Over the years, they had grown accustomed to calling one another Oyaji and Touchan. But Yashiro, on rare occasions, called him Chikara. And Doumeki, on even rarer occasions, slipped up and called him Boss.

Whenever Aoi overheard this particular slip up, she would laugh and tease her Touchan about it endlessly.

'Hey, Boss,' she would say to Yashiro. 'Can you sign my excursion form please, Boss?'

They would both laugh as Doumeki blushed.

She overheard it again when she was fourteen. Yashiro and Doumeki were both in the kitchen at the time and Yashiro was dryly complaining about the fact that he had lost a lot of his muscle tone in recent years. He noticed he had progressively moved two belt holes further down when he dressed in the morning. He was just broaching fifty and his blonde hair was streaked with grey at the temples.

Doumeki, meanwhile, was barely into his forties and was just large and physically impressive as ever. Yashiro airily told him he was free to find some hot young thing to screw as Yashiro slowly disintegrated into old age.

Though Doumeki knew he was joking, he turned to him resolutely.

'Boss is still the most beautiful person I've ever seen.'

Yashiro gave him a wry look that disguised the fact that his heart had skipped a beat.

Aoi came into the kitchen then. Even at fourteen, she walked with a certain unconscious sashay that turned heads. She slid backwards onto the kitchen table and crossed her legs, munching on an apple.

'Yeah, you're still beautiful, Boss,' she teased in a sing-song voice. There was a bewitching, almost sultry quality in her half-lidded eyes. Her hair, long and golden, caught the light in mesmerising glints.

'Your Touchan needs to get his eyesight checked,' Yashiro said over his shoulder with a smile.

'Who's more beautiful, Touchan?' Aoi asked, eyes twinkling. 'Me or Boss?'

Yashiro grinned, wondering how Doumeki would field that one.

The question made Doumeki recall a day from a few weeks ago, when Yashiro and Aoi had gone shopping and waited for Doumeki to pick them up outside the mall. Yashiro had been standing with his hands in his pockets, wearing an impeccable new three-piece suit. Aoi's hair had been styled so it fell in waves and she wore a light white dress that fluttered near the tops of her knees. Both wore sunglasses. Both turned, smiling, when Doumeki drew up. Both seemed unaware of the looks they were attracting from everyone who passed.

'I think you're the most beautiful girl in the world,' Doumeki said sincerely.

Aoi pouted. 'That's cheating!'

But there was a rare flush in her cheeks.

Even as Aoi reached her teen years, her love for Doumeki never once dimmed. She still doted on him, and he on her, to an extent that made Doumeki thank the gods he had once prayed to on a cherry-blossom covered riverbank when Aoi was only two years old.

But when Aoi turned fifteen, Yashiro noticed she was rather despondent about something. He even noticed that she was carefully hiding it from Doumeki with enough skill that even his finely honed senses didn't pick up on it. She still smiled and laughed whenever he was around and only Yashiro noticed her deflate slightly when Doumeki wasn't paying attention.

He asked her about it when it was just the two of them alone in the house.

Aoi regarded her father for a moment. She drew a couch cushion towards herself and held it against her chest.

'How come boys don't want to date me?' she said quietly.

Yashiro lifted his eyebrows. It was strange to hear such a meek insecurity from his daughter, who always seemed larger than life and above such things.

'What makes you think they don't want to date you?'

'All my friends have been asked out at least once. All the Betas. Even the Omega girls. But not me.'

Yashiro understood at once. He realised how hard it would be for a strong Alpha woman to make her way in a world of petty, small-minded men. He smiled.

'Boys are strange,' he said. 'They don't like being with someone who's better than them. They'll go out with Beta girls and Omega girls so they can feel better about themselves.'

Aoi absorbed his words quietly.

'So who needs those guys?' Yashiro said dismissively. 'You just need to find someone who will love you for being strong and intelligent, instead of resenting you for it.'

'Like Touchan found you,' Aoi said.

Yashiro smiled flickered slightly and he dropped his gaze.

The boss is kind-hearted, strong and beautiful.

'Yeah,' he said finally.

'You think someone like Touchan will find me?'

'Absolutely.'

Aoi seemed somewhat placated by his confidence. She smiled gratefully.

'You're so lucky, Oyaji,' she said, her tone both warm and envious.

Yashiro returned her smile.

'I know,' he said quietly.

A year later, thirteen-year old Sotaro approached Doumeki with a request that he had mulled and stressed over in silence for many sleepless nights.

'Touchan,' he said, and then hesitated almost immediately.

Doumeki turned and was surprised to see his son consumed in a blush. He was hunching his shoulders in a posture that emphasised his height and lankiness.

'What is it?'

'Uh…' Sotaro began. 'Can you… when you and Oyaji… at night…'

As Doumeki's confusion mounted, Sotaro took a deep breath and tried again.

'Can you two not be… so loud?'

It took Doumeki a few more seconds. Then he blushed almost as deeply as his son.

'Uh…'

On both sides, awkwardness met awkwardness. But despite how much Sotaro wished he could disappear into the ground, he was glad he had finally worked up the nerve to say it.

He gathered that Yashiro was going through his heat, and that meant around three days of having to overhear moans that he knew, to their credit, his parents believed weren't overly loud. But he had an exam the next day and couldn't handle another night of lying awake in bed, curled up and mortified and very slightly aroused. He was a healthy thirteen-year-old Alpha, after all.

And he was relieved he felt able to talk to Doumeki about it. He would rather have died before he brought it up with Yashiro.

Doumeki, still speechless, found himself thinking about the earplugs he had once bought Nanahara for Christmas.

Sotaro tentatively continued, 'So maybe you could just tell Oyaji to… keep it down…'

Unfortunately for him, Aoi had been passing the bedroom at that moment and heard what Sotaro said.

The fact that she was a heavy sleeper meant she didn't understand her brother's plight. And she instantly made it worse.

'You listen to them?'

Sotaro spun around, his heart falling. 'What? No!'

'Ew, you totally do! What is wrong with you?'

'I don't!'

'Oyaaaaaaaji!'

She danced down the hall and Sotaro darted after her. But she beat him to the door to the study where Yashiro was just finishing a conference call and looked round.

'Sotaro listens to you and Touchan having sex!' Aoi announced, just before Sotaro tackled her out of the doorway, ears flaming.

'I don't!' he insisted over his shoulder as Aoi laughed and twisted out of his hold. 'Aoi's making it up!'

Yashiro needed a moment to process. Then he laughed and turned back to his work.

'Aoi, stop telling lies about your brother,' he called.

'I'm not!' Aoi called back.

'Then stop telling the truth about your brother.'

Sotaro went to his bedroom and slammed the door, praying for an earthquake to swallow the apartment whole. But when he buried his face in his pillow he realised he was smiling and that he was secretly relieved at how casually his father had responded.

A few nights later, during which Sotaro was mercifully able to get several full nights' sleep, all four ended up in the living room. It was a rare occurrence; between all of Aoi's socialising and endless string of extra-curricula commitments and Sotaro's intensive kendo practice and Yashiro's occasional late nights, usually at least one of them was missing.

Aoi was there first and she was watching a reality show about celebrities on an island.

'No, no, no,' Yashiro said, swiftly taking the remote from her hand and changing the channel. 'No daughter of mine is watching trash.'

'But there's hot guys with no shirts on!' Aoi complained. 'Don't pretend you don't want to see that too, Oyaji.'

'What are you talking about?' Yashiro said without skipping a beat, just as Doumeki sat down. 'I only have eyes for your Touchan.'

Aoi snorted at the baldness of the lie. Yashiro grinned and changed the channel again. They came across a rerun of The Godfather.

'I like this movie,' Sotaro said, as he sat on the rug before the couch.

'That's my boy,' Yashiro said warmly, eliciting a faint smile from Sotaro. 'Aoi, you should be more like your brother.'

'So I should listen to you and Touchan having sex?' Aoi replied, quick as a whip.

She and Yashiro dissolved into hysterics as the other two flushed identical flushes.

In the background, Marlon Brando sat in a cloud of cigarette smoke, the master of a hidden underground world.

Sotaro's suspicion about his fathers' pasts grew over the years. Yashiro had provided colourful reasons for what had happened to Doumeki's pinky, and no two stories were ever the same. Besides that, he saw how Yashiro sometimes tense up if they were walking home at night. Certain types of people and vehicles with tinted windows made him very slightly anxious in a way that only Doumeki and Sotaro were able to notice.

One day, when he was sixteen and Aoi had already moved to Tokyo to attend unviersity, Sotaro answered the door to a man he had never seen before. He wore glasses and had a cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

Kageyama blinked, staring at a tall, well-built kid who was the spitting image of Doumeki, with only subtle differences in his mouth and jaw showing hints of Yashiro.

'Uh… is Yashiro here?'

The stare he received also reminded him very strongly of Doumeki. The kid seemed to be considering the simple question with some gravity.

'Yes,' he said finally, as though having assessed him. He stepped aside and let Kageyama into the flat. He then went to the study.

'Oyaji, someone's here to see you.'

'Who?'

'I don't know.'

Meanwhile, Kageyama's ears rang with the word 'Oyaji'. He still couldn't quite believe it. Yashiro came into the living room and froze. Sotaro, who had followed, saw the look on Yashiro's face and was immediately suspicious of the stranger. He suddenly wished Doumeki was home.

'Oyaji?' he said hesitantly.

'It's alright,' Yashiro said, recovering quickly and turning to Sotaro. 'Can you give us a minute?'

Reluctantly, Sotaro stepped out of sight. But he stayed within earshot.

'He looks just like Doumeki,' Kageyama said.

'Uncanny, isn't it?' Yashiro said, with a proud smile.

'Is he here? Doumeki, I mean.'

'He's out shopping.'

Kageyama was slightly relieved.

'How's Kuga?' Yashiro asked.

'Fine. He runs the restaurant now, the one he used to wait in.'

'Sounds about right.'

Sotaro listened and tried to hear past what was being said. He tried to understand the quiet tones and the pauses that sometimes lasted a beat too long, as though they were still trying to get a feel for the other. Yashiro's tone was light in a way that Sotaro recognised as forced. Almost nervous. And the other man's voice was gruff and awkward.

He heard Yashiro then ask, 'How did you find me?'

Sotaro's pulse quickened.

'Misumi,' Kageyama said. 'I don't know if you heard, but he's not doing well. Cancer.'

'I know, he called. Seems he's known where I've been this whole time, the sly bastard. I'm thinking of paying Tokyo a visit to see him.'

Sotaro waited. After a small pause, the other man spoke again.

'I don't know why, but Misumi asked to see me and he... told me things.' Another pause. 'He told me about the debt. For my family's clinic. He said that when you were nineteen, you…'

Sotaro moved closer, straining his ears.

Yashiro's heart pounded. Kageyama looked just the same as he did eighteen years ago, except for an extra line or two around his eyes. But the way he was looking at Yashiro wasn't familiar. It made him anxious. It made him realise they were getting uncomfortably close to something that had remained sealed for a long time.

'Why would you take that debt on yourself? I mean you…' Kageyama struggled. 'You're the reason why our family was able to keep the clinic. But I don't understand why you –'

He trailed off.

'You flew all the way here to ask me about something I did when I was nineteen?' Yashiro said, trying somewhat vainly to wear a casual tone.

'I took the Shinkansen,' Kageyama absently muttered.

'Does Kuga know you're here?'

A pause.

'No.'

A longer pause. For no reason, Sotaro's hackles raised. He wanted the stranger out of his house.

Kageyama realised how bizarre it all was, how uncharacteristically impulsive for him to have gotten on a train to Osaka and appear in Yashiro's life unannounced. But the revelation had rocked him so deeply that he couldn't have brought himself to say anything over the phone.

As he stared at Yashiro, at the changes to his hair and face and other more ineffable things, he realised that fatherhood, against all odds, suited him well.

'Why did you do it?' he asked finally.

Yashiro suddenly felt stripped bare. Worse than when he had been surrounded by men who leered and groped and took turns. It was with a huge effort that he was able to hold Kageyama's gaze.

'Do you really want me to say it?' he said, with a quiet, sad smile.

Kageyama's pulse hit the roof.

It couldn't be. It was a ridiculous, unreal possibility that floated to him once or twice as he sat on the train, and it carried all the bearings of something that simply couldn't be true. But now, he suddenly saw it in Yashiro's eyes. Something he hadn't recognised decades ago when they were just kids. Sotaro's age.

And in fact, Sotaro's intuition was going on overdrive.

'You –' Kageyama stammered, feeling winded. 'But you never… said anything –'

'Oyaji,' Sotaro said, stepping back into the living room and making them both turn. 'I'm going to be late for practice.'

He stared resolutely at Kageyama while he spoke, enough that Kageyama read him loud and clear. In a way, he was relieved for the interruption. He stood up, feeling dazed.

'I should, uh… I should go. I shouldn't have come out of the blue... like this.'

Yashiro said nothing. He got up.

Sotaro glared, his hands in fists, as they went to the front door. He couldn't hear what they were saying anymore.

Once Kageyama stepped out into the hallway, he seemed to hesitate again before turning.

'I – I don't know how to deal with… owing you this much,' he said, suddenly looking overwhelmed. He couldn't fathom the idea that so much of what Yashiro had gone through had been entirely his fault.

'You don't owe me anything,' Yashiro said gently. And as he spoke, he realised how true it was. How past it he really was.

Over time, you realise everything in the past, everyone in the past, they were all pointing towards this one thing. This one bond.

And this one place, where Yashiro was standing now.

'Thank you,' Kageyama said, at length, his voice stiff under the weight of the revelation and his confusion and his gratitude.

Yashiro wondered if he had ever heard that tone in Kageyama's voice before. They held each other's gazes for a long time. School rooftops and the nurse's office.

Once the door was closed, Yashiro stared at it for a while, and Kageyama remained on the other side for the same amount of time. Then Kageyama turned, wondering what he might bring back for Kuga as a souvenir to make up for the fact that he had disappeared for a whole day.

And Yashiro turned, walked past Sotaro and picked up his car keys. He wondered if he was imagining the strange look in his son's eyes.

'Ready?' he said with a smile.

He didn't tell Doumeki about Kageyama's visit. And he was quietly relieved when it became clear that Sotaro wasn't going to mention it either.

Debts and favours and shady pasts in Tokyo and missing pinkies all amounted to something that Sotaro could no longer ignore. Two years later, in his last year of high-school, it came out definitively, and it turned into a brawl in the school corridors.

Doumeki got a call from the principal saying his son had been involved in a fight and he would need to pick him up.

Sotaro was sporting a cut lip and he had trouble meeting his father's eye. The other kid, Doumeki found out, had been sent to hospital for stitches.

'There was an issue regarding name-calling, from what I heard,' the principal reported. 'But no one wants to tell me the details. Sotaro has been suspended for three days.'

As it turned out, one of Sotaro's classmates was the kid brother of someone who had once belonged to Matsubara. He recognised Yashiro instantly when he dropped Sotaro off at school the previous day, and the rumours flew from there – that Sotaro's Omega father had once been a renowned Yakuza whore in Tokyo.

In the corridor, between classes, Sotaro had been taunted by the guy himself – a beefy guy by the name of Shizuka.

'How does it feel to have a slut for a father?' he said, drawing smirks from his friends. 'I bet you've fucked him too, haven't you? I bet he loves it when his Alpha son gives it to him.'

In that moment, Sotaro only remembered how much he had hurt his father almost ten years ago when he learned the truth about Omegas.

And so he calmly stepped up to Shizuka and delivered a powerful blow to his mouth that Shizuka didn't see coming. Shizuka was sprawled on the floor and Sotaro hovered over him, beating him to within an inch of his life.

'If you repeat what you said about my father to anyone,' Sotaro had hissed into his ear, 'I will kill you.'

The kid was battered enough to believe him. That was also why the principal was left in the dark about what exactly had taken place. Sotaro was only pulled off thanks to Shizuka's friends, who got in a few solid punches before they let him go.

He couldn't bring all of it up with his father. But he told him enough; he divulged that someone in school had discovered that Yashiro had been in the Yakuza.

Doumeki clenched his jaw. For a few tense moments, he felt his guard go up like it did in the old days. But he knew, rationally, that a lot had changed in the past twenty years, enough that old grudges no longer held any sway. Nevertheless, he glanced at Sotaro and wondered how it had felt for him to learn such a thing about his father.

'That's how you lost your finger, isn't it?' Sotaro said, his tone subdued. 'You were in the Yakuza with Oyaji.'

Doumeki hesitated.

'Yes,' he said.

They drove home in silence. Right before they got out, Sotaro made a quiet announcement that Doumeki wasn't expecting.

'I think I want to become a cop. Like you were.'

After a pause, Doumeki stared at him thoughtfully before saying, 'I think you'd be really good.'

They shared a quick glance that communicated something, a certain kindred spirit, that no one else would have been able to understand. Sotaro smiled, his lip still stinging. And he was grateful that Doumeki never told Yashiro the whole truth about why he had been suspended.

He thought, in turn, about the small secret he kept from Doumeki; the visitor from Yashiro's past. It occurred to him, in an abstract way, that there was a lot to be said about silences that were kept for love.

Doumeki's heart rate suffered when he found out that Aoi had a new boyfriend in university. He was wonderful, Aoi insisted. He was also studying law, like her, and he was intelligent and gentle and adoring and just the most amazing man she'd ever met.

Doumeki seethed. He had been blessed by the fact that he hadn't had to deal with any suitors until Aoi's final year of high-school, when a few pompous Alphas, who were tired of the sameness of the Betas and Omegas they had dated in middle-school, had tried their hand at claiming her for their own. For any who were brave enough to turn up at her house with flowers, a single look from her father had been enough to make them quail and reconsider. And Doumeki had gravely regretted being unable to do that when she moved away.

When she came home for a visit that year, she brought the new guy along, after issuing a warning to Doumeki.

'If you scare him away, I won't forgive you, Touchan!'

The guy turned out to be very slightly taller than Doumeki. For that simple reason, Doumeki instantly hated him and Yashiro instantly loved him. He began calling Nakazawa his son-in-law within five minutes of meeting him.

Doumeki, on the other hand, would silently nurse his resentment of Nakazawa right until the moment ten years later when he held his grandson.

The day before Aoi was due to arrive from Tokyo and introduce her boyfriend to the family, Sotaro had accompanied Yashiro on a grocery run. Though Yashiro hated groceries, he hated dealing with cars even more, and one of theirs needed to be taken into the shop. So while Doumeki was at the mechanic, Yashiro recruited Sotaro's help and headed for the supermarket.

'Why in the hell are there twelve different kinds of olive oil?' he demanded, staring perplexed at the offerings on the shelves.

'They're different flavours,' Sotaro explained patiently. Out of the four of them, he was the most skilled in the kitchen. 'Extra virgin is good for some things that the other kinds aren't good for.'

'Extra virgins aren't good for anything,' Yashiro muttered under his breath, causing Sotaro to smile despite himself.

It was while they were wandering down the produce aisle that Yashiro felt it coming.

He didn't at all expect it and dryly berated himself over how it still managed to catch him off guard, given how many times it had happened in the past. To be fair, it had been many years since he experienced an unscheduled heat. Yashiro always kept it under control with well-timed suppressants and by keeping Doumeki handy for days when it was particularly difficult to suppress. But for no reason, it happened then, a few weeks early, in the middle of the supermarket.

Sotaro turned to see Yashiro knock a few oranges off the display as he sank to the floor, gasping and sweating.

And the full force of an Omega in heat hit Sotaro for the first time. It permeated throughout the supermarket and the few Alphas nearby suddenly turned. Sotaro took a step back, blinking in confusion. It was a powerful, pulsing scent that was more than just a scent. Only the fact that it was his own father allowed him to retain his senses.

'Sotaro,' Yashiro gasped, eyes watering, his tone desperate and apologetic.

Sotaro hesitated for only a moment longer before he stepped forward and helped his father to his feet. At eighteen, he was already as tall as Doumeki and just as broad and he supported Yashiro's weight without a second thought. They headed for the nearest exit before the other Alphas found them.

There was a close call in the parking lot when an Alpha suddenly appeared, his eyes glazed with lust. Sotaro's training kicked in without his knowledge and he elbowed the guy viciously in the stomach when he drew near. They made it to the car. Sotaro helped Yashiro into the backseat before getting behind the wheel.

'Where… where should I go?' he asked, heart pounding.

'Home,' Yashiro said.

There were two short flights of steps that led from the parking lot beneath their building to the lobby with the elevators. Yashiro was barely able to walk. His body kept trying to drag him to the ground with each step. Halfway up the first flight, Sotaro set his jaw and lifted him fully into his arms.

Once in the apartment, he lowered Yashiro into bed and straightened.

'Call… your father...' Yashiro panted, his eyes glazed.

Sotaro did so at once. Doumeki turned up twenty minutes later, smelling Yashiro's heat as soon as he was in the hallway outside. Sotaro paced uncertainly in the living room and was relieved to see him.

Before Doumeki disappeared into the bedroom, he looked at Sotaro gratefully, with a vague idea of what he must have done for Yashiro, and stuffed a roll of cash into his hand.

'Go watch a movie… or something.'

Sotaro blushed and left the apartment without a backwards glance.

Doumeki went into the bedroom and the scent of Yashiro's arousal engulfed him completely. Yashiro lifted his head and nearly moaned with relief. He held out a hand and pulled Doumeki to him hungrily. Their mouths met hotly and Doumeki slid both his hands beneath Yashiro's shirt.

His body was laid bare completely before Doumeki parted his legs and pressed between them. He stared down at Yashiro's body, leaner than when he had first met him, still beautiful, and all his. His for the past twenty years.

He pushed in and Yashiro moaned long and loud. Doumeki's head dropped to his chest and for a moment they looked just as they did when Doumeki did so for the first time on his thin futon in his tiny, empty apartment.

An hour later, after both had come several times each, Doumeki held him facedown on the bed and pulsed his cock into him in little bursts, his come collecting in the condom. Then he pulled out and rolled onto his back, feeling his heat subsiding slowly. Yashiro felt the same. The heat lifted from his flesh and he regained his senses.

He folded against Doumeki's body and Doumeki held him and kissed his temple. They were two decades younger in that moment and they basked in it for as long as they could.

'This,' murmured Yashiro, 'is what happens when I try doing the groceries.'

'Sorry, Boss,' Doumeki mumbled, in automatic response. He did, in fact, feel responsible for not having been there.

Then Yashiro remembered Sotaro.

'Is Sotaro okay? I can't remember what happened but I think he – he had to knock an Alpha out of the way.'

Concerned, Doumeki picked up his phone. 'He looked okay,' he said uncertainly.

As Doumeki texted him, Yashiro ran a hand through his hair and remembered snippets of the supermarket and the parking lot.

'He's so strong now. I think he carried me up the stairs.'

Doumeki's surprise quickly turned into pride. He remembered the kid Sotaro had sent to the hospital earlier that year.

'He said he wants to be a cop,' he said, realising he had never told Yashiro.

'Did he?'

When Doumeki went to the bathroom, his phone lit up on the bedside table. Out of sheer curiosity, Yashiro picked it up and looked at Doumeki's conversation with Sotaro.

-Are you okay?

-Yes.

-I can pick you up now if you like.

-I'm downstairs in the lobby.

-Did the movie finish already?

-I didn't go to a movie.

-Oh.

-Can I come home yet?

-Yes.

-Okay.

Yashiro laughed. He could barely tell who was who.

When Sotaro returned, Yashiro was in the kitchen making coffee. Sotaro saw him and tried to quickly breeze past into his room but Yashiro intercepted him.

'Not so fast.'

He inspected Sotaro intently, trying to find out if he had been hurt in any way, while Sotaro, trying to forget the awkward and surreal afternoon that had passed, gruffly tried to convince him he was fine.

Then Yashiro stared up at his obvious discomfort and smiled.

'You know, back when I envisioned what you would be like, I thought maybe you would be tall like your Touchan but you'd have my wit. Turns out you're just Doumeki, through and through.' He straightened Sotaro's collar. 'I'm glad I was wrong.'

After a beat or two, he was rewarded by one of Sotaro's rare smiles.

Fourteen years before that moment, fourteen years before Yashiro learned what Sotaro planned to do with his life and moved Yashiro to make the wry observation that a pair of ex-mobsters had somehow birthed a cop and a lawyer, four-year old Sotaro sat cross-legged by the bed in his pyjamas and stared at his father, concerned about how melancholy his usually happy father had seemed that day, ever since he had picked him from preschool.

When Doumeki came to the door holding Aoi and asked what he was doing, Sotaro had replied, 'Oyaji's sad.'

He came to Doumeki when beckoned and took his hand.

'He's fine,' Doumeki assured him.

For a guilty moment, Doumeki wanted to wake Yashiro, to show him how surrounded he was. How protected and loved. He cast a glance over his shoulder at the golden hair caught in lamplight.

And he paused before he took the children to their bedrooms. He squeezed Sotaro's hand slightly and Sotaro looked up.

'Your Oyaji has had a hard life,' he said quietly to them both. 'So it's up to us to change that for him.'

Sotaro looked up at him with intent, serious eyes. Doumeki looked first at him and then at Aoi.

'It's up to us to protect him. Okay?'

Aoi nodded gravely and Sotaro lowered his chin to look at his Oyaji once more.

At that moment, Yashiro stirred. He opened his eyes and felt that strange hollowness again when he thought of Eiji Takahashi. And then he sensed movement by the door and lifted his head off the pillow slightly.

'What are my three Alphas doing over there?' he asked, his voice thick with sleep.

'Can we sleep with you, Oyaji?' Sotaro asked impulsively.

'Yeah, can we?' Aoi chimed in, annoyed she hadn't thought of it first.

Yashiro smiled. 'Sure.'

Sotaro hurried forwards and Doumeki followed. He lowered Aoi to the bed. Yashiro turned on his side and Sotaro moved in close against his chest.

'Touchan says you were sad when you were little,' Aoi said promptly, as she settled on Sotaro's other side.

'He did?' Yashiro said in surprise. He met Doumeki's gaze as Doumeki lay down behind Aoi. It was a subtle, slightly abashed glance Doumeki threw back.

'Yeah,' Aoi went on. 'Was it because you had a bully? Miss Shigeki says to tell her if anyone is being a bully or being mean. Was someone mean to you, Oyaji?'

Sotaro stared up into Yashiro's eyes, suddenly wondering the same.

Yashiro exchanged another look with Doumeki. He thought again of Eiji and what he must have suffered. The life that would never be the same again.

'Something like that,' he said quietly.

'Well, I know karate now, and sensei says I'm getting really good. So if he ever comes back, I'll go hai-yah!' Aoi sat up and delivered a sharp side-swipe at Yashiro's arm.

Yashiro chuckled. 'You are getting good.'

'Are you still sad?' Sotaro asked.

Yashiro glanced down. He brushed Sotaro's short spikes of hair back from his forehead. His gaze moved from Sotaro to Aoi to Doumeki, who, as ever, listened quietly. He suddenly felt as though his life had turned into a long epilogue that he never saw coming. Something he had never had the imagination, or been foolish enough, to even hope for.

'No,' he said.

Doumeki watched Yashiro's half-smile and his half-lidded eyes, his hair still bright and back-lit by the warm golden lamplight. An Omega among Alphas.

Sotaro's eyelids began to droop. Aoi leaned her head on Doumeki's arm.

'Can you sing a song?' Sotaro asked sleepily.

'Mm,' Aoi agreed, her eyes already closed.

Yashiro smiled again. He was quiet for a moment before he sang their favourite lullaby, the one which Doumeki heard for the first time long ago when he listened at the door to Aoi's nursery.

'Hush now, baby, don't you cry.
Rest your wings, my butterfly.
Peace will come to you in time,
And –'

'We'll protect you, Oyaji,' Sotaro mumbled into his chest.

Yashiro only barely heard his words. He glanced down in surprise.

And then, suddenly, his throat closed with a feeling that was sudden and powerful and came from nowhere. Somehow, he managed to keep singing, though his voice now wavered slightly.

'And oh,
Through darkness,
Don't you ever stop believing...'

He fought hard, but the tears came anyway. He was grateful that Aoi was already asleep and that Sotaro's eyes were closed, though he was still awake and listening.

'With love, alone,
With love you'll find your way,
My love.'

But Doumeki saw. He reached across the bed and slipped his hand beneath Yashiro's head. Yashiro turned his face into his palm and cried as quietly as he could.

Fin

Author's note:

"He suddenly felt as though his life had turned into a long epilogue that he never saw coming."

That's how it felt when I was writing it lol. As I mentioned before, this was meant to a one-shot (Chapter 1) until some wonderful readers asked for more. What came to mind immediately afterwards were these 'Oyaji and Touchan' chapters. I sent the first scene to the incomparable Miyabi whose feedback was just so lovely and motivated me to write the rest, including the middle chapters that led to all this domesticity. (The chapters involving the Kaichou/Hirata/Aoi's inadvertent conception were just a bridge between the first chapter and these ones.) So thank you for that, Miyabi, my dear! 3

On another note, as much as I love tragedy (and as much as I'm guiltily hoping for it in canon) it felt unexpectedly wonderful for me to go out of my comfort zone and envision/write a real happily-ever-after. In my mind, in this Omegaverse AU, Doumeki dies in his late eighties. Sotaro loves and cares for Yashiro until Yashiro dies two years later, at the close of a long, complicated, blessed life of unimaginable sorrows and entirely unexpected joys.

(Also, Sotaro gets with Eiji Takahashi, his friend from preschool - the one who was abused by his father and moved away. They meet again in university and they feel that fated-pair Alpha/Omega connection instantly, despite the fact that Eiji is dating some other guy at the time who is an asshole. Okay now I really want to write that little story too haha.)

Anyway, sorry for the long author's note. I really hope you guys enjoyed! My past week has been totally taken up by this AU and it makes me happy to think anyone at all shared in that! Thank you, everyone Xxx

PS I did a final drawing for this story - a family portrait. It's up on Ao3 at the end of this story :)