'It's almost disappointing,' Hirata remarked. 'You made it too easy, in the end.'

An off-grid hospice for the very rich. Barely any cell phone reception. Minimal security, Sugimoto snoozing in the next room. Open wilderness only a stone's throw away. And no Doumeki for miles.

Yashiro sighed.

'I really did.'

'You keep saying you want things done out in the open,' Hirata said, his hands in his pockets. His features were as blunt and unforgiving as always. 'I hope this lives up to your expectations.'

'Sneaking into a guesthouse in Hokkaido in the middle of the night isn't what I had in mind,' Yashiro said lightly, trying to steady his pulse. He knew where his gun was – on the bed next to his suit jacket – and that it was too far out of reach.

'At least I came in person. Now we can stop pretending like we're sworn brothers.'

'That was getting tiresome,' Yashiro agreed.

'Relying on others to kill you was a mistake.' It seemed Hirata was genuinely annoyed over that fact. 'You probably know about Ryuuzaki's parting gift. The bastard.'

Yashiro recalled something about a knife in Hirata's back. He noticed only then that Hirata's movements seemed stiffer than usual. He felt a surge of affection for Ryuuzaki, wherever he was.

'I won't hesitate to shoot you where you are,' Hirata said, adopting a more business-like tone. 'But I'd rather not cause a fuss here. So just come out to the car quietly and it'll be less painful for you in the long run.'

Sinking to the bottom of a river. Or dumped in a shallow earthy grave. Or left to rot at the bottom of a ravine in the Hokkaido wilderness. The possibilities flashed before Yashiro's eyes without any undue gravity.

In fact, he smiled. And a very quiet laugh escaped him.

Hirata was immediately irritated and suspicious. A little anxious, even. The Omega slut had always been unpredictable. He had to remind himself that he had complete control of the situation.

'What the hell is funny?'

'Your timing,' Yashiro replied, still smiling. 'If you had waited even a week, I would have been gone.'

Hirata frowned. 'Gone?'

'Vanished. Out. Free. Done a Ryuuzaki. You would have been rid of me without needing to get your hands dirty. But you chose to come out of the shadows now. Today, of all days.'

Hirata's frown deepened. 'If this is your way of trying to bargain –'

'It isn't,' Yashiro said, sounding tired.

After a few seconds, Hirata's shrewd mind considered the possibility that Yashiro was telling the truth.

'It doesn't matter,' he said, forcefully enough that it was clear he was frustrated and trying to stay focused. 'I've been wanting to do this for a long time.'

'Probably ever since our indirect kiss over the sake cup, right?' Yashiro said slyly, referring to the ceremony during which Hirata had been forced to take Yashiro on board as his second-in-command.

Disgust twisted Hirata's features.

'Start walking.'

For a tense few seconds, Yashiro returned his gaze without blinking. And then he took steady steps forward. As though he had nothing left to lose. One of the two goons stepped aside to let him pass.

I want to come with you.

Words murmured into his hair.

There were three of them against one of him. The barrels of two guns were trained on him. And he had only one functioning hand, on top of all that.

But he did it anyway. He lunged sideways towards the bed where his gun was.

He banked on the fact that they hadn't shot him when they first came in, which meant they were hoping not to draw attention to themselves with Misumi close by, not to mention the Kaichou himself and his inner circle.

Yashiro was right. No bullets came after him, but one of the men did. Yashiro had only just closed his left hand around the handle of his gun when he felt a heavy blow across his head, so sharp and hard he was sure, for a moment, that his skull had cracked.

He grunted and sank to the floor by the bed, blinking through the small lights exploding before his vision. Then he felt a kick in his kidneys, lethally aimed, which debilitated his whole body for a few seconds. Another kick, this time in his stomach, curled him up and he groaned quietly.

'Enough, idiot,' he heard Hirata snap. 'At this rate we'll have to carry him. Tie up his hands.'

Yashiro still groaned and blinked and writhed. But, to Hirata's disbelief and annoyance, he managed to squeeze out a chuckle.

'Didn't think... you were into that kind of thing.'

'Shut him up and get him to the car, quickly.'

Pain.

Pain in different places and in different colours. The worst was in the back of his head, where he could feel something seeping out slowly, hotly. And the pain in his lower back, singing in little aching notes. And the more rudimentary, unsophisticated pain in his stomach. He threatened to float above himself again, just like all those other times. All those other times when he was an Omega surrounded by Alphas.

At first, that particular thought was indistinguishable from the pain, and the pain was indistinguishable from the heat. He felt it as one of the men grabbed his arm, about to yank him upright. But then, more than the thought and more than the pain, the heat became prominent.

It spread from his chest to his head all the way to his extremities, all over his body. And it was so strong and so familiar that he uttered a small, plaintive moan. He didn't have time to understand why it was happening then, of all times. He only knew that it was. And that his body was crying out for only one person.

The Beta that had been about to pull him to his feet hesitated and let go. The one further back suddenly faltered too.

'What the f–? Shit, Boss, I think he's gone into heat!'

But Hirata, in that moment, was taken over by something else. He didn't need to be told that Yashiro had gone into heat. His body had known instantly.

The man near Yashiro leaned down again and grabbed the arm that was in its sling. He didn't expect Yashiro to suddenly lash out with his good arm, striking hard against his forearm, and following it up with a barefoot kick to his kneecap that made him stagger backwards.

'Don't touch me,' Yashiro hissed, his eyes livid and his voice shaking. His heart threatened to pound out of his chest and he felt his heat-induced sweat begin to soak his shirt.

Hirata laughed then, a loud, incredulous bark of a laugh, and pushed his men out of the way. He suddenly loomed over Yashiro, a wall of flesh, an Alpha, eyes glinting with single-minded purpose, staring down over an Omega weakened by his heat.

'So you do know how to say no.'

He suddenly tugged Yashiro's injured arm out of its sling and twisted it behind his back. Yashiro's sharp cry of pain was smothered by the hand that clamped down over his mouth.

'Public toilet.' Hirata pushed him face-down on the ground. 'Lustful cat. How many Alphas have had you? Dozens? Hundreds?' His breath was hot in Yashiro's ear. 'But I'll be the first one to have the Omega whore while he's struggling, won't I?'

A tiny pair of bound hands on a weathered tatami mat.

Doumeki.

'Hold down his legs,' Hirata ordered over his shoulder, his voice strained, the sharp scent of his arousal suddenly everywhere.

It made Yashiro gag. He struggled and tried to cry out, tried to bite the hand that was covering his mouth or lash out again, but the combined force of Hirata's weight and his own heat made any real resistance impossible.

Hands holding down his ankles, a hand holding his arm painfully behind his back, hands groping his thighs, tugging at his pants.

Doumeki…

He registered the sound of gunshots somewhere in the back of his mind. By then, he had receded from reality almost completely. He had slipped backwards into the memory of Doumeki's hands and face and scent. He was still there when a third gunshot sounded, much closer. And then a fourth.

And then a fifth.

Hirata's hand went limp. His entire weight suddenly collapsed onto Yashiro, flattening him completely. Winded, Yashiro gasped and spat in the open air when Hirata's hand fell away, still struggling for breath and still gagging in Hirata's scent. He tried to crane his neck around to see what had happened.

Hirata was then heaved away and his scent was replaced by a different one. One that filled Yashiro to his core and flooded him with dazed disbelief.

A soul bond is a powerful thing.

And suddenly Doumeki was there, lifting him off the floor, holding him up, touching the wound on the back of his head, eyes wide with concern.

'Boss?'

It's not something a person can understand unless they've experienced it themselves.

Yashiro stared, his gaze unfocused, and realised he was probably dreaming.

Things happen – things that seem too unlikely for coincidence.

'Doumeki...'

'Are you hurt anywhere else?'

It was his voice. His hands and his eyes. His scent everywhere. And Yashiro didn't care how it was possible. He didn't know why or how Nanahara was also suddenly in the room, along with Sugimoto. He only understood why he had gone into heat. And what his body was desperate for, what he was aching for.

He clung to Doumeki's shirt, seeing the same need in Doumeki's eyes. Doumeki's own shallow breaths and the sweat on his face.

'Fuck me,' Yashiro whispered.

Doumeki's rationality raced for the hills. Relief that Yashiro was in his arms, rage over what he had just seen, the searing, agonising pain in his shoulder – all of it was being supplanted by a single thing. The smell of his Omega in heat.

'Boss, you –' he tried. 'You're hurt –'

But Yashiro pulled him into a hard kiss, desperate to melt into the warmth of his mouth. Doumeki leaned forwards instinctively, his hold around Yashiro tightening.

Yashiro pulled back, his forehead still pressed to Doumeki's, his eyebrows drawn in urgent need.

'Fuck me,' he urged again, hands grasping Doumeki's shirt, his face. 'I need you to fuck me, right now. Please.'

Doumeki growled and felt the last shreds of resistance dissolve. He swung Yashiro around and pushed him backwards on the bed. Yashiro's moan when he felt Doumeki on top of him, pressing between his legs, was one of desperation and utter relief.

And it made Nanahara and Sugimoto blush deeply.

Hirata lay dead at the foot of the bed, as did his two goons, and the third one by the door. Nanahara stared at the scene unfolding before him and was suddenly convinced he was still asleep on the plane.

'Dou–Doumeki, what the fuck?'

With an immense force of will, Doumeki lifted his head to look at Nanahara.

'Get out,' he said simply.

'Are you crazy?' Nanahara demanded. 'You can't do that now, we have to get Boss to a –'

'Get out!' Doumeki bellowed suddenly, his voice deep and startling and his eyes lost in his heat.

It was the first time Nanahara had ever heard Doumeki raise his voice. For a split second, he was almost afraid of him.

It only lasted a moment before he reclaimed his disbelief and frustration. He exhaled angrily once he stepped out and closed the door. Lights were being switched on in the other rooms and people were rushing down to Yashiro's guesthouse from the main building. Nanahara wiped the sweat from his forehead and reached for a cigarette.

'Been in Hokkaido for twenty minutes and already I'm on door duty,' he muttered.

And then he sorely wished he hadn't forgotten the earplugs Doumeki had gotten him for Christmas.

'Ahhn! Yes! Doumeki...'

Nanahara and Sugimoto exchanged an uncomfortable look before quickly averting their gazes.

Then something occurred to Sugimoto.

'Didn't… didn't Doumeki get shot?'

They were both almost fully clothed. Yashiro had only freed one of his legs completely from his pants, and they dangled off his other shin. Doumeki's cock had been freed only after a desperate fumble over his belt. And Doumeki kissed Yashiro as he sheathed himself in Yashiro's wet heat. Yashiro broke free of his lips and moaned.

'Ahhn! Yes! Doumeki...'

The physical distance and the time they had spent apart and everything that had happened over the past few minutes culminated in a blaze of heat and need that neither had experienced before. Yashiro felt as though his body was on fire, and that he melted in each place Doumeki touched him, each place his lips landed.

He gripped Douemki's shirt and held him in place, willing his whole body to open for him. He felt Doumeki's cock heating him up even further with each thrust. It was an aching, tremulous pleasure; a kind of ecstasy that he didn't think his own body was capable of feeling.

He barely registered it when the hand that had been gripping the back of Doumeki's shirt came away covered in blood. It was entirely peripheral to the need to have Doumeki inside, to have him come inside, and to have him quell his heat.

'Yes… Doumeki, don't stop… please don't stop…'

And tears mingled with his sweat, like it often did in his heats, but this time it was different. The tears came from somewhere else. He wrapped Doumeki in his body and felt him come with a shudder, and the feeling of it was enough to make Yashiro come too. He filled his lungs with Doumeki's scent and blocked out everything else.

But everything else began to trickle in slowly as they caught their breath. The voices outside the door. The slow realisation that they were lying in a room that also contained at least three dead bodies, one of which was Hirata's.

Doumeki lifted his head slightly and Yashiro met his gaze as he panted. And Yashiro remembered the blood.

'Why… are you bleeding?' Yashiro panted.

'I got shot.'

'Oh.'

A pause where Yashiro stared at the red smears on his hand with detached curiosity.

'Is it bad?'

'No. Just… my shoulder.'

But Doumeki suddenly sagged onto him, just like Hirata did. The pain was cresting again, enveloping him in larger waves. It had been submerged in his heat earlier. Now that he and Yashiro were both sated, it took over with a fury that startled Doumeki.

Yashiro blinked and tried to sit up.

'Hospital,' he said. 'Now. Come on, get up.'

Doumeki managed to push himself up and away. Still feeling a little dizzy in the aftermath of his heat and his climax, Yashiro pulled his pants back on and ignored the pain in the back of his head and in his right arm. Doumeki unsteadily got to his feet. He seemed pale and his face was etched in pain.

Yashiro inspected the rich-red bullet wound in the back of Doumeki's shoulder. He tried to batten down the sudden, overwhelming surge of anger over the sight of it. At the thought of how much pain Doumeki was in because of it.

'Stop fussing,' Yashiro chided, managing to keep his voice steady. 'It's just a flesh wound. What are you looking all dazed for?'

'Sorry…'

'Let's go.'

They made their way across the room, stepping over sprawled arms and legs, with Doumeki leaning too much of his weight on Boss, trying not to, trying to get his own thoughts together to make sure Boss was alright, Boss shouldn't be the one who was helping him.

He opened the door. A startled Nanahara turned around and took Doumeki's arm off Yashiro's shoulders and grunted in shock at how heavy Doumeki was, even when he was just leaning.

As Yashiro turned towards the parking lot, Misumi came around the corner with Amou in tow, looking shocked.

'What happened?'

'Everything's fine,' Yashiro replied calmly, before remembering. 'Well, Hirata's dead. But everything else is fine.'

'How did –?'

'We're going to the hospital,' Yashiro said. 'I'll explain later.' He turned to follow Nanahara and Sugimoto who were supporting Doumeki and heading off towards the parking lot.

And then he stopped and turned, as though he had forgotten something. Misumi, who was far from having caught up with what had happened, glanced up and saw a strange look in Yashiro's eyes. They carried an intentness that Misumi had rarely seen. It was as though Yashiro was trying to convey a part of himself without using words. A part that had always remained hidden.

But at length, his familiar half-smile returned and Misumi wondered if he had imagined the rest.

'I'll see you around, Oyaji,' Yashiro said before he turned to follow the others.

Misumi watched him walk away.

Early the next morning, Misumi waited by the Kaichou's door until his attendants told him the old man was awake. He wanted to be the first one to explain what had happened the previous night. When the attendant beckoned them in, Misumi nodded at Amou who followed him in.

He was relieved to see the same wry smile gracing the old man's wrinkled face.

'I heard there was a bit of a scuffle last night?'

Four dead bodies, a guesthouse owner to be paid off, policemen to be bribed and an entire branch of Doushinkai to be restructured.

'Nothing important,' Misumi heard himself say, his voice weighed down by a sudden weariness. A sudden resignation.

His words elicited an appreciative smile. Even without details, the Kaichou could easily imagine all that Misumi was about to deal with.

'Takes me back,' he said, almost nostalgically.

Misumi sat in the armchair by the bed and wondered where to begin. He noticed the view outside the window for the first time. The rows of flowers were rather startling.

'Where's Yashiro-san?' the Kaichou asked.

'At the hospital. His bodyguard was shot in the shoulder.'

'Ah. That must be Doumeki, the Alpha mate.'

Misumi was startled that the Kaichou knew. The old man's omniscience was occasionally unnerving. And it struck again after the silence that followed.

'I don't think Yashiro will be returning to Shinseikai,' the Kaichou said, suddenly but quietly.

In the ensuing, slightly stunned pause, Misumi could only stare.

The Kaichou looked at him thoughtfully for a few seconds. 'I gave you advice not to hold too many people close to your heart. But I gave him advice to get out while he still could. Maybe that was unfair of me.' A pause. 'Maybe it's because it's already too late for us.'

Yet another silence. Misumi noticed that he had taken out a cigarette without even realising it.

Amou hesitated before he went forwards and lit it for him. His ears rang slightly with the advice that the Kaichou had given Misumi. But, as always, he said nothing.

Misumi took a deep drag. He wasn't sure exactly what he felt. He wondered what the strange hollowness could be attributed to – whether it was because of Yashiro or someone else.

'We're just sentimental old men at the end of the day,' the Kaichou mused.

Misumi tried a small smile.

'A disgrace to our kind,' he agreed.

The Kaichou suddenly broke down into a coughing fit. Misumi glanced up and apologised at once. He was about to put out his cigarette when the Kaichou, teary-eayed and still recovering from the coughing, asked if he could have one.

Misumi stared for a moment before he chuckled and reached for his pack.

'I leave you alone with Yashiro for half an hour,' he said, lighting the Kaichou's cigarette for him. 'And suddenly he's lost to the wind.'

His tone was caught between weariness and amusement. And – he realised with a small shock – relief. He smiled and leaned further into it, trying it on for size.

'I'm like his fairy godmother,' the Kaichou said, chuckling his wheezy chuckle. Then after a pause, he added, 'Or Fairy Godfather.'

But Misumi looked nonplussed. The Kaichou's face fell, disappointed that he didn't have a witness to that sublime call. He sighed.

'Marlon Brando,' Amou quietly said from the corner.

Both pairs of eyes turned to him in surprise, causing Amou to blush a little.

The Kaichou laughed in delight. He turned back to Misumi, wondering if he had been too rash in his earlier advice. He inclined his head at Amou.

'Don't let that one go.'

The previous night, Nanhara had driven them to the hospital at breakneck speed. Sugimoto sat in the passenger seat and Yashiro was with Doumeki in the back.

Yashiro held his suit jacket over Doumeki's wound and pressed tightly. The half-smile Misumi had seen was still on his face, and he calmly alternated his gaze between Doumeki and the window, where the dark landscape hurtled past.

Doumeki lay on his side in Yashiro's lap, thinking only he would be happy to endure all the bullets in the world if it meant Boss would look at him like that.

By then, Nanahara had helped Yashiro piece together what had happened.

Hirata had posted a third goon outside the room door as a lookout. Doumeki had gotten there before Nanahara, knocked the lookout to the ground and barrelled into the room, but the guy on the floor reached for his gun and shot Doumeki after he entered.

'Didn't stop him, though,' Nanahara muttered in slight awe, remembering how he got there in time to see Doumeki bleeding profusely from his shoulder but holding his gun steady, swiftly taking out the other two already inside the room, and then Hirata himself.

Yashiro listened quietly. Some things made sense. Other things didn't, and probably never would.

'Back in Tokyo,' Nanahara continued, 'he was going on and on about how he thought you were in danger. And we couldn't get through to your phone. I figured it was some kind of Alpha Omega shit, so we got on a plane.'

He omitted the part where he had refused to believe Doumeki's paranoid ravings for a long time and only agreed to go with him when Doumeki threatened to go alone.

'The company won't cover the cost of the tickets, by the way,' Yashiro said absently. 'Since I didn't authorise them.'

'What?'

'You could have just called the guesthouse reception.'

'Wha... what? Like they would have been able to do anyth–!'

'I still don't get it,' Yashiro said, a little quieter, struggling to understand the timing. Even allowing for the highly unlikely possibility that Doumeki's instincts had been triggered all the way back in Tokyo... 'That would have been hours before Hirata was in my room.'

Doumeki opened his eyes and held Yashiro's gaze. He couldn't explain it either. He could still feel that dread, the pulsing fear that had taken over his head and chest, the pulsing need to be wherever Yashiro was.

Sometimes even causality gets messed around.

In fact, the only thing that did make sense was why Yashiro had gone into heat so suddenly. Physical proximity to Doumeki had been more than enough; the timing coincided with the moment that Doumeki and Nanahara's taxi arrived at the guesthouse.

'So on that count,' Yashiro realised dryly, 'it's not so much that you came in the nick of time, it's more that you're the reason Hirata nearly assaulted me?'

'We also saved you from being sunk to the bottom of a lake,' Nanahara reminded him as he careened through a red light, still anxious at the thought that Yashiro hadn't been kidding and the two expensive last-minute plane tickets really would come out of his own pocket.

Sugimoto, meanwhile, was feeling unsettled and guilty over the fact that the Boss had almost been abducted and/or raped and killed while he slept soundly in the next room.

'It's weird though, isn't it?' he said to Nanahara. 'I mean, Doumeki was right in the end, wasn't he? Good thing he… he knew. Or whatever.'

'I told you. Alpha Omega shit,' Nanahara repeated in a low mutter, sounding both impressed and exasperated.

Yashiro smiled. He felt a strange warmth somewhere in the middle of his chest.

'Frankly, I'm a little hurt he didn't get on the next plane after mine.' He pinched Douemki's ear. 'So much for soul bond.'

'Sorry... Boss,' Doumeki managed, his voice tight.

'Shut up. No talking until you're healed.'

In the front of the car, Nanahara and Sugimoto were speaking of other matters. The state of Shinseikai, the rest of Hirata's inner circle who would probably remain loyal to him, how Misumi would deal with it all, and where it now left them.

Yashiro listened quietly once more. It was the same narrative he had heard for fifteen years.

Doumeki stirred slightly in his lap and Yashiro glanced down. He checked the state of Doumeki's shoulder. His eyes then travelled to Doumeki's missing finger. The knife scar on his left cheek.

Enough now, he thought.

He wondered again, with a smile, how Doumeki would react when he told him. The car sped on towards the hospital.

In the tumult and upheaval of that evening, and the week that preceded it, one thing both Yashiro and Doumeki had clean forgotten was that they were still within the three-month window.