You know what? I just like fictional men ✌️

Shion was the first of the remaining five to die.

He hanged himself a few weeks before the Bonten uprising in his small, cluttered apartment, which he had to go into debt to buy. This day was the anniversary of the Kanto Incident.

His body hung there for a week until Mochizuki and Rindou, who wanted to ask him to join Bonten, broke down the door because Shion was not answering his phone.

Rindou couldn't believe what he was seeing. That... stupid, idiotic... idiot who wanted to be called "senpai" just because he was older... Hanged himself? Just like that? Well, maybe they hadn't had a very good contact with each other lately due to work, responsibilities, etc., but... Rindou didn't know that things were that bad with him.

Mochizuki was truly devastated. Shion was, after all, one of his closest friends. They may have offended each other, they may have called each other names, but they were close. Really close.

No one in his family took any interest in burying him, and in the end, it was up to Mochii, Kakucho, Rindou, and Ran to hold his funeral. Only the four of them came. He was buried in the same cemetery as Izana.

Rindou never wanted to belong to an organization like Bonten. True, he was a member of S-62 and spent his entire teenage years fighting on the streets, but he had no plans to continue doing so for the rest of his life. However, his brother joined Bonten, and Rindou will even go into the fire right next to Ran.

His older brother told him many things: "If we join them, you'll earn enough to buy 100 nightclubs where you will be a DJ" or "We're not going to do this for the rest of our lives, are we?" but he didn't tell him that it would end tragically for him.

One day, Rindou was knocked unconscious and kidnapped in one of his clubs, despite numerous cameras and security guards. He woke up in a room that smelled disgustingly of rotting corpses - it belonged to the enemy mafia. The men from this mafia wanted to extract information from him regarding Bonten's strategic plans for the future - what was stupid was that Rindou had no clue what they were talking about. He might be one of the executives, but he wasn't very familiar with Bonten's strategic moves; Ran was the one handling that, but Rindou couldn't drag his brother into it. Therefore, hoping that Bonten would find him soon, he dragged out the interrogation as long as possible. The hostile mafia, however, had no intention of waiting and proceeded to physically force him to talk.

This torture lasted over 24 hours.

Rindou was constantly beaten, cut, waterboarded, strangled, they pulled out his teeth, but he didn't say a word. After those damn 24 hours, one of the men who were there started threatening him that they would cut him in half if he didn't tell them anything. Despite the condition he was in, Rindou still believed that his brother and Bonten would come here in time and save him, so he still didn't say anything.

He was ultimately cut alive in half above the hips with a chainsaw, separating his torso from his legs.

When it was sure that he was dead, both parts of him were thrown into one of the rivers - this mafia was known by disposing of remains in this way.

Rindou died childless and without a partner - he lived in the same residence with Ran.

For Ran, being in Bonten was part of his dream come true - he may not have been a foreign celebrity, but he had everything a celebrity could have: Money, fame, he commanded respect, women threw themselves into his arms... And all this with less work than if you were a real celebrity!

No one would be exaggerating if they said that he lost himself in this life. It no longer mattered to him whether he would sleep well at night, how much makeup he had to put on to cover the dark circles under his eyes, that every week he had a different woman around his arm... He got so lost in it that he didn't even notice when his brother disappeared.

It's a bit silly to admit it - after all, he practically raised Rindou and he used to be unable to sleep at night if the door to one of their rooms was closed. However, when he woke up late the next day with a hangover and thousands spent in one night, he somehow failed to notice that Rindou hadn't been home since at least the evening before. He started his day as usual: he watched nonsense on TV in bed instead of getting up, then after an hour he finally went to get dressed, get ready... He ate whatever was in the fridge - Rindou always made sure that besides ordering food from fancy restaurants every day, there was something normal to eat.

Ran had the day off, so instead of doing anything productive, he waited until evening came and went to one of the nightclubs he co-owned with his brother. He had women around him again, he spent thousands on alcohol with strippers again, he drank again... And so 24 hours had passed since he last saw his brother.

The next day wasn't much different, the only exception being that he graciously decided to check Bonten's emails even though it was his day off. Then he saw that he had received a message from Kakucho the day before - the notification had not arrived because Ran had muted all his chats.

"Where is Rindou?? I had an appointment with him."

Ran wanted to write something sarcastic: "How the fuck should I know?" or "He probably got high with hookers," but he simply decided that since he hadn't replied before, why should he write now?

"Rindou, why are you ignoring Kakucho?!" - Ran rocked back in his chair in the living room, shouting towards the stairs leading to his brother's room, expecting some ironic response.

Silence.

"Rindou don't ignore me too!" - Ran went back to reading his emails. He took a sip of coffee. That's strange, he didn't hear Rindou leave the house this morning.

Silence.

"Rindou?!" - Ran stood up, his voice sounding irritated - his brother probably didn't hear him because he had headphones on. He walked calmly towards Rindou's bedroom and opened the door without knocking.

Silence.

Whenever Ran entered the room uninvited, the younger Haitani would angrily shout at him to knock or throw a pillow at him. This time, however, nothing of the sort happened.

"Rindou!?" - Ran left the room and headed towards the gym which was in the basement. His steps were a little quicker, he was sure he hadn't heard Rindou go down the stairs. But before he placed his hand on the doorknob to the gym, he listened.

Silence.

There was no sound of the exercise bike, nor the movement of the exercise machines, nor the treadmill... Ran opened the door - no one was inside. For the first time since he had seen Rindou, Ran was concerned. He ran up the stairs and burst into the living room again.

"Rindou?!!" - he checked their large garden - empty. Amidst the house's ornately finished entrance and elegantly trimmed bushes, Rindou was nowhere to be seen. Ran ran to the garage - it was bigger than most people's apartments. There were a few of their expensive cars parked inside, but his brother's favorite purple Lamborghini was nowhere to be seen - he always drove it to clubs. Ran felt his breathing quicken with stress. He ran back into the house and grabbed his cell phone. He tried to call Rindou, but the call kept disconnecting as if the phone was either turned off or... broken.

Eventually he called Mikey.

The search for Rindou lasted a total of three days.

All the executives were involved - it wasn't just about finding younger Haitani as if something bad happened to him - it was about finding someone who knew information about Bonten that, in the wrong hands, would be a disaster for all of them. No one had ever seen Ran so... on edge before. Without that charismatic smile, without perfectly styled hair, with bags under the eyes... Even Mochizuki and Kakucho didn't recognize this tired man as their friend. They both tried to comfort him; Kakucho said that Rindou was strong and would definitely be fine, Kanji didn't really say anything specific: he was simply there for him. Something Yasuhiro used to do.

Eventually they found the lower part of Rindou washed up on the river bank. One of his pant legs was torn off, revealing a tattoo he had the same as his older brother.

Kakucho tried to convince himself and the other two out loud that these were definitely not Rindou's legs, that they were just someone very similar... They could hear the uncertainty in his voice and the fact that he was breaking down every now and then.

Mochizuki didn't say anything. He stared at the ground, his shoulders shaking slightly. He knew very well it was Rindou.

Ran was standing behind them, but he could see everything clearly. He saw Kakucho kneel at his feet, revealing more skin above the tattoo as if in disbelief and helplessness. Mochizuki moved from his spot and grabbed his arm, telling him to give it a rest. And Ran? He was waiting for the right moment when they would be too busy to see what he was doing.

And when the ever-serious Kakucho rushed towards the river, convincing Mochizuki that the rest of the body was definitely still alive and that he had to be fished out quickly, and Kanji grabbed him by the coat, shouting at him to calm down, Ran pulled out a gun. His service pistol which he received from Bonten. Without hesitation, he put the gun to his head and shot.

Quietly. No dramatic parting words, no moving farewell. He just shot himself.

In his last burst of consciousness, he only saw Kakucho and Mochizuki turning towards him. Kakucho had the same look he had when Izana was shot. Mochizuki had a look of shock and despair in his eyes that he had never seen before in his older friend. It wasn't the same sadness as in prison after Izana's death. Not the same as when they were able to see Mucho's body before he was buried.

Ran didn't feel guilty. Not for his death. After all, he was the one who made Rindou promise one night while they were in juvenile detention that if one of them died, the other would kill himself that same day. A stupid promise, but back then they were inseparable. Not like now. Ran only felt guilty for letting Rindou suffer.

Ran died childless and without a partner. After his death, all of Haitani's assets were transferred to Bonten. Ran and Rindou were buried in one grave when the upper part of the body was found.

Since Izana's death, Mochizuki has become more protective of the rest of S-62 and Kakucho. He hadn't felt such an obligation before, after all, he might have been the oldest, but there was only a few months' difference. Yet after they went to prison, he tried to take care of everyone. He wanted to get out early for good behavior to take care of Kakucho, but Muto said he would do it instead. However, when on the day they left, only Kakucho was standing in front of the penitentiary, he subconsciously felt that something was wrong.

And so another important person whom he promised to defend died. He remembered sharing a room with Yasuhiro in juvenile detention – they were as different as fire and water back then. He was explosive, easily irritated, and Yasuhiro was serious, quiet, didn't say anything to him for the first week. He also remembered how he began to feel respect for him: when all six of them shared how they ended up in the hands of the police and Mucho said that he had paralyzed a yakuza member.

And just like that he died.

Later, Shion: they may have neglected their relationship, but Mochii thought that Shion stopped calling every week because he found a partner or a better job. But when he entered the clustered, small flat that day - when he felt the intoxication of rotting flesh - he had never felt so much regret in his life. He remembered that he was the first to enter the bedroom, followed by Rindou. He remembered that the window was slightly open, so the room was swarming with flies that were clinging to the dead body. He remembered how Rindou... just bursted into tears. Yes, the same Rindou who broke the bones of his enemies, who was an accomplice to murder at the age of 12. He just cried as they sat outside the apartment waiting for the authorities to arrive to clean up the body.

Eventually the Haitani brothers died. Mochizuki couldn't imagine the suffering Rindou must have gone through when they found his upper body. His face no longer resembled anything, it was literally just red muscle tissue. All his teeth were pulled out and all his fingers were broken. Torso bruised, limbs cut... A careful inspection of the body by Bonten's doctors revealed that he did not die from torture but from being cut in half. Even though Bonten also used such methods sometimes, and even though he had seen them himself, Mochizuki felt sick when he heard about it and saw Rindou's body. The same Rindou who never left Ran's side in the reformatory. The same Rindou who went to the gym with him. The same Rindou who, despite playing pranks on him with his brother, was his friend. Like the entire S-62.