Another of his tricks.

'Boss...'

Yashiro abruptly stood up, slicing through the thick fog of awkwardness he himself had created and seemed impervious to.

'So let Kageyama take care of you already, you idiot. If you die on me, you're fired.' He put out the cigarette and pulled on his suit jacket with a fluid one-armed move. The right sleeve draped becomingly over his sling. 'As entertaining as it is, you can stop being jealous of him. You won.'

He smiled cheerfully at their stunned faces and walked towards the door.

Doumeki, numb with shock, instinctively went to follow. Lifting his abdomen again sent more bolts of pain through his body, filling his head.

Kageyama, meanwhile, still hadn't quite caught up. It would take him several days, weeks, really, to do so. But his instincts as a doctor told him to restrain the bleeding man, which he tried to do.

Doumeki barely even noticed he was there.

'Boss!'

To his surprise, Yashiro stopped in the doorway and looked back with slightly raised eyebrows.

At a loss, Doumeki could only think to ask, 'Where are you going?'

'Little errand to run. I'll be back.' He suddenly seemed to remember something. 'Oh, Kage, you dropped this.'

He fished something out of his jacket pocket (something he'd seen and picked up on a prescient whim before he left his apartment) and tossed it across the room. A dazed and flushed Kageyama reached out and only caught it after bouncing it around a few times. He found himself staring at his old contact lens case and sank further into confusion.

Yashiro was gone, leaving behind yet another terrible silence in his wake.

The only thing in the room that hadn't been at all affected by recent events was Doumeki's wound, which was still gushing. Kageyama shook himself and tried to tend to it again.

For his part, Doumeki tried to settle, mind reeling.

I've fallen for him.

I've fallen for him.

I'm more in love with that clumsy oaf than I've ever loved you.

The nurse finally arrived and Kageyama gratefully took his leave. He walked out of the hospital feeling like he was about to wake up at any moment. The contact lens case was in his pocket. All he wanted to do was collapse on his couch, tell Kuga what happened, and have him explain it all to him in a way he could understand.