This story was inspired by a cherry-blossom-themed extra by Yoneda Kou, recently posted on Lustfulcat's tumblr.

hinseikai was in trouble. Not all the trouble, but some of it. Enough that Yashiro was looking at three years non-parole.

'There's such a thing as conjugal visits, you know.'

Doumeki was silent.

They were at the boat's helm being steadily showered in cherry blossom petals. Other boats and ferries chugged past, heading upstream. They, on the other hand, were floating with the current. Without any sort of challenge or effort. Even the petals seemed to be travelling in the same direction, wafting gently onto the deck as though having decided to rest for a moment.

Yashiro had just awoken from his mouth-open nap on Doumeki's lap. Nanahara, supremely annoyed at something Doumeki had said, was nowhere to be seen. It was just Doumeki and a slightly wine-drunk Boss on deck.

'You'll come visit me, right? Conjugal or otherwise?'

A petal landed on Yashiro's hair delicately enough that he didn't seem to notice. Doumeki was surprised to note he couldn't bring himself to brush it off. His chest felt like it was swirling with petals, but not the nice, ethereally pink kind. The ones inside him were black and tar-like and feathery. They were feathers, he realised. Crow feathers or something. Something not nice.

Yashiro knew Doumeki was put out. He'd been like that for days, ever since he'd broken the news of his likely conviction. There was no reaction from Doumeki. Nothing overt anyway. The guy hadn't broken down or thrown his fist into a wall or thrown anyone out of a window [see Careful Now for prequel]. So Yashiro couldn't really get much of a gauge on how much it was affecting him.

He withstood the tickling of the petal in his hair for quite a while before it became clear that Doumeki wasn't about to brush it off. He raised a hand and did it himself.

Right. So Doumeki was really upset.

He sighed. It was heavy work trying to lift both their spirits.

'Stop moping already. Can't we just enjoy the hanami in peace?'

Yashiro had organised his own final send-off, despite the note of fatalism that doing so invited. Apparently, the antidote to fatalism, for both himself and his men (barring Doumeki), was copious amounts of alcohol. The sounds of drinking and coarse laughter issued from inside the boat. It all sounded far away to Doumeki. He could barely even remember what he'd said that pissed Nanahara off so much. His mind was trapped between both the past and the future.

If you went to jail, Boss, he'd once said, you would come out dead.

Oh, you mean death by sex? I've always wanted to try that!

Doumeki remembered making a face at Boss' flippant response. Boss had been holding a drink, his face aglow with the thought. Now the memory of their prescient conversation created a tornado of shadowy, feathery somethings in his chest.

They might find him not guilty. Doumeki held onto the thought like a lifeline. Misumi could pull all the strings. Juries can be bought or threatened or replaced. Surely.

'Don't get your hopes up,' said Yashiro at that moment.

Doumeki looked down in surprise. Yashiro's eyes were closed again. Still, he felt as though he'd been X-rayed.

There was a sudden gust of wind. The petals ran off, skittering across the deck and the river as if they just remembered something urgent they had to do.

For once, Doumeki defied his boss. He kept his hopes up.

And they were dashed to pieces not three days later.

'We,' said a petite, middle-aged lady in a voice that seemed larger than she was, 'find the defendant guilty of all charges.'

Before she read out her line, Doumeki had been staring at one of the witnesses in a row ahead of him. An unassuming close-cropped head of hair above a cop's uniform. The guy from Time Number 1. The fucktard who'd been fucking Yashiro the first time they'd ever met.

Of all the guys you've seen fucking me, I think you've killed or maimed them all, Boss had said* with a smile in his voice. Except that random first detective, but I can't even remember his name. Maybe we'll run into him one day.

Knowing who he was and that he'd fucked Boss would have been enough for Doumeki to have done what he did. But when the fucktard decided to turn Yashiro in despite all the deals and all the sex, with enough evidence to put him away for three years, the fucktard had built and sanded his own coffin.

It was surprisingly easy, really. Doumeki wondered why it didn't happen more often outside of unrealistic cop dramas.

Against the backdrop of the gavel being slammed, a few outcries from Yashiro's men, and Yashiro standing up to be handcuffed, Doumeki got to his feet slowly and calmly. Only a few people bothered looking at him as he headed up the side aisle towards the front of the courtroom. As he walked past the first row of benches, passing alongside Yashiro himself, who looked up in mild surprise, Doumeki turned his head sideways for a brief recon. He noticed Misumi in the second row hanging his head. The guy looked near tears, he thought idly.

From Doumeki's deadpan expression and his demeanour, almost everyone took him for a cop or a lawyer and paid him no mind. He seemed like the type who might walk up to the judge and whisper something in his ear.

Instead, Doumeki drew up near the bailiff posted at the defendant's entrance. Like he was picking his own keys off the peg in his apartment, he swiftly took the gun out of the bailiff's holster, spun around, aimed at the front row of witnesses and shot Time Number 1 in the chest and shoulder. He then immediately dropped the gun and raised his arms. Nothing in his face had changed even slightly since the time he stood up.

Against the new backdrop of screams and scrambles for cover, three bailiffs slammed him into the ground.

Yashiro watched, hands cuffed before him, mouth agape. Doumeki saw his face before he was floored. Aside from the fact that Boss' eyes were open, his expression was almost identical to the one he wore when he was fast asleep on Doumeki's lap in the boat with cherry blossoms falling in his hair.

'Did you really think they'd just let you mosey into prison right next to me?'

'I…'

Doumeki hadn't thought that far ahead. He'd just wanted the black, crow-like feathers to stop swirling about inside him. And they had for a brief moment when the cop was sprawled and squirming on the ground.

But the feathers came back in full force when he found out how long it would take before he joined his boss in prison. Bail, arraignment, hearing, trial, sentencing. The legal system was a great big fucking maze. It would take almost a month, even with Misumi's strings.

And then Doumeki found out the fucktard cop hadn't even died. Doumeki was about to be done in for attempted murder. Again.

'You're really bad at killing people,' Yashiro observed. 'If you hadn't offed Nakazawa and thrown Inami out that window, I'd think you were philosophically against it or something.'

Yashiro heard that he sounded like a strange combination of amused, annoyed and proud.

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a while.

'Are you okay, Boss?'

'I've only been in here for two days. I'm rocking the prison get-up, I must say. I mean, I miss my vest and tie, but the orange kind of suits me.'

Silence.

'I'm fine, you dolt. Worry about yourself.'

'I'll be there, Boss. Soon.'

The strength of his tone was somewhat surprising. Yashiro had heard it before but it still warmed him in a way he couldn't quite place. This odd emotion was quickly replaced by a very specific embarrassment and then mild self-deprecation. Standard reaction to a Doumeki Chikara display of undying loyalty.

He was also glad it sounded like Doumeki hadn't picked up on his blatant lies. The swelling around his eye was getting worse.

Furious with himself and his strings for being unable to save Yashiro from a guilty conviction, Misumi pulled them again, all of them, with gusto and bribes and threats and more bribes. He ensured that Yashiro would be treated well in prison, that his non-parole period would be magically sped up, that Doumeki's trial was next on roster, that he would be sentenced to the same prison and that he would be made Yashiro's cellmate.

Of all of these strings, only the ones pertaining to Doumeki's trial, sentencing and cell allocation actually panned out.

Shinseikai in general, and Yashiro specifically, had an anthology of enemies. Some were cops, others inmates. Some were there because of Yashiro directly, others were there because of something he'd said or done that eventually led back to them. Either way, he was avidly detested.

And his proclivities were notorious.

And he was beautiful.

If you went to jail, Boss, you would come out dead.

The first beating took place in the cafeteria.

Yashiro couldn't identify the exact nature of his erratic heartbeat. The room was not quite cacophonous, but it was large and echoing and filled to the brim with men.

Men.

Men.

All wearing the same get-up. All smelling like men do when there are a lot of them in one space. Yashiro was almost disappointed when there was no fanfare as he entered. Sure he'd gotten quite a few stares, catcalls and vividly detailed sexual threats over the past day as he'd walked past cells towards his own. But there was no resounding hush when he entered the cafeteria. No one had shoved him against the wall, thrown a fist into his stomach and then forced their cock down his throat.

So much hype for nothing.

He waited for his tray to be loaded up with questionable prison food and turned to face the cafeteria at large. Where to sit?

He smiled. More like high school than prison. Now if only there was a young Kageyama to torture somewhere.

'What the fuck are you smiling at, pretty boy?'

The guy was all arms and no neck. Typical thug, whether in high school or prison. He fixed Yashiro with a disbelieving leer and set aside his tray on a nearby table just to swing his immense arms freely as he approached.

Yashiro's smile didn't fade.

'Actually, I was –'

The punch was thrown into his stomach, just like he'd imagined. He dropped the tray and the contents went flying.

He ended up in the infirmary for a few hours with a few damaged ribs and a swollen eye, courtesy of Neckless and two cronies.

The first time he was raped didn't take place in the shower, which, all in all, was a closely-guarded affair.

It was after hours in his cell. Three guards.

Batons were used in terrible ways.

That landed him in the infirmary for several days.

While he was being held down by one of the cops, his own pillowcase stuffed in his mouth to smother his cries and another cop fucking him viciously from behind like he was channelling all the hatred in humanity, Yashiro's elderly cellmate had turned gently in his futon to face the far wall.

Yashiro almost felt a surge of affection for him. And for Misumi. No doubt his Oyaji had made sure he'd get the oldest, frailest and most harmless cellmate in the world.

Shame it didn't protect him from much.

Countless times, Yashiro thought, as he quietly followed the guards down the echoing passage in the middle of the night. I've done this countless times before, when I was younger. True, the batons were new. And particularly spiteful. But he'd been passed around like a rag countless times before. ('It's not a rag!' an old Ryuuzaki said suddenly, from out of nowhere).

He obediently stepped into the storage room when one of the guards held the door open for him. He almost thanked the guy and stopped himself just in time. A short laugh escaped him. This earned him a heavy backhand across the face.

The storage room became a regular haunt (after Yashiro's elderly cellmate, bless his shrivelled soul, had tried to put in a complaint about what he'd seen in the cell).

Countless times, Yashiro thought, as he was bent over the table. And yet, now…

The old Ryuuzaki, who had been trying to get across something important about that old rag, Yashiro now realised fondly, swam into his mind.

He was almost immediately replaced by Doumeki. Doumeki, who had been in his thoughts constantly. Despite all efforts to the contrary. Against his better judgment. He wished with every part of his body, the parts that were whole and the parts that were tattered, that Doumeki was with him.

Time behaved strangely where Boss was concerned. Doumeki had noticed this ever since he'd first seen Boss, when he spoke to him for the first time, heard the words 'lustful cat' and 'public toilet' come out of his own mouth when he answered Boss' questions. Time either dragged out the painful moments so he felt like he was watching them from outside, or whirled past so quickly he couldn't keep up.

It was doing the first thing, dragging itself out, as he thudded up the corridor towards his cell. Towards Yashiro. He hadn't seen Boss in over a month.

He could feel eyes on him through the cell windows and bars. He heard the occasional threat. It all bounced off him. His entire being was focused on the guard in front of him, who was shorter than him by a head and a half. His sure, quick step and the clanging of the keys in his belt. That guard was the most important human being in the world, because he alone could lead Doumeki to Boss.

All too soon, and far too late (time fucking up again), the guard stopped and unlocked a cell door.

'In here,' he said unnecessarily.

Doumeki stepped into the cell, heart in his mouth.

Yashiro looked up from his futon. He was leaning against the wall, head in a book. He smiled.

'About damn time.'

The door clanged shut behind him, the key was turned and the guard left.

Doumeki stared. The black feathers rushed him again, all at once, from his chest to his feet and then up to his throat. He could barely breathe.

Boss was covered in bruises. His lips were cut and his left eye was barely open beneath the angry purple swelling. Cuts layered his face and neck. His right arm was, of course, still in the sling. His left was now also in a cast. Only the fingers of this hand appeared to be functioning. The book was held open precariously.

'You're going to have to do a lot of things for me,' Yashiro said, indicating his left arm. 'Embarrassing things. Bodily things. Amazing how pathetic it is when you don't have the proper use of either arm.'

Fuck he's huge, Yashiro thought meanwhile, for what must have been the thousandth time. The span of Doumeki's shoulders alone seemed to eclipse the doorway. He felt something melt behind his ribcage. Like something crumbling and dissolving in the warmth of the sun.

And then Yashiro noticed, to his absolute shock, that his stolid, silent bodyguard was crying.

'Doumeki…'

The shame of it collapsed on Doumeki like a physical weight. He'd let Boss down again. Again. How many times could he possibly let him down? How many times would Boss be hurt because he wasn't there? Because he'd failed?

He stood there, right in front of the door, and couldn't at all stop the tears from running down his face. Yashiro's look was one of alarm. Doumeki averted his eyes and willed his fists to stop shaking.

'I'm sorry, Boss.'

The words and the sound of his voice made Yashiro's throat ache with sorrow.

There may have been sounds in the corridor and adjoining cells but neither heard it. The world may have been razed to the ground and neither would have budged. Yashiro stared at Doumeki for just long enough for his own pulse to settle. Then he put the book aside.

'Come here,' he said. 'Sit down.'

Doumeki hesitated. The tears hadn't let up and he barely noticed them anymore. He forced his legs to move and he walked towards Boss. He felt the softness of the futon beneath his feet without feeling it at all.

He knelt in front of Yashiro and dragged his eyes up to meet his gaze. The wounds looked even worse from up close.

You have nice eyes, said an old Yashiro. The current one echoed his thought. Even when those eyes were swimming in tears. Tears on my behalf, Yashiro thought. I have someone who cries for me.

Reaching up his left arm, Yashiro pushed his hand as far out of the stiff, white cast as it would go. He held Doumeki's face in a grip that was firmer than it needed to be.

'You're here now,' he said, slowly and clearly. 'You'll protect me now. Won't you?'

Doumeki breathed in, caught yet again in Yashiro's mellow gaze. His tears suddenly felt utterly infantile. He blinked hard and nodded.

Yashiro smiled.

'Good.'

He rested his forehead on Doumeki's, wondering about the thing that was slowly seeping through him, spreading right to his fingertips. A bored, ironic voice informed him he was, quite possibly, happy. More so in that moment, bruised and battered on the floor of a prison cell, than he'd been at any other time he could remember.

And then he found himself wondering about his elderly cellmate. He hoped Misumi had thought to move him somewhere nice.

Author's note: Cherry Blossoms is the sort-of sequel to my crazy long story Careful Now, if anyone wants to see how/why Doumeki threw someone out a twentieth-storey window (and wants to see a lot of messed up sex).