"I really don't think this is a good idea, boss." Nakamura clutched the barrel of Kei's gun and tugged at it to stop him from loading it. "Ito plays dirty."

"I can't remain in hiding because of it." Kei wrenched the gun away and loaded it. "And I've had it up to my ears with Ito's bullshit. It's time to take action."

"Ito and you are equals only in theory," Nakamura said with some irritation. "His group is still bigger and older than ours. You and I both know you don't command as much loyalty amongst the boys as Ito and even your brother do. This cannot possibly end well."

Kei glared back at Nakamura, his ferocious hawkish gaze eroding his second-in-command's spunk. "I can take care of myself," he growled.

"I don't deny that, boss. But can't this wait until later? You're getting married in two weeks! What face do I show to my future anesan if something happens to you?"

"An I-told-him-so face. We're here. Come on."

Kei hid his gun inside his suit and climbed out of the car after Nakamura. The Ito group's office occupied the top three floors in a medium-sized high-rise in the downtown are of the city. Guards from the Ito group were ready to escort the two guests to Ito's office. It spoke volumes about Ito's underestimation of Kei when the body search he was subjected to remained cursory - an underestimation Kei was planning to take full advantage of.

Ito was waiting for him in his office, seated in an ostentatious scarlet office chair that seared the retinas. His feet remained disrespectfully planted on top of his desk as Kei entered, and the Alpha swore he would break those legs before the day was done.

Well - clearly courtesy was not necessary today. "You're going to give me half your territory, from block 38 to block 50 and block 11 to block 25," Kei demanded.

"This isn't a grocery store," Ito responded from behind his feet. "You have some nerve, marching in here after putting those beggarly hands on me."

"I don't think I asked a question."

"My answer is obviously still no. If you know what's good for you, you will turn around and leave."

Kei drew from his coat pocket a flash drive and tossed it into the table. Ito glanced at it curiously, but otherwise showed no reaction. "This drive contains the  account numbers of your offshore accounts in the Bahamas, Korea and Switzerland. It also contains the client lists for your human and arms trafficking businesses, real estate holdings of every officer in your group - including yours, and evidence of contact with extremist groups."

That got Ito's attention. He snapped into a sitting position and fixed Kei with a look of pure loathing. "I am not a terrorist," he said, icily.

"Yeah, but the cops don't know that."

In a flash, Ito had whipped out his gun. Nakamura mirrored the action, but Kei calmly asked him to lower his weapon. "If you try and blackmail me," Ito snarled, "I will send every organ of yours to your family in a separate box."

"Oh, I'm not here to make any deal," Kei said, absolutely unfazed. Leisurely, he loosened his tie and settled into one of the chairs before the desk. "Like I said, I'm not here to ask anything of you. I just came to inform you of your ruin."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's a notification. This drive is just a copy - I already handed this information over to the police. They're emptying your accounts as we speak."

Ito stared. Then he stared some more. Then he rapidly typed something on his laptop. The next second, his eyes very nearly popped out of his sockets.

A manic roar exploded from his throat. "YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

"Shut up," Kei snapped. "As of now, your group's total assets are down by sixty percent. You cannot afford to pay that many men anymore. So I'll take half the load off your shoulders, starting with the lovely Golden Waterfront."

"Ah, I see how it is," Ito sang, dangerously calm all of a sudden. "This is all about that bleached omega, isn't it?"

"I'll ask you to address him with respect."

"Fuck you. I'd thought you were at least smart enough to not waste resources on a two-bit defective whore -"

Kei, who had been carelessly inspecting a paperweight until then, finally cracked. He attacked with the speed of light, hurling the glass cube at Ito with all of his considerable strength. The satisfying thud of heavy glass colliding with bone was followed by a howl of agony that Kei cut short with a savage kick to Ito's gut. "You'd do well to mind your tongue," he crooned. "unless you want it ripped out."

"You'll regret this," Ito said in a manic half-whimper, half-growl. "You, and especially your slimy new sex sleeve-"

Kei saw red. He pounced on Ito, grabbing him by the collar and roughly pulling him to his feet. Leaving him swaying drunkenly in the middle of the floor, Kei stepped back a couple of feet and rotated his ankle.

Nakamura realized what was about to happen. "Boss, don't!" He cried, reaching for kei to stop him. "This much is enou-"

Kei whirled around and drove his foot into Ito's knee.

Ito's leg literally folded the wrong way as the kick destroyed his joint. Screaming in pain, he dropped to the floor, clutching his thigh and unable to draw his eyes away from his limp lower leg, twisted at a sickly angle. Kei sniffed petulantly and turned away, shaking out his leg. But Ito still had some fight left in him.

"I'll kill you," he mumbled, sounding completely unhinged. "I'll kill you and that bastard Kojima -"

"I told you, address him with RESPECT!" Kei drove his fist into Ito's bloody face, just like he had when he'd found him about to rape Yoru at the bar. Nakamura flinched as he heard Ito's jaw break. "There won't be a third time!"

"Boss, we should go," Nakamura said, his ear on the ruckus brewing outside. Someone had raised the alarm. "We'll have to fight our way out."

Kei glanced momentarily at the door before nodding. "Alright, get our boys here," he said, and turned back to Ito. "Only the money is gone for now," he told him. "If you don't turn up for the kyodaisakazuki five days from now, the client lists will get released. The ones coming after you if that happens won't be me."

Leaving Ito groaning and bleeding heavily on the floor, Kei threw the doors open only to walk right into the crowd of gun-wielding goons at the door. Even though he and his second-in-command were so heavily outnumbered, they managed to make quick work of the men and jogged out the entrance.

"Send the elevator down, they might be watching where it stops," Kei instructed. "And come to the stairs."

Distracted by the chaos ensuing on the upper floors, Ito's men had withdrawn from the lower ones, allowing Kei's men to enter the building through the stairs with little resistance. Nakamura joined him two minutes later, and as unobtrusively as they had come, the Tsunoda group members left. By the time Ito's men had caught on to the trick, Kei's car and the accompanying vans of goons had already disappeared around the corner.

"Where did you get Ito's client lists from?" Nakamura asked, still panting from their sprint down the stairs. "And why didn't you tell me?"

"Oh, the cops already had it," Kei answered. "I just called in a few favors."

"Of course." Surprised at his lack of surprise, Nakamura laughed as his stress suddenly drained out of him. "Ha! We were simply a ruse, weren't we? So Ito's clients think he succumbed to a weaker group's pressure and betrayed them!"

"Correct."

Nakamura opened his mouth to ask another question when he noticed a dark patch spreading on Kei's dark suit. As he watched, a drop of the liquid pooled at Kei's elbow before dripping onto the seat. "You got knifed," he noted, voice heavy with resignation.

"I was hoping you wouldn't notice." Now that the game was up, Kei groaned and clutched his wounded arm. Immediately, blood streamed over his fingers.

"Kimura," Nakamura called, and the man sitting in the passenger seat straightened up. "Ask the doctor to get to the house, please. Now."

"It's that bad?" Kei asked. "It doesn't hurt."

"The bloodstain on the seat is the size of a watermelon," Nakamura snapped. "Didn't I tell you this wouldn't end well? What am I going to tell your bride when you show up with a bandaged arm at the wedding?"

"You sound like my mother," Kei responded, rather woozily. "Even she's not that worried..."

Nakamura launched into a long spiel about how Kei was way too reckless and was going to give his parents a stroke one day. Poor Yoru, he added, but Kei was sure the omega was not fond enough of him to worry so much. "That reminds me," Nakamura said. "What was that about the bar? I thought you wanted to destroy it, not acquire it."

Kei shrugged and winced as the movement hurt his arm. "I changed my mind," he said. "Call me greedy, but that place generates too high a revenue to ignore."

Nakamura narrowed his eyes and peered at his boss and friend. Kei shifted uncomfortably under the penetrating stare and looked away. Suddenly, Nakamura's face lit up with a teasing smile. "Ha!" he laughed, making the two men in the front jump out of their skins. "That shithead Ito was actually right?! This is about our anesan-to-be!"

"You're wrong," Kei argued.

"You're too smart to be lured in by money," Nakamura sang, "but clearly you're a fool when it comes to the heart! Ha ha!"

"I'm going to toss you out the window."

"It's because you met your future wife at that bar, isn't it?" Nakamura leered at Kei even as he used his necktie as a makeshift bandage for his boss' arm. "Arranged marriage, my ass! You've been a sucker for Yoru-san from the start!"

*

Later that evening, Yoru inspected his back in the bathroom mirror and cracked a satisfied smile. His bruises were yellow in most places and had even started fading here and there. Color had returned to his face, and for once he didn't look like he was just about ready to fall apart.

Akira's warnings rang in his head, wiping the smile from his face. At the time it had been easy to defend his own decision in a fit of anger, but his calm mind was constantly bringing up the practical risks of his hasty decision.

What if he got trafficked or forced into prostitution? What if he started getting hit again? Kei had an explosive temper Yoru had already been on the wrong side of once; besides, there really was no escaping once he entered a yakuza family. He desperately wanted to trust Kei, but the fact remained that it was the prospect of safety, not Kei's word, that had made him agree to the marriage. And there was a very real chance of that foolish temptation becoming his own downfall.

But there was nobody he could consult with. His mother was already biased and his friends hated him. Suddenly, he realized that there was going to be nobody on his wedding day to wholeheartedly wish him happiness.

He was alone.

His phone rang. Vision blurred by depressed tears,  he answered without checking who was calling and instantly regretted it. "Kei," he acknowledged,  that toe-curling voice.

"Why is your voice shaking? Are you crying?"

"No!" Yoru pulled the phone away to sniff and wipe his eyes. "Why'd you call?"

"To warn  you to avoid the bar. I may or may not have had a bit of a tiff with Ito today."

"With Ito?!" Yoru cried, alarmed. "Are you okay?"

"Mostly," Kei answered, sounding sheepish. "Just stay indoors if you can, okay? He should behave himself, but his men might try to pull something."

"Why would you go up against him? And what do you mean, mostly? Why would you pull something like this so close to the wedding? What if you'd got shot? I swear, if something happens to make us postpone the ceremony-"

"Okay, calm down." Kei chuckled, but he sounded tired. "Today's meeting with Ito was scheduled a long time before I even met you. I always wanted that bar, remember?"

Yoru's stomach turned. "Kei, terrible things happen in that bar," he said, sadly. "This is probably a stupid question, but - are you like them too? Do you...um-"

"Trade people and weapons? No. I don't deal drugs, either. I'm a legitimate businessman for the most part, but being yakuza allows me to ignore a lot of red tape."

"Doesn't it add red tape too?"

"That can't be helped. I'll tell you about all this once we're married."

"About that." Yoru nervously cleared his throat and sat down on the toilet to talk. "It's just a scenario, but...what would you do if I didn't want to get married anymore?"

Kei dropped something with a loud crash that immediately brought someone else into the room he was in. Yoru waited in tense silence as Kei assured the person he was okay, shooed the guy out and picked up the dropped item. "Fuck, ow," he grumbled. "Yoru? You're still here? Alright. What brought this on? Are you getting cold feet?"

Yoru released his breath noisily through his nose and dropped his head into his hand. "I'm scared," he admitted with great difficulty. It was probably a futile effort: he might as well be confessing his sins to the Devil, but he didn't know what to do anymore. "I'm scared that I won't be able to escape this life. That I'll end up in an even worse situation. I'm sorry, Kei."

For a long minute, there was nothing but silence of Kei's end. "I don't want to hurt you," he finally said, sounding extremely hurt. "I have my misgivings too, you know. I'm afraid of getting betrayed too."

"What do we do now?"

"I say we take a chance on each other. But if you want to break our engagement, I won't stop you. I'll be sad, but you have the right to refuse."

Yoru was stunned into silence. He'd expected outrage, threats even, but not sorrow - and certainly not freedom. Even has his inner cynic kept saying this could all be an act, his heart warmed at the thought that someone would be sad to see him go.

"Just know this," Kei continued after a lengthy silence of his own. His voice was gruff and reluctant, as if he was getting himself to voice his thoughts with great difficulty. "You have no grounds to trust me, but I...well, I think...choosing you was a rush decision on my part too, but I don't regret it."

"Huh?"

"It might be too soon to say this, but...I think I'll enjoy spending the rest of my life with you."

Kyodaisakazuki: a yakuza sake ceremony that establishes two men as brothers; the quantity of sake in each man's cup determines his status relative to the other.