#hhhhhhhhh--

LISTEN YOU, IF YOU THINK COMPLIMENTS ARE-- .... W-WAIT....

no one has actually called me that one before... gosh...

He should have knows that things would end up this way. Or maybe Izumi already knew at the time, and he was just doing his damnedest to ignore it until he couldn’t anymore.

Izumi was soon to succeed his father... take over the ‘family business’. That much never bothered him; he was proud to take on what his father left behind, take the helm and lead the Shimizu yakuza clan. But taking on the title of oyabun meant so many things...

...like no longer seeing Shouta. His Shouta.

There’s no way they could make it work; even if they could manage to keep it secret, their clans were rivals. Sooner or later, someone would start something, and it could escalate to an all out war. Innocents would be hurt. And that would be unacceptable.

‘It’s couldn’t he helped,’ Izumi told himself then, and continued to tell himself now. ‘I had to do it. For everyone’s sake.’