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Samatoki was three beers in before he dared to ask.
"Sensei."
Jakurai looked up. The two of them had retired early from the karaoke contest still taking place on the other side of the club that Ramuda had booked for their third annual Block Party after-party. Ichiro and Kuko were still going head to head (to head to head) against Sasara and Rosho, vying for that year's championship title. Gentaro and Hifumi were judging, while most of the others hung around to cheer (and choose increasingly ridiculous songs) for their contestant of choice.
Since Rio and Jyuto had gone home early—they had a newborn at home, and had almost skipped the Block Party entirely—Samatoki had begged off participating in the karaoke contest at all, claiming lack of teammates as his excuse. (Rei had joked that he would gladly team up with Samatoki, only for Ichiro to actually bare his teeth at him and snarl.)
Jakurai had called it quits after two rounds, too. Well, more like Hitoya, his randomly assigned partner for the night, had called it quits after Ramuda spent both of those rounds staring at him with the most menacing, unsettling smile any of them were capable of.
"You and Ramuda," Samatoki mumbled, scraping his thumb over the edge of the label on the bottle of beer he held. "You guys are…"
Jakurai gave a curious tilt of his head, like he really didn't know what Samatoki was driving at. Which figured. He'd always been a straightforward sort of guy.
Samatoki scrubbed his free hand over his mouth and breathed a rough, aggravated sigh. He was already starting to hate himself for bringing up such a personal matter. What was he, a gossipy schoolgirl? He didn't need to know this shit; it was none of his goddamn business.
But he had to talk to someone.
He had to know if it was possible. For an alpha to be…
"You're back together," Samatoki said. He leaned forward to set his empty bottle down on the table in front of him, then turned to properly meet Jakurai's gaze. "Aren't you?"
Jakurai flickered a glance over to where Ramuda was hanging off Dice's shoulders, being carried around like a backpack. It was hard to believe he was an alpha, just like Ichiro, Samatoki, and Jakurai. Not just because he was the smallest alpha Samatoki had ever met, but because he acted like… well, that.
"We haven't put a name to it," Jakurai answered after a moment.
Samatoki nodded. There was an 'it', though. There was something. Jakurai, an alpha, had something. With Ramuda. Another alpha.
Was it really possible, for an alpha to be with another?
A few years ago, Samatoki would've taken Jakurai and Ramuda as evidence that it wasn't possible. They'd been good together, in their TDD days, but they'd fallen apart in a big, messy, nasty way.
So when Ichiro came up to Samatoki two days ago, just after their final rehearsal for this year's Block Party, to pass him a water bottle and say—
"Good work. I'm in love with you, by the way."
—Samatoki hadn't been able to answer. He'd frozen up for a solid ten seconds before barking out a strained laugh and giving Ichiro's shoulder a shove with his own, like he could brush the whole thing off as a joke.
But Ichiro hadn't been joking. Samatoki knew that, and Ichiro knew he knew it.
"You don't have to say anything right now," Ichiro had added. "Just… think about it? Please."
Samatoki had thought about nothing else for the past two days.
He was pretty much sure he loved Ichiro back, and Ichiro probably knew that too. They'd grown close again, in the years since the end of the division rap battles. Close enough that Ichiro had even talked about moving his business down to Yokohama, once Saburo moved out for college.
But Samatoki was an alpha, and Ichiro was one too.
What could they do, even if they loved each other? Wasn't that what had stopped them from saying anything to each other, for all this time, about the feelings they both knew were there?
"How do you do it?" Samatoki finally blurted out. "Not, uh, it. Not sex. I mean, I guess that too. But just—how are you able to be with him, when all your instincts must be screaming 'no'?"
"Ah." Jakurai looked down into the flute of sparkling cider he held. "Ichiro-kun spoke to you."
Samatoki winced. "That obvious?"
"He spoke to me as well," Jakurai explained. "He asked me the same question, in fact. About our instincts."
Samatoki should have known. Ichiro was bold and brave, but not recklessly impulsive. Everything Samatoki was worried about now, Ichiro had probably spent plenty of time worrying about before.
He must have gotten some answer that had satisfied those worries, at least enough to let him confess.
"I will tell you what I told him," Jakurai went on. "Which is that, yes, it's true. Your instincts will rebel. You've experienced something like it before, haven't you?"
Samatoki's jaw spasmed before he gave a nod. He wasn't the sort of alpha who had beef with every other alpha, and he didn't buy for a second that alphas were incapable of coexisting at all—the ones who claimed they couldn't even stand to be in the same room as another alpha were just assholes, plain and simple.
But even Samatoki had had to cancel plans with Rio when one or both of them were close to their rut. Even if they were the best of friends, they could get dangerously aggressive—violent, even—if they were around each other at the wrong time.
Wouldn't it be the same, with Ichiro?
"There are times when he repulses me," Jakurai admitted candidly, turning to let his gaze seek out Ramuda once more. "There are times when I find his scent nauseating. Even now, it is sometimes difficult to not feel on edge when he's in my home. My personal territory."
Samatoki swallowed thickly. He'd worried about all that and more. That was exactly what made it seem so impossible to be with Ichiro. Samatoki didn't want that for Ichiro, for either of them; he could never let Ichiro be with someone who found him nauseating.
"But when I say there are 'times', Samatoki-kun," Jakurai continued. "I mean three or four days out of the year. It is only when we are at the peak of our ruts that our instincts cause us to find each other utterly intolerable."
…three or four days out of the year, huh? For each of them, if their rut cycles weren't synced.
Samatoki frowned to himself. It wouldn't be the end of the world, if he had to spend at most eight days of the year apart from Ichiro. They were already careful to spend their ruts separate; couldn't they keep that up even if they got together, even if they started to live together?
If it was really just that their ruts made them irrationally hostile towards each other, they could deal with that. He was sure Ichiro would feel the same way.
But that wasn't the only problem, was it?
A relationship between alphas, a physical relationship between alphas…
"Sex is…" Jakurai trailed off, then shook his head to correct himself. "Submission, I should rather say, is more difficult. It is not something our nature, our instincts, will allow us to easily do. It is always something of a battle, between you and your own will, to bare your throat for another alpha."
Jakurai paused for a moment, as though he had to give careful consideration to what he would say next. To what he could say next.
Samatoki didn't rush him. His own mind was starting to spin. Could he imagine baring his throat for Ichiro? Lying down, taking it? His first instinct was, of course, fuck no. But it wasn't about Ichiro; Samatoki couldn't have imagined submitting to anyone.
Could he imagine Ichiro being the one to…
Samatoki closed his eyes and tried to picture it. Ichiro beneath him, flushed and bare, panting and wanting. It was entirely too easy to imagine, and Samatoki couldn't even claim he hadn't imagined it before, with his own hand around his cock.
But was it realistic?
Could Ichiro ever actually want him, in that way? Samatoki could imagine, just as easily, that Ichiro would only be forcing himself to submit, whether he wanted to or not.
And there was no chance in hell Samatoki would ever let that happen. Ichiro deserved a better life than one in which he had to force himself to do anything against his will.
That was what had truly held Samatoki back.
"I will say this," Jakurai continued all of a sudden, pulling Samatoki from his thoughts. "As alphas, we may all share this instinct to dominate, to never submit. But we have our individual wants. It is not impossible, or even entirely unheard of, for an alpha to feel a desire to submit.
"Whether or not they can win that battle against their instincts is another matter, a matter of their strength of will. But Ichiro-kun has never lacked strength, has he?"
Samatoki blinked, slow and stunned. He had to repeat Jakurai's words to himself a few times, replaying them in his mind, before he really started to catch Jakurai's meaning.
"Did Ichiro say—"
Jakurai shook his head. "That, Samatoki-kun, is something I believe you should ask Ichiro-kun himself."
Samatoki stared at Jakurai for a moment longer, before letting out a rough breath and daring to let his lips twitch upwards into a smile. He reached forward and picked up his beer bottle again; even though it was empty, he lifted it and clinked the lip against Jakurai's glass.
"Thanks, sensei. Think I'll do just that."
It was another hour, nearly two, before everyone started to say their goodbyes. Samatoki's buzz had worn off by then, but he still caught Ichiro by the door and tossed Ichiro his keys.
"Take me home."
Ichiro blinked down at the keys he caught, then looked up to meet Samatoki's gaze. "Are you sure?"
Samatoki didn't answer, except to look over Ichiro's shoulder and call out to Jiro and Saburo, "He's coming with me. Have Sasara drive you home."
"Huh?" Jiro blinked. "Why?"
At the same time, Saburo muttered a skeptical, "Him?"
"Or Papa could," Rei chimed in.
"Um, no." Saburo scrunched up his nose and jerked a thumb at Sasara. "We'll take him."
Ichiro breathed a laugh and closed his hand around the keys. "Okay," he said, taking a step closer to Samatoki and dropping his voice low. "Let's go home."
They were both quiet on the drive to Samatoki's place. The tension in the car was almost stifling, but Ichiro didn't try to start a conversation until he'd pulled into the underground lot under Samatoki's building.
Even after he'd parked, they both sat in the car for a moment more, letting a weighted silence stretch between them.
"If it's bad news," Ichiro said, finally, "you can take some more time to think."
He tacked on a breathy little laugh, clearly trying to make his words into a joke, but he sounded a little too nervous for it to work.
Samatoki had no intention of making him suffer in wait. He reached across the center console and took one of Ichiro's hands, clasping it in his own, lacing their fingers together.
Ichiro's breath gave an audible hitch. "Samatoki…?"
"I spoke to Jakurai," Samatoki said. "He said you did, too."
Ichiro ducked his head. His hand gave a subtle twitch in Samatoki's, before he squeezed Samatoki's hand, holding on tight. "I might've."
Samatoki leaned his head back against the headrest, turning to fix his gaze on Ichiro's profile. In the near-dark, lit only by the distant lights by the elevators, Ichiro looked a little older and more solemn—and every bit as breathtakingly beautiful as he always did, in any light.
"It's mutual," Samatoki said, like it was easy. "I love you, the way you love me. But you knew that, didn't you?"
Ichiro sunk a little lower in the driver's seat, chin dropping almost to his chest. "I… I hoped."
"Come on, Ichi. You're more confident than that."
"Alright, I figured."
Samatoki laughed. "Bit too confident now," he admonished. "But I don't hate it."
Ichiro peeked up at him, out of the corner of his eye. Cautious, but hopeful.
"You wanna know why I never said anything before, huh?" Samatoki shrugged and stroked his thumb over Ichiro's skin, back and forth, back and forth. "Same reason as you. I was worried, and I thought we were worried about the same thing."
"Our alpha instincts," Ichiro murmured.
Samatoki nodded. "That they would repel us from each other, yeah. But that was only part of what I was worried about."
Ichiro finally lifted his head, curious enough to look Samatoki in the eye.
"You're strong, Ichi," Samatoki said. "Almost as strong as me."
"Hey," Ichiro protested.
"Almost," Samatoki insisted, a helplessly fond grin twitching at his lips again. "But that's more than strong enough to fight those instincts. I don't think I ever doubted that we could fight them, overcome them, to be together."
Ichiro blinked, a few times. "Then why… all this time…"
"What I was really worried about, what scared the shit out of me, was that you might not actually want it. To fight those instincts in order to belong to me, to let me call you mine. To… let me be your alpha, in every way." Samatoki pushed his free hand through his hair and breathed a helpless laugh. "Because every time I thought about it, Ichi, I could only come up with the answer that… I don't know. I don't know if I could ever want to submit to an alpha, even if that alpha is the man I'm in love with.
"And I didn't know if you could. That was the thought I hated the most, the risk I couldn't take. That you might force yourself to—"
"Samatoki," Ichiro blurted out. "I've been fantasizing about submitting to you since we were still TDD."
His words were so bold, but a deep, red flush surged into his cheeks along with them. It made Samatoki love him all the more, so fiercely that he drew Ichiro closer, as he leaned in himself, to let their foreheads touch.
Ichiro didn't look away, even as his face burned. "That's what worried me," he admitted softly. "That even though I wanted it so bad, my body might not let me. That my instinct would be to fight you, even if I absolutely didn't want to fight. That you would start to hate me, or that you would even blame yourself, if we tried and… couldn't."
"That's what you asked Jakurai about?" Samatoki murmured.
Ichiro nodded. "I asked if there was any sort of medication, any sort of surgery, even something experimental, that could help."
Samatoki jolted back at that, his eyes widening with a touch of horror. "Ichi, what the fuck? You don't have to go that far to—"
"He said if I was willing to go that far," Ichiro interrupted, breathing a soft, sheepish laugh. "If I was willing to go that far, wasn't I willing to, first, try trusting you?"
Samatoki parted his lips, but didn't breath a word this time. Didn't breath at all.
"He was right," Ichiro said. "That's what I had to do, to work up the nerve to tell you. I had to trust you to never hate me. To never give up on me, on us, even if it all goes wrong at first. To believe me and trust me back, when I say I love you and I want you, even if my body and my instincts try to say something else."
Samatoki found himself drawn closer again, until their noses bumped, until their foreheads brushed again, until their lips were almost close enough to meet.
"So, will you?" Ichiro breathed. "Will you trust me back?"
Samatoki knew, in that instant, that it wouldn't always be easy. That it would perhaps be even harder than fighting his own instincts. To continuously trust that Ichiro wanted him, even if Ichiro's instincts made him lash out and fight against his own wants. That was exactly what had held Samatoki back for so long, after all. The doubt, the fear, that Ichiro would be forcing himself to be what Samatoki wanted, instead of being true to his own soul.
But Ichiro wore his love and his desire so openly on his face that Samatoki knew—
He had to try.
He wanted to try.
Trusting Ichiro, and being trusted in return.
"I will," Samatoki promised. "No matter what, Ichiro. I will."