Archive of Our Own

The sea was as still as black satin. Occasionally, a night breeze swept across the hull, scattering the frivolous laughter and the clinking of ice against glass on the deck above. While the lieutenants of District 1 and District 44 were busy probing each other with alcohol upstairs, the true masters of the yacht had already set up an entirely different game in the lower-deck card room.

The moment the door clicked shut, the clamor outside was instantly severed into distant white noise. Arthur stepped across the subtly patterned carpet, approaching the dark green velvet card table. His usual Darjeeling tea and Alfred's sparkling lemon water were already waiting on the surface.

Warm, low-lit ambiance bathed the room in something distinctly intimate. The newly appointed head of District 1 was already seated at the table. He had casually pushed up the sleeves of his Supreme hoodie, idly toying with chips and cards in one hand.

At the sound of Arthur's footsteps, those blue eyes behind the lenses lit up. Tossing the cards onto the table, Alfred propped his chin on one hand and smiled. Stripped of his bloodstained, calculating guise, the figure sitting in the warm glow was just an ordinary guy who had finally gotten the man he wanted all to himself.

"It's bloody loud out there." Arthur said, dropping himself heavily into the leather chair opposite. His long legs, encased in tight leather pants, crossed effortlessly. He took a sip of his tea; the perfect temperature smoothed the deep crease between his brows by a fraction.

"Two gangs of drunks downing booze like there's no tomorrow. I couldn't be arsed to argue the difference between English Breakfast tea and American swill with them."

"So you came looking for me," Alfred grinned. "I thought you were gonna play a few rounds with Wang Yao tonight."

"Yao didn't show. Sent his sister instead. The girl just wants to sip juice and take pictures of the sea." Arthur set his teacup down with a clink, his cool gaze sweeping over the blue, star-spangled card backs Alfred was flicking between his fingers—District 1's arrogant, exorbitant, matte-finished anti-counterfeit deck. "Since I've got nothing better to do, might as well play a few hands."

"With me?"

"Is there anyone else on this bloody boat whose skills warrant me actually joining the table?"

"Just so you know, there aren't any shock collars on this yacht," Alfred helpfully reminded him.

"Fuck the shocks." Arthur slipped two fingers into the impossibly tight side pocket of his leather trousers, withdrawing a dark red deck. He slapped it down onto the table with a sharp smack, the gold-foil rose crest gleaming brightly against the velvet. "Since we don't have to worry about electrocution, we can play something a little more thrilling."

"Such as?"

Arthur lifted his gaze, his green eyes looking so intense in the warm light they seemed ready to ignite. He ran his tongue over his slightly pointed canine, dropping the barbed bait:

"Strip."

At that, Alfred fell into a rare silence. Though his expression didn't change in the slightest—even the arc of his smile remained frozen in the exact same position—the gesture of pushing up his glasses was a fraction of a second slower than usual. If his own team of actuaries had caught that micro-delay, it probably would have been logged as a "non-standard response."

Then, he said: "Sure."

"Damage points scale proportionately. Hit a threshold, lose an item of clothing." Arthur had been waiting for that nod. The very tip of his ear, just above his cartilage piercing, was already flushing an uncontrollable, faint pink. "How are we doing the cost limits? Standard rules?"

"You decide." Alfred bit down on his straw, taking a sip of his iced sparkling water. His eyes were already glued to Arthur's torn collar, completely devoid of shame. "It's your game, after all."

"Two thousand."

Arthur spat the number out coldly. He had already prepared his counter-arguments for the inevitable haggling—a resource cap of 2,000 effectively smashed District 1's roaring money-printing machine to pieces. It was low enough to make all of Alfred's extravagant, high-cost combos misfire on the spot.

District 44's decks had always been low-cost boning knives. A 2,000 cap was equivalent to forcefully dragging the entire table into Arthur's absolute home turf. Teacup in hand, he waited with bated breath to watch the American across from him bargain, or at the very least, frown.

"Mm." Just a single syllable, dropping weightlessly into the steam rising from the black tea.

"...What the hell is 'mm' supposed to mean?"

"Literally what it sounds like. I agree." Alfred blinked, somehow managing to look innocent. "Artie, English is your mother tongue, isn't it?"

"Course I fucking know that!" Arthur slapped his hand onto the dark velvet, sneering as he forced down his temper. "Just one of your main cards costs three hundred alone! With a two-thousand cap, you'll be dead in the water after a single combo. And you're just agreeing to it?"

Alfred set his glass down, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair. He stretched out, looking for all the world like a large canine sunbathing. He tilted his head. "You know, pushing the limit is part of the fun, right?"

He said it far too casually. That effortless, laid-back attitude rubbed Arthur's fur exactly the wrong way. The underlying I'm indulging you implication made Arthur's aggressive instincts bristle instantly.

"Think acting all suave and letting me win makes you look generous?"

"I'm not letting you win~" Alfred held up a hand, ticking items off on his fingers. "Look. T-shirt, leather pants, boots, gloves. You only have four items on. Me? Hoodie, undershirt, jeans, sneakers, plus socks. I'm wearing more than you, so lowering the resource cap makes it fair."

When he said "fair," he flashed a quintessentially Alfred smile—bright and utterly open. But if you actually let it fool you, you were in for a world of pain.

Arthur stared at him coldly for three seconds before forcing a scoff through his nose. He looked down to organize his deck, but a faint trace of crimson gave him away, burning all the way up his auricle to the base of his silver earring.

His brain spun furiously for two seconds before he abruptly looked up. Leather-clad fingers drifted to his slender neck. His index finger absentmindedly hooked the cold, hard rivet dead-center on his black leather choker, tugging outward slightly.

"The choker counts as one."

Alfred blinked, caught off guard for half a beat. "...What?"

"Accessories are wearables. This choker counts as one, which makes me five." Arthur insisted. "Ever heard of a fashion statement? Why wouldn't it count?"

Watching that pale finger hooked under the leather collar, the arc of Alfred's smile widened millimeter by millimeter. A dangerous, predatory edge finally bled through the "ordinary boy" facade. Slowly, deliberately, he pushed up the metal frames resting on his nose. The lenses caught a sharp, cold glint of light, perfectly masking the turbulent dark hues swirling in his eyes.

"In that case, my glasses count as one, too." He mimicked Arthur's tone, drawing out the last syllable. "Fashion statement."

"..."

Arthur's mouth opened, then snapped shut. He desperately wanted to argue, 'Your glasses are functional corrective lenses,' but knowing full well that Alfred's prescription was so low they were basically fake—a pure PR tool designed to make him look "more reliable"—he really couldn't refute it on the grounds of fashion. He swallowed the retort, letting out a complicated huff.

"Fine." Arthur squared his deck and tapped the top card with his fingertip. "Done with the bloody nonsense? Let's play."

Alfred dropped the relaxed posture, bringing his hands together to rest on the table. He tapped his fingers twice, setting his deck into position. When he looked up again, all the warmth had bled out of his eyes, shifting flawlessly into the ruthless, calculating mode of District 1's leader.

"After you."

The opening phase was almost mundane, both sides testing the waters. Two of Arthur's long fingers pinched a card, sliding it smoothly into the velvet field.

"London Fog Lockdown."

A measly 80-cost card, but the effect was thoroughly obnoxious: for the next three turns, it forced a 15% increase in the casting cost of all the opponent's cards. Classic District 44 old-money tactics. It didn't aim for a one-hit kill; it merely used a cold, damp environmental suppression to slowly bleed the opponent's resource pool dry.

"Welcome to London, 1952. Or, as I call it, a standard rainy night on my turf. Let's see if those precious war machines of District 1 can still turn their gears when visibility drops to zero."

Alfred glanced at the grey fog, the lazy curve of his lips not budging an inch. Without so much as a second thought, he pulled a card from his hand and slapped it down.

"Data Purge."

120 cost points vaporized instantly. In exchange, the London Fog Lockdown that had just been laid down and was preparing to seep into his bones was torn to shreds on the spot, tossed into the discard pile alongside Arthur's arrogance.

"Nice weather. But against District 1's satellite matrices and Silicon Valley algorithms, antique physical fog is nothing but a bunch of redundant error codes." Alfred rapped his knuckles against the card and shot Arthur a blinding grin. "Clearing the cache only takes a second."

"You're dropping 120 resources on turn one just to clear an 80-cost setup card?" Arthur raised an eyebrow, his mockery unapologetic. "Didn't District 1's actuaries ever teach you about negative returns?"

"If your card compounds over three turns, the converted cost suppression equates to about 270 points. I spend 120 points to buy out a 270-point potential threat, netting a 150-point profit. The return is absolutely positive."

"..." Arthur choked briefly on the deadpan, spreadsheet-like response, before gritting out through his teeth, "Fucking STEM majors."

By the third turn, Arthur sneered and slammed down "Colonial Trade Route."

Priced at 150, the card was a brutal early-game deficit, but it restored 40 max resources per turn. As long as it survived on the field for four turns, it would mutate into a terrifying blood pump. Even deadlier was its hidden fang: every turn, it applied a stack of "Trade Deficit" to the opponent. Once three stacks detonated, it would deal true piercing damage equal to 20% of the opponent's total consumed cost.

"Let me teach you how real capital is accumulated, lad. Taking the initiative is terribly ungentlemanly. I just need to box you in with shipping lanes and dumping. By the time the trade deficit drains your cash flow dry, you won't even know how you died."

As he played the card, his mind had already conjured up the utterly tantalizing image of Alfred sitting buck naked in that velvet chair, desperately and awkwardly trying to cover himself.

However, Alfred didn't rush to dismantle the highly threatening trade route as anticipated. Completely unbothered, he shelled out a massive 200 cost points and dropped "Industrial Standardization."

The card art featured a roaring assembly line. Its effect was as simple as it was brutal: permanently reduce the casting cost of all cards in hand by a flat 50 points. In a deathmatch shackled by a 2,000 resource cap, the card was an unapologetic cheat code. It effectively stretched District 1's resource pool out of thin air. Every card Alfred played from here on out would reap the cheap, high-yield dividends of mass industrialization.

The moment the card hit the table, Arthur's emerald pupils pinned. A sudden, sharp realization hit him: he'd been played. Alfred had never intended to drag himself into the mud to trade bayonet thrusts card for card. The Alpha wolf from the Americas had planned from the very beginning to use the first three turns to entirely rewrite the underlying economic logic of the board!

"You've been holding onto that this whole time?" Arthur's lazy demeanor evaporated, his gaze locking warily onto the man across from him.

"Yep, kept it just for this little game of ours," Alfred smiled, adjusting his glasses. "The Old World's trade routes are too slow, Artie. As long as I monopolize the industrial standards and set the rules for the assembly line, no matter how far your ships sail, they can only buy goods at the prices I dictate."

"By the way, thanks for setting that 2,000-point cap. It's the absolute perfect sweet spot to maximize this card's efficiency."

Arthur nearly ground his back teeth to dust. So, the bastard's easy agreement to the cap hadn't been about the "thrill of a challenge" at all—2,000 was simply the optimal threshold for his economic reform card. Arthur's trap had just become Alfred's springboard.

However, he didn't even have time to be pissed off before the rapidly escalating battle over the next few turns hijacked his attention entirely.

By turn five, Arthur's Colonial Trade Route finally reached its harvest phase. Three stacks of "Trade Deficit" detonated right on schedule, slicing through defenses and instantly shredding over two hundred points of Alfred's effective health.

Converted into the strip threshold: item one.

Arthur leaned back in his chair, tilting his chin up in a provocative sneer. He might as well have had the words "Take it off" stamped across his forehead.

Alfred glanced down at his decimated health bar. With infuriating grace, he simply kicked off his sneakers. His white-socked feet rested against the cabin's wooden floorboards; he didn't look the least bit flustered about being stripped of his first layer.

"Oh man, didn't expect my health to give out first." Despite the words, his tone was flatly unbothered.

Arthur stared at the Supreme hoodie that still kept the American entirely wrapped up. He let out a displeased "Tch." Even though it was just a pair of shoes, the ball of irritation tight in his chest finally eased a fraction.

But Alfred's immediate counterattack shoved that irritation right back down his throat.

Turn six. A star-spangled blue card flipped face-up on the velvet—Tech Sanction. Thanks to the discount from Industrial Standardization, this card cost a mere 150 points, yet it clamped perfectly around Arthur's throat.

The invisible electronic iron curtain instantly froze Arthur's Colonial Trade Route not only severing his resource regeneration but slashing its future output in half.

"The gears of the era have turned, Artie," Alfred said, resting his chin on one hand, his blue eyes brimming with the sheer arrogance of modern hegemony. "Once I choke off your high-end chips and underlying code, those ancient merchant ships you're so proud of are nothing but blind heaps of scrap iron on the water."

Before Arthur could snap back, Alfred's long fingers flicked out a second card right on its heels—Hollywood Smoke Screen.

Costing only 30 resources, it slapped the opponent with a thoroughly nauseating "Information Obfuscation" status: a 30% chance that their next card played would deflect and hit themselves.

"Just giving you a little dose of cultural export while I'm at it, in my media matrices and entertainment headlines, truth and direction can detour at any given moment, you know." Alfred flashed a row of pristine white teeth.

Arthur glared daggers at the two glaringly blue cards on the field. He pressed his lips into a thin line, the tip of his tongue pushing hard against the metal stud pierced through the back of it. The cold sensation of the metal bead spread through his mouth, forcefully pinning his boiling rage just below the threshold of reason.

His green eyes narrowed dangerously. With a cold sneer, Arthur pinched a card between two fingers and slammed it backhanded onto the table—Magna Carta, cost 100. Indiscriminately purges all "Restriction" statuses from the entire board.

In an instant, all that flashy tech blockade, information obfuscation, and even Arthur's own debuffs were thoroughly washed away by the ancient parchment contract. Reset to zero.

"Stop flaunting your Silicon Valley junk in front of me. It barely has a few decades of history. While you lot were still playing in the mud, we were writing the baseline of the rules on parchment in 1215. The moment I flip this table, your little virtual hegemonies have to reshuffle for me."

Alfred looked at his newly cleared board. Instead of getting angry, he merely raised an eyebrow. "Kamikaze tactics? You washed away your own trade deficit stacks along with it."

"The threat of your combo was far higher than my single mark," Arthur's long fingers trailed over the backs of his cards, the black leather of his gloves rustling softly in the quiet cabin. "Better to personally cut down a crippled trade route and lay a new one than keep it around. You still have a lot to learn about cutting your losses to survive."

"You've always been so good at spinning a loss into a strategic retreat," Alfred chuckled low in his throat.

"Oi!!!" Being called out made Arthur bristle like a cat whose tail had just been stomped on.

By turn seven, the HERO dropped all the probing and flashy tricks, ruthlessly slamming down a heavy hitter—Carrier Strike Group. Even with the cost reduction, this card still demanded a terrifying 350 points. No continuous effects, no conditional triggers. Its card text had only one line:

Deals 400 points of fixed damage.

Unreasonable, inescapable range of truth. Pure, violent, crushing American hard currency.

The massive damage number instantly blew through Arthur's health bar. The first stripping threshold: reached.

Arthur looked down at his zeroed-out health, then raised his eyes to Alfred. A chilling, unabashed murderous intent flashed through those green depths. But he didn't drag it out or act coy. He raised his right hand, catching the fingertips of his left leather glove between his teeth, and slowly peeled the tight black leather off his hand.

Five pale, slender fingers were completely exposed to the warm yellow light, knuckles distinct, a very faint, old knife scar resting on the side of his ring finger.

With a sharp smack, he tossed the discarded glove onto the table, immediately pulling off the right one to join it. The two black leather gloves lay overlapping each other, looking like two skinned, disarmed little animals.

"Do gloves count as one item or two?" Alfred asked.

"A pair counts as one," Arthur gritted out. "By that same logic, your socks are also one item for the pair. Don't even think about finding a loophole."

"I didn't say a thing," Alfred raised both hands in a picture of innocence, though he couldn't quite suppress the smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Over the next few turns, the game devolved into a white-hot, grueling mud-wrestling match.

"History proves that anything can become a commodity. Even poison," Arthur glared icily at Alfred. "Using your greed to strangle your lifelines—I'm very familiar with this process."

He laid down Underground Network to rebuild his defense, immediately following it up with the extraordinarily vicious Opium Dump. This card launched a reverse-erosion attack directly on Alfred's economic system: the more the opponent spent, the harsher their maximum cost cap was penalized.

Alfred's response was capitalist maneuvering. He threw down two mid-cost combo cards back-to-back: Silicon Valley Algorithm paired with Federal Reserve. The former violently spiked the damage of his next attack, while the latter essentially turned on a rogue money-printer, regenerating health like crazy every turn.

"You dump your poison, I print my dollar bills," Alfred pushed up his glasses. "In the face of absolute credit hegemony, no matter how tight you pull that noose, you can't cut off my blood supply."

Their governing philosophies were vividly laid bare on this dark green velvet table. Arthur's District 44 deck was an ancient, venomous spiderweb—every silk thread practically invisible, but woven together, they suffocated the prey before they even realized it. Alfred's District 1 deck, on the other hand, was a heavy V8 engine built on cost and special mechanics; it was a gas guzzler, but once it roared to life, it was absolute physical decimation.

Turn ten. The turning point arrived without warning.

Using the synergy effect of Underground Network, Arthur triggered the hidden The London Eye intelligence web. This effect allowed him to briefly peek at the highest-cost card in Alfred's hand.

The instant his eyes registered the card, Arthur's pupils dilated to pinpricks. Although he used his ironclad mafia discipline to shove the shock back behind a cold poker face in a tenth of a second, that imperceptible shudder didn't escape the falcon-like eyes watching him from across the table.

"See something you like?"

"Just your turn to strip." Arthur suppressed the surge of adrenaline and slammed his long-awaited killing move—East India Expedition—down onto the table. The card itself only cost 60, but its damage multiplier scaled based on the number of active effects on the board. He had already laid three hidden cards. The triple-factor plunder damage erupted, representing the greediest oceanic fleets of the British Empire's past, crashing through the second threshold of Alfred's health.

Alfred glanced down at his numbers, which had just plunged below the line, and raised an eyebrow. With nonchalant ease, he unzipped his Supreme hoodie, revealing a tight-fitting, ribbed white tank top underneath. He peeled the hoodie off and tossed it casually over the velvet chair.

Deprived of the baggy outer layer, his physique—a sculpture of perfection—was laid bare under the warm light. Those full deltoids, the taut, pulsing biceps, and the firm pectoral muscles faintly visible through the white fabric radiated an aggressively masculine pheromone.

Arthur's hand, holding his tea, faltered. His gaze seared against those solid arms for a split second before he forced it away.

Bloody Yank. He cursed under his breath.

The hidden trump card he'd caught a glimpse of earlier hadn't kept him waiting long. On turn twelve, Alfred's long fingers pinched his ultimate killing move—the Manhattan Project, costing a staggering 400 points—and let it flutter softly into the dark green velvet pool.

Even with the industrial discounts, it remained the most expensive, most unreasonable nuke-tier weapon in District 1's arsenal.

The grey-black mushroom cloud on the card art looked ready to detonate right there on the table. Its mechanics were tyrannical: it dealt true percentage damage based on the gap in total cost consumed by both players and forced the field into a "Nuclear Winter"—for the next two turns, all active effects on the board were frozen solid.

In one strike, the spiderweb Arthur had painstakingly woven was torn to shreds. Underground Network collapsed, Colonial Trade Route shattered, and even the toxins of his Opium Dump were choked into silence.

Though District 1's early-game profligacy had narrowed the cost gap, the aftershocks of that mushroom cloud were more than enough to smash through Arthur's strip threshold.

"Physical annihilation is always the simplest, most efficient truth." The arrogance and coldness of a superpower flickering behind his lenses. "Now, the slate is clean."

Arthur slapped his hand of cards onto the table. He stared at that mushroom cloud for a full three seconds, his lips pressed into a sharp, thin line that had all but disappeared.

Then, without a word, he bent down to undo the laces of his heavy Doc Martens. The movement wasn't composed; it was pure, vicious pragmatism—the "strip fast so I can skin you alive" kind of ruthlessness. He kicked the heavy black boots into the shadows under the table and stood barefoot on the cool walnut floor.

"Nuclear Winter lasts two turns. You think you can afford to stall?" Arthur grabbed his hand of cards again, his emerald eyes burning with the excitement of being provoked. "Your resource pool is under nine hundred. With your ultimate move gone, what are you going to play on my turf to last the distance?"

"Who told you I wanted a long game?" Alfred remained relaxed, sinking deeper into his chair. The cabin light caught his lenses, flashing over blue eyes that were as frigid as the Atlantic in January.

The moment the Nuclear Winter ended, the gunpowder in the air detonated. On the first turn, Arthur whipped out Black Plague. The area-of-effect corruption card, heavy with the despair of the Middle Ages, would trigger its explosive settlement in three turns.

Alfred's counter was a masterclass in high-tech strangulation: the lightweight Drone Swarm paired with the buff card Precision Strike. The two-card synergy utilized a dirt-cheap 280 cost to unleash a rain of doubled damage.

Damage overflow. Arthur's health bar was ruthlessly pierced for the next threshold.

Arthur sat in the wide leather chair, staring down at his chips. Gloves gone, boots gone. Four items remained: his graphic tee, tight leather pants, underwear, and the black riveted choker—the symbol of his dignity as the Lord of District 44—locked around his neck.

What to strip?

The choker was absolutely off-limits. It was his armor, his fangs; removing it on anyone else's territory would be, to Arthur Kirkland, no different than raising a white flag of surrender. As for the leather pants...

T-shirt or pants? His hand brushed the hem of his shirt—the hesitation lasted less than a second before he gripped the collar and yanked the entire thing over his head.

The fabric slid over his torso, and the light instantly flooded his vast, exposed skin. Compared to Alfred's healthy, honey-toned skin, Arthur's body was starkly, ghost-like pale. It made every metal accessory on him look even sharper and more jarring—the two silver studs on his collarbone flickered slightly with every rise and fall of his breath; a thin silver bar pierced each of his pale-pink nipples; and a silver sphere sat in the center of his flat stomach, the skin around it still sporting a faint, healing-stage flush.

"..."

Alfred's hand, reaching for his glasses, froze in mid-air. The gaze lingered so long even Arthur couldn't ignore it.

The young lord balled up the discarded T-shirt and tossed it onto the empty chair. He crossed his legs and hugged his arms to his chest, a defensive posture that inadvertently framed the silver barbells piercing his chest perfectly. The pressure of his arms caused the soft flesh to mound slightly, making the outline of the metal rings increasingly distinct in the light.

"Seen enough? Make your move!"

The next three turns were spent burning resources at a dizzying pace.

Arthur's Black Plague finally reached its trigger point on turn eighteen. The medieval poison, combined with the razor-sharp, low-cost combos, shredded a massive chunk of Alfred's health, pinning his numbers to the next threshold.

Alfred glanced at his emptied health bar, bent down, and efficiently peeled off his white cotton socks.

"That's your third item?" Arthur frowned with intense dissatisfaction. He couldn't quite tell if his anger stemmed from the "why did this bastard strip the least sexy part" or simply "why is this bastard wearing so many layers."

"Socks are an accessory, obviously." Alfred tossed the rolled-up balls of cotton next to his sneakers and stood barefoot on the cool floor. He looked up, flashing a wicked, innocent smile. "Don't forget—fashion statement. You made the rules, Artie."

Arthur was left speechless, grinding his back teeth to swallow the urge to flip the table.

The game wasn't over, but his resource pool was scraping bottom. By turn twenty, the cumulative cost for both sides neared the thousand mark. Arthur's used resources hovered around 970, while Alfred's sat at 1030—the battle was a muddy stalemate. Arthur's active effect system was running, but its efficiency was gutted. Alfred, meanwhile, though his economic engine was battered by Opium Dump and  Black Plague, still possessed that permanent discount from Industrial Standardization, providing a terrifying dividend of low-cost surplus.

In the deadlock, Alfred struck. With a flick of his finger, a blunt, brutal Cruise Missile tore through the table's peace. The expensive precision strike not only dismantled Arthur's defense but shattered his last buffer of health.

Arthur slowly laid his remaining hand of cards face-down on the velvet.

He looked down at himself. His torso was bare, the black riveted choker still locked tight. His lower half was encased in leather pants as tight as a second skin, stretching from his narrow, taut waist down to his ankles.

He had to shed one.

The choker—absolutely not.

The leather pants—

Arthur's fingers stiffened against the waistband. His thumb hooked over the edge of the cold metal button, but he couldn't bring himself to press down. The pants were tailored to be agonizingly tight, worn over underwear that was barely a scrap of fabric. At this distance, in the dim, golden light, under the tangible, hungry weight of that blue-eyed stare... taking them off would be no different from spreading his legs for him.

"Or," Alfred's voice resonated at exactly that moment, low and languid, "you could choose not to strip."

Arthur snapped his head up.

Across the table, Alfred's blue eyes, framed by his glasses, were fixed on Arthur's fingers and that metal button—reminiscent of a predator who had calculated the trajectory of the kill, only to choose a different game at the final second.

"Though the rules say you must discard a wearable item once you hit the threshold," Alfred's long fingers interlaced on the table, the curve of his smile rising, dangerous and slow, "it never said you couldn't 'put on' something new to offset it."

"What are you playing at now?" Arthur narrowed his eyes, wary.

"Hahahaha, relax, Artie. Just think of it as an exclusive Hero-specialized promotion for you!" Alfred pulled something from a plain paper bag he'd kept beside his chair—god knows when he'd put it there—and slid it across the table.

The light caught the object in his hand: a small box, no bigger than his palm, covered in deep-blue velvet. It looked like the kind of box used to present an engagement ring at a high-end jewelry store.

"Put on this 'equipment' I provided, and you can cancel out this penalty. Of course..." Alfred tapped the lid, and the spring-loaded lock clicked open.

"The choice is yours."

The moment the light caught the contents of the box, a shard of brilliant blue erupted, as if someone had sliced off the deepest, darkest stretch of the Atlantic and locked it onto the velvet lining. A round-cut sapphire was set on a curved barbell, connected to the fixed ball by an incredibly delicate claw setting—the craftsmanship was so refined that, in the dim, warm light, you could practically see the polished grooves on the metal prongs.

Arthur frowned, staring at the gem. "What is this? It's not an earring—too big, wrong shape."

"Belly ring," Alfred said, as casually as if he were saying, That's a fry.

The cabin was so silent that you could hear the faint, muffled melody of someone from District 1 singing an off-key rendition of Sweet Home Alabama on the deck above.

Arthur's gaze shifted from the sapphire in the box to Alfred's face, back to the sapphire, and finally back to the smile that had been calculated to every last arc behind those lenses.

"...You."

A tide of burning, shameful crimson exploded across Arthur's ears, visible to the naked eye. It burned through his lobes, and even the pale skin around the base of his silver earring flushed a heated, vivid pink.

He stared at that sapphire navel piercing. In his mind, he cycled through at least seven different response scenarios, including throwing the box back at Alfred's face, flipping the table, and several options that involved severe physical harm to the American.

But his fingers remained frozen on the metal button of his leather pants.

Strip, or accept the "mark" that belonged to Alfred?

"Of course, you can keep stripping if you want." Alfred sank languidly into his chair, the straps of his plain white undershirt stretched taut by his bulging deltoids, sliding dangerously close to the edge of his muscles. He spread his hands in a "be my guest" gesture. That air of absolute, predatory confidence was enough to make anyone want to put a bullet in that handsome face.

"It's just pants, Artie. Just unzip them. It's not like I haven't—"

"Shut up!"

Arthur moved with the desperation of someone clawing for a final winning card. He gripped the titanium curved barbell; the sapphire refracted a cold, blue ray through his fingertips, slicing across the silver barbells piercing his bare chest. He lowered his head, his other hand brushing aside the silver navel ring he'd been wearing—the piercing was mostly healed, though the skin around the hole was still thin and tender. He aligned the bar with the hole and pushed. As the bottom ball locked into place inside his navel, he hissed, catching his breath, before screwing the gem-set cap tight.

The entire process took less than ten seconds. The sapphire rested steadily above his navel. Compared to all the silver-toned piercings adorning his body, this sapphire was the only splash of color—a blue so piercingly vivid it felt like a flag planted in occupied territory.

Alfred's motion of pushing up his glasses faltered again. The focus of his blue irises traced from Arthur's taut jawline, carving a path down the enticing axis of his body: skimming the shimmer of the collarbone studs, the bars of the nipple piercings, and finally locking, with lethal intensity, onto that trembling sapphire.

"Beautiful." he murmured, more sincere than any flirtation. "It was always meant to be on you."

"Shut it!" Arthur's entire face was burning from his jaw to his hairline. "...Play your fucking cards!" He grabbed his hand, using the cards to hide half his face, but his ears—exposed to the light—were as red as two rubies fresh from the forge, the cartilage piercing trembling in tandem.

Alfred let out a short, sharp huff of air from his nose before the smile followed, the eyes behind his lenses crinkling into arcs of pure, unadulterated pleasure.

The game continued.

Arthur channeled his shame into a vicious, tactical intuition. On turn twenty-two, he backhanded a trump card onto the table: The Hundred Years' War.

It was the most infamous "meat grinder" in the District 44 deck. With a cost of only 90 points, it carried centuries of lingering resentment. Its damage increased in an arithmetic progression each turn: 30 on the first, 60 on the second... As long as Arthur could keep this momentum, the card would grind Alfred into literal fragments.

"Hear the greetings from Crecy and Agincourt." Arthur leaned on his temple, sneering as he layered on a Letter of Marque. "As long as you dare touch me, 30% of your firepower will rebound straight back to your port. Want to test it?"

Alfred watched his health bar being gnawed away, piece by piece, by the "Centuries-Old Grudge." Surprisingly, he didn't choose to dismantle it, just slapped down The Monroe Doctrine.

130 points of cost bought two turns of "Political Transformation"—during these turns, all damage he sustained was classified as non-physical "political wear and tear," triggering no penalty mechanisms whatsoever.

"Cheater!" Arthur spat.

"America for the Americans, Artie." Alfred's grin was full of roguish charm. "During this window, my clothes are legally protected. No one touches them."

Once the two-turn protection window expired, Alfred retaliated with a precision strike of economic warfare: Dot-com Bubble.

He forcibly layered a malicious premium over Arthur's low-cost cards, making every breath taken in District 44 exorbitantly expensive. Following that, he used Hollywood Sequel to replicate the massive critical damage from the previous round.

High frequency. Premium markup. Doubled impact. Arthur's health bar was ruthlessly smashed through the third threshold.

Collar. Leather pants. Navel piercing. He was backed to the edge of the cliff.

This time, he didn't hesitate long. Perhaps it was because the sapphire hanging from his navel gave him a "well, I've already been marked" sense of recklessness. He rose abruptly, his fingertips flicking the metal button. The sound of the zipper sliding down was agonizingly sharp in the quiet room.

The leather pants, tight as a second skin, were peeled away from his hips. Because of how closely they clung to his form, stripping them became a feat of physical labor. The leather hissed against his skin as it slid down from his hips to his thighs, then his calves. The skin revealed was as impossibly white as his upper body; his legs were long, straight, and slender, with faint, pale blue veins visible along the inner thighs.

He kicked the leather pants to the side, next to his Doc Martens.

He sat back down. Now, he was clad only in a pair of narrow-cut black briefs—a scrap of fabric so minimal that calling it "clothing" was an act of mercy. It felt less like a garment and more like an execution of Alfred's limit of restraint.

The black leather choker gripped his neck, the sapphire navel piercing swayed against his abdomen, and his entire body glinted with cold, silver piercings. In the dim light, save for the metal and the gemstone, he was virtually naked.

Alfred picked up his sparkling water, his hand trembling, just for a fraction of a second. The sound of ice clinking against glass was the only mourning cry in the dead-silent card room.

"Continue," he said low, his eyes impossibly dark. "Hero hasn't gotten his final reward yet."

"Heh! Gladly!" Arthur bluffed, acting as if he weren't the one practically stripped bare.

Between turns twenty-six and twenty-eight, the table devolved into a frantic arms race. The escalating damage from The Hundred Years' War had climbed to a terrifying 150 points per turn. That lingering, centuries-old sensation of being skinned alive was shaving away Alfred's lifeline, inch by agonizing inch.

Finally, on turn twenty-seven, the line representing the "strip" threshold was violently shattered. Alfred showed no coy hesitation. He grabbed the hem of his white tank top with one hand and yanked it over his head—the moment the fabric fell away, the light poured like water over his honey-toned torso.

Unlike Arthur's cold, hard aesthetic—armed with metal piercings—Alfred's body was primitive and explosive, his well-honed abs like meticulously carved rock.

One was a sharp, ice-cold metal weapon; the other was a beast, bare-fisted, capable of crushing the air with a single breath.

The current state of the game: Arthur had only his choker and briefs left; Alfred had his jeans, boxers, and glasses.

On turn twenty-nine, Arthur's Hundred Years' War finally accumulated enough damage to push Alfred's life force past the next threshold. Alfred stood up with almost no hesitation, unfastening his jeans and letting them drop to his ankles before kicking them aside. He stood there in dark grey cotton boxer briefs, his thigh muscles taut—he looked like a contender ready to step into a boxing ring, only holding playing cards instead of gloves. When he sat back down, he even winked at Arthur.

Arthur gripped his cards tightly, his gaze scorching against Alfred's hormone-drenched thighs for a second before he jerked his eyes back to the card face, as if burned by an electric shock.

Then, the catastrophe arrived on turn thirty.

Alfred's fingertips traced a light arc across the velvet, throwing down a flamboyant combo: Super Bowl Halftime Show.

In an instant, the card room seemed to explode under the glare of thousand-watt spotlights. This card forced a status effect called "National Broadcast" upon the board. It stripped Arthur of all his rights to hide or evade, focusing every spotlight and every camera directly onto the struggling Lord of District 44.

Immediately following, Alfred revealed the true guillotine—Antitrust Act. Enhanced by the "Super Bowl" multiplier, this legal blade, originally designed to break up monopolies, transformed into a bloody liquidation.

"Your Hundred Years' War went on too long, Artie. In my logic, any move that attempts to occupy market share long-term and monopolize damage output must be violently dismantled—and then, returned in full."

The cumulative damage Arthur had spent ten turns managing and stacking—totaling over a thousand points—was ripped out by the roots by the Act. It transformed into a terrifying boomerang, doubled in force, and smashed right back into his own chest!

His health bar collapsed like an avalanche; the strip threshold was instantly breached. Worse still, due to the massive damage overflow, he was now within a hair's breadth of losing every chip he had left.

Arthur stared at the numbers on the field—shock, rage, and unwillingness, all eventually settling into a strange, defiant kind of tragic grandeur. He stood up, hands hooking the sides of the waistband of his narrow black briefs, and took a deep breath.

Alfred watched the motion, chin propped on his hand, posture languid, looking every bit the man enjoying a front-row seat to the best show on the sea.

The fabric slipped down, sliding away over those long, slender legs.

Arthur stood completely naked beside the dark green velvet table, wearing nothing but the black riveted choker around his neck and the sapphire navel piercing that caught the light—along with the silver studs and nipple rings he couldn't remove. The light from the brass lamp overhead washed over his body, tracing every line: the hollow of his collarbone, the silver bars across his chest, the faint, shallow indentations of his abdominal muscles, the cold blue gleam of the sapphire, and, lower down, the exposed vulnerability of his groin and those long, pale legs.

He sat back down, crossed his legs, and rested his arm on the armrest with a posture that could only be described as throne-like, chin tilted up as he stared across the table.

"I'm surprised. You'd rather drop your briefs than take off that choker." Alfred's glasses flashed in the light. His gaze took a slow, deliberate journey starting from the choker and tracing all the way down. After the tour, he adjusted his glasses; the blue eyes behind the lenses were at least two shades deeper than usual.

Arthur lifted his chin higher. The luster of the rivets and gems on his bare skin shimmered with the movement. He looked nothing like a man who had just lost everything in a card game—he looked like a tyrant refusing to shed his crown even while sitting amidst the ruins.

"Rock and roll never dies!" he spat the words out with sonorous finality.

Alfred froze for a moment, staring at him for a long beat before bursting into a hearty, booming laugh. "Hahahaha! True that. Which is why, for such a persistent rock star, I've decided to offer a little encore—something deeper and more deserved!"

"I return that sentiment to you, verbatim!" Even stark naked, the cold, vicious aura of the District 44 lord hadn't dimmed in the slightest.

The madness of his back-to-the-wall desperation turned him into a pure gambler. His fingers flicked, and two cards bearing the District 44 rose crest cut through the air in sharp arcs—Rule Britannia stacked with MI6 Infiltration. It had turned into a cross-century, dimension-shattering strike. The former was the violent, lingering echo of an empire ruling the deep seas; the latter, a ghost of intelligence that saw all, ignoring every defense and nailing its ordnance directly into Alfred's life force.

Alfred's numbers plunged. He glanced at his panel, let out a playful chuckle, and reached up to remove his metal-rimmed glasses.

The moment those azure irises were exposed without the barrier of the lenses, Arthur cursed a filthily creative London string of obscenities in his head. Stripped of their camouflage, the clarity in Alfred's eyes had been replaced by a viscous, predatory darkness like deep-sea ice, a direct gaze that felt as though it were burning right through Arthur's pale skin.

Alfred folded his glasses and set them aside. He was down to his last pair of dark grey boxer briefs.

"Artie, your old debts are settled. Now it's my turn to rip up the treaty." The American's fingertip pressed down on his final high-cost hand—the most vicious card in his deck, perfectly fitting the rogue nature of District 1: The Nixon Shock.

Discounted by Industrial Standardization, the card cost only 170 resources, but it carried a borderline-lawless "Hegemony End" effect: unilaterally abolishing all contractual defenses on the board and converting the opponent's remaining resource points into flat, piercing physical damage at a fixed ratio.

"Rules? Those are for the weak to follow. When I don't want to play anymore, the gold standard and your dignity... they both get devalued~"

As the Washington portrait on the card shattered, the Magna Carta contract Arthur had painstakingly cultivated was shredded into waste paper. The resource points he'd been hoarding for a counter-attack surged back against him in an instant—a scorching lightning bolt that precisely pierced his final layer of health.

Arthur's fingers clenched the cards, then loosened, then clenched again. He sat there stark naked, the black riveted choker strangling his neck, the sapphire navel piercing rising and falling with his heavy, ragged breaths.

Though he had only a choker left, rock and roll never dies!!!

He used his cards to cover the lower half of his face. When his voice emerged from behind them, it was muffled and entirely devoid of his previous arrogance.

"Uh... is the activity still on."

Alfred's fingers stalled on the table.

"What did you say?"

"I said... is there any left?" The tips of Arthur's ears, the only parts not hidden by the cards, had turned the color of arterial blood pumped straight from the heart. "That... accessory of yours. Is there any more?"

Alfred's expression flicked through a micro-sequence of changes within three seconds—first a brief stall, then something flared at the back of his pupils.

"There is. Yes, there is."

He leaned over, fished something out of the nondescript paper bag by his chair, and held it out in his palm.

Arthur opened his eyes to see a fuzzy white sphere, roughly the size of a golf ball—a rabbit-tail design, the faux fur shimmering softly in the light. Connected to the base was a streamlined, black silicone tapered plug.

"WAAAAAAAH!!! YOU!!! YOU PERVERT!!!"

The volume of that shout was loud enough that had the soundproofing been any worse, someone on the deck would have heard. Arthur's entire face, neck, and the expanse above his collarbone burned a harrowing shade of magenta. The skin around his two silver collarbone studs looked as if the metal had conducted heat into his flesh. He sprang up from the chair, then sat back down, realizing that standing up naked would only make him look more pathetic. He curled into the chair, arms hugging his upper body, legs pulled tight together, like a cornered cat with its fur standing on end.

Alfred hooked a long index finger through the rabbit-tail plug, twirling it nimbly. He smiled, looking positively saintly.

"Don't want it? Then just be a good boy, take off the choker, and admit defeat, Artie~"

Arthur stared at that ball of white fluff for five full seconds. In those five seconds, a battle waged inside his head that was so intense he could practically hear the gears grinding—on one side, the dignity of a District 44 lord and the shame of a sane person sounding the retreat alarm; on the other, the stubbornness etched into his DNA, the tenacity that had carried him from the youngest son of the Kirkland house to the lord of District 44, the refusal to ever say "I yield" to anyone.

He abruptly let go of his body, green eyes blazing with fire.

"Give it to me!" He snatched the object from Alfred's hand. Simultaneously, Alfred shoved a tube of viscous, transparent water-based lubricant into his palm, not forgetting to add a devilish wink.

Arthur gripped the lube, gritting his teeth into silence. He took a deep breath, adjusted his posture, and turned slightly, back-facing Alfred. This subconscious attempt at modesty created a heartbreaking contrast with his previous bravado.

From Alfred's angle, Arthur's naked, pale spine arched in the warm brassy light—a beautiful, restrained curve, topped by the black riveted choker that still cinched his pride.

"If you dare laugh, I'll throw you off the deck and into the sea." Arthur warned, vicious as ever.

"I promise I'll even hold my breath."

Arthur bit his lower lip and twisted off the cap with one hand. In the quiet cabin, aside from the white noise of waves against the hull, there was the distinct, wet sound of viscous liquid being squeezed onto his fingertips.

He reached behind him. The cool, transparent fluid followed his two fingers, roughly and hurriedly smeared against the tight entrance. The sudden temperature difference and the foreign sensation made him gasp uncontrollably: "Sssss...."

To make room for the not-so-small silicone plug, he had to swallow his shame and begin to stretch. The wet, crimson-inducing sounds of slick friction echoed beside the dark-green velvet table—squelch, squelch—a faint, rhythmic sound clawing through the quiet room.

Arthur's breath grew ragged, his chest heaving. The silver nipple studs flickered with the rhythm of his breathing. "Haah... mmn..." He bit his lip hard, but couldn't help but let a nasal whimper escape through his teeth.

Feeling ready, he picked up the black silicone cone. The streamlined tip pressed against the opening, now softened and slick. He closed his eyes, his long eyelashes fluttering violently, his waist dipping slightly as he exhaled, swallowing the foreign object inch by agonizing inch.

The sensation of the plug stretching the walls of his gut forced a stifled moan from him, the sound trapped deep in his throat, only to emerge as a cloyingly sweet, raspy pant: "Ugh... haah... damn it..."

As the final, thickest part of the base slipped completely inside, the fluffy rabbit tail pressed snugly against his crotch. The soft faux fur swept against the sensitive skin of his inner thighs, an itch that was maddeningly unbearable.

He maintained the position for a few seconds, his shoulder blades tight as wires, before finally relaxing into a long, damp, shuddering exhale. When he turned back to face Alfred, his entire body was a ripe, flushed crimson, from his hairline down to his chest. Because of the extra appendage, he couldn't sit as firmly as before, and had to adjust the angle of his pelvis, propping up some of his weight.

The slightly awkward posture caused his waistline to arch forward, thrusting the piercingly bright sapphire on his navel and the silver bars on his chest toward the table without reserve. The moment he settled onto the chair, the upward pressure of the seat wedged the rabbit tail and the silicone base deeper inside him—

"Nnnh!" He immediately bit down on his lower lip, a veil of physiological mist blurring his green eyes.

"Again!!!" He grabbed the cards scattered on the table. They slicked in his sweat-dampened palms, but he gripped them tight. He glared toward Alfred, though he took great care to avoid making eye contact. "I refuse to believe I can't strip you naked today!"

Alfred pressed his lips together and covered the lower half of his face with his hand, his shoulders trembling almost imperceptibly. He was clearly struggling immensely to suppress his laughter.

After all, if he laughed too hard, given Arthur's temperament, the table would definitely end up flipped and someone would end up beaten.

He took about three seconds to recalibrate his facial management system back to the "Reliable Opponent" preset. He dropped his hand, revealing a calm smile that retained only a microscopic arc at the corners of his mouth. "Alright. Come on then, Lord Kirkland."

Then, he played his card.

The next three turns were the most brutal defensive struggle Arthur had experienced in this game. Alfred seemed to have timed it perfectly, spreading out his entire accumulated defensive arsenal—Pentagon Firewall, Homeland Security Protocol, and the 2nd Amendment.

The three cards were played in succession over two turns, constructing a three-layered defensive matrix that was virtually impenetrable. But what truly made Arthur want to flip the table was the hidden synergy: when three or more District 1 defensive cards were active, it triggered the Iron Dome passive—50% of all incoming damage to District 1 would be reflected back to the attacker.

Half of the damage from the English Channel Storm Arthur played on turn thirty-three rebounded straight back into his own health bar.

As the damage numbers ticked down on his side of the gauge, his lips parted. He uttered a string of profanities that would have made the lowest-level thugs in a District 44 underground pub blush, then slammed his cards onto the table with a heavy, forceful thwack.

"You had this defensive combo saved from the very beginning, didn't you?"

"I wouldn't say saved from the start," Alfred said, one hand on the table, the other propping up his chin as he watched him. "It just so happened that my hand was lucky enough to pull them."

"Can you stop smiling while you're fucking lying?"

The reflection effect of the Iron Dome persisted. Every time Arthur played an attack card, half the damage flew back to bite him. He was trapped in a death spiral of diminishing returns: if he didn't attack, he couldn't push the game, but if he did, he took half the damage himself. All the while, Alfred hid behind his three layers of defense, occasionally tossing out a low-cost harassment card to steadily gnaw away at Arthur's remaining health.

By the end of turn thirty-five, Arthur's health was bottoming out again.

He put down his hand in frustration.

The choker was on his neck. The sapphire belly ring was in his navel. The rabbit tail was behind him. Everything else—was gone. His hand hovered over the choker, then pulled away. If he took that off, he'd be out of the game tonight.

Which meant he would have lost to Alfred.

"......"

"Give it up, honey~ It's not shameful to lose to me."

Arthur didn't look at him. His gaze was pinned to his hand of cards, his lower lip trapped between his teeth, pinching the silver ball of his lip piercing until it skewed to the side. His brows were knit into an angle so tight a mosquito could have been crushed in the fold. In the silence, his brain operated at overclocked speeds for five full seconds to evaluate every possible option. Finally, he spoke.

"Is there any more."

His voice was tiny, barely audible over the sound of the waves slapping against the hull, but at this distance, Alfred heard every syllable with crystal clarity.

Alfred's hand reached toward the paper bag by the chair again.

Just how deep was that bag? How much stuff did he have in there? Arthur begged the question in a moment of despair, but the answer revealed itself the moment Alfred withdrew his hand.

He pulled out a pink satin-wrapped, arched headband. Two long rabbit ears stood tall on either side, lined with pale pink velvet and covered in white faux fur on the outside. They were about twenty centimeters tall, the tips slightly curved inward thanks to internal wire shaping. The entire thing clearly formed a set with the rabbit-tail plug still wedged behind Arthur.

Arthur opened his mouth to say something, but realized his vocal cords refused to cooperate with any known linguistic system. He closed his mouth, opened it again, and finally let out a composite vowel sound somewhere between a shriek and a moan.

"How about this?" Alfred twirled the rabbit-ear headband around his index finger.

Arthur was steaming with heat, his entire body flushed, yet he reached out, gritting his teeth to take it.

As luck would have it, Alfred pulled his hand back an inch.

"But there are conditions, though~" he said with infuriating nonchalance. "You've already used the props twice. You can't enjoy the 'New User Discount' anymore!"

The damn typical capitalist new-user trap!

Arthur's hand hung in mid-air, fingers still splayed in the gesture of reaching, the emotions in his green eyes switching between bloodlust and humiliation so fast it was practically flickering.

"Say it." He squeezed the words out through his teeth.

Alfred tapped his own thigh—palm down against his bare skin, emitting two soft, fleshy thuds.

"I want you to sit over here and finish the game."

The air in the cabin congealed.

Arthur looked at the hand resting on the thigh, then at himself—stark naked, wearing only a choker, navel piercing, and the rabbit tail—and then at the cards still left to play.

He finally released his lower lip, the piercing snapping back into place. He pressed his lips into a razor-thin line, stood up, and walked over to Alfred.

It was only five steps, but to Arthur, it felt like an eternity. As he walked, the white rabbit-tail puff behind him swayed with his stride, and the internal plug brushed against a sensitive spot, forcing him to grit his teeth to hold back a gasp. His hands were held in front of him, desperate to shield his half-erect state.

He snatched the headband from Alfred's hand, slammed it onto his head without a shred of gentleness. Two white, fluffy rabbit ears stood straight up from his messy blonde hair, and he turned to sit down, eyes narrowed in murderous fury.

The moment he settled onto Alfred's lap, his spine—from tailbone to cervical vertebrae—snapped taut. The heat from Alfred's thighs was absurdly intense through the thin cotton of his boxers, hard and scorching, like sitting on a rock that had baked in the sun all day. His own bare lower back and buttocks shivered uncontrollably upon contact. The tremors traveled from the point of contact to his shoulders, all the way to the tips of his rabbit ears, causing them to quiver in unison.

Alfred's arm reached around to hook over the edge of the table. He didn't touch him—not yet—but the presence of the limb acted as a semi-closed fence, compressing the space and making the reality of "I am sitting on another man" impossible to ignore.

"The cards are still on the table. Want me to get them for you?" Alfred's voice came from behind him, his breath grazing the strip of skin above his choker—warm, smelling of lemon sparkling water.

"I don't need your help to get anything," Arthur said. He leaned forward to reach for the cards, his naked weight crushing against Alfred's tensed thighs. As his center of gravity shifted forward, the thick silicone cone inside him inevitably changed its angle, grazing the most agonizingly sensitive spot on his gut wall with lethal precision.

"Ugh... mnn-ahhh......"

At the same time, the rabbit tail pressed hard against Alfred's solid abdominals, and the sapphire navel piercing grazed the surface of Alfred's thigh. The cold metal contact made him hiss. He straightened up quickly, hands scrambling to organize his cards. He took a sharp breath. "Play."

Turn thirty-six began.

Arthur immediately realized a serious problem: this position made it impossible to concentrate. The heat from Alfred's body surrounded him in a complete circle—from his back to his hips, to the backs of his thighs. He could feel the rhythm of Alfred's breathing transmitted through his chest, incredibly slow yet impossible to ignore. He could feel the expansion of his ribcage against his own shoulder blades, the warm air brushing against his neck. And worse—in the space between his legs—he could feel the gun Alfred was packing, pressing firmly against his own heat through the thin cotton.

He forced his focus back to the cards and played a Gentleman's Agreement. It was a clever strategy card that converted all attack cards into healing effects for one turn—a forced ceasefire and a double-heal—he needed this turn to reorganize his hand and find a way to crack the Iron Dome.

After the card's effect settled, Alfred shifted his thigh.

Just once. A tiny movement, barely enough to adjust his posture, but to Arthur—stark naked, sitting on his lap with a foreign object lodged inside—the effect was equivalent to a minor earthquake. The silicone cone shifted slightly within him, pressing into a corner that made his scalp prickle.

"Nnnh—" A sharp nasal sound escaped Arthur's throat, one he couldn't swallow back in time. His fingers tightened on his cards, creasing the edges. The very second the sound left his lips, he whipped his head back to glare at Alfred, his green eyes already glazing over with a veil of physiological mist.

"You fucking—"

"Had to adjust, my leg was falling asleep," Alfred's expression was as innocent as a painted angel in a cathedral, his blue eyes wide, not a single lash fluttering.

"Adjust your—just focus on the damn game!"

"Yes, sir."

Turn thirty-seven. Alfred played Liberty's Torch, a mid-cost attack card. Arthur blocked it with his final defensive card, the Windsor Shield, but the moment he played it, Alfred shifted his thigh again.

The movement was at least twice as pronounced as before.

"Ah—" Arthur's back slammed against Alfred's chest, his shoulder blades grinding against that source of heat, while the defensive card in his hand landed askew, nearly missing the designated slot.

What made him want to collapse even more than the foreign object inside him was the undeniable temperature between their legs. The thin cotton of the boxers had reached its physical limit; the throbbing, searing-hot length of the American was pressed seamlessly against the cleft of Arthur's buttocks. Through the pathetic, thin layer of fabric, Arthur could feel the frantic, pulsing beat of the veins and the blistering heat radiating from within.

He hated to admit it, but he was starving for it. The head below was screaming: Stop playing this stupid game! Now! Immediately! Fuck Alfred! But the head above—Rock and roll never dies!!!—remained firmly in command.

With every wicked "shift" of Alfred's thigh, that exaggerated outline not only pressed heavily against Arthur's perineum but grazed against Arthur's own half-erect tip. In the split second Arthur lowered his lids, his peripheral vision caught a desperate sight: the front of Alfred's boxers had been pushed out into an aggressively prominent shape, even dampening into a dark, flush-inducing patch of moisture.

"Mmh... you... you're doing this on purpose." Arthur trembled, though whether from rage or something far more primal, he couldn't say.

"I am not! Do you have any idea how much heavier you are than you look?" Alfred's arm finally pulled back from the table edge, resting naturally against Arthur's waist. The heat of his five fingers hovered about a centimeter away from the sensitive skin of his hip-dip—a touch that was almost there, yet not quite. "Your muscle density is no joke."

"I'd be more inclined to kill you if you didn't talk to me like a fitness coach."

"Fine, fine. Game on."

Turn thirty-eight. In a half-gasping state, Arthur unleashed a combo he hadn't even realized he was capable of organizing under such duress—Mayflower Mutiny paired with the Boston Tea Party. The former caused all District 1-tagged cards on the field to defect to a neutral state for one turn; the latter destroyed all neutral cards on the field, dealing fixed damage for every card destroyed.

The genius of this combo was using District 1's own history against them—bribing them first, then purging them. With the Pentagon Firewall and Homeland Security Protocol neutralized and then obliterated, the Iron Dome passive failed for lack of defensive cards, and the three-layer matrix crumbled in a single blow.

The damage from the Boston Tea Party smashed through Alfred's final strip threshold.

When Arthur slammed the last card down, his entire body was shaking—partly from the post-combat adrenaline crash, partly from the muscle fatigue of keeping his core braced on another man's lap, and partly because—every time he breathed, the thing behind him shifted, brushing against his nerve endings like someone tracing circles with a feather.

Fine beads of sweat clung to his forehead, sand-gold strands of hair plastered to his temples. The rabbit-ear headband had slipped slightly, leaving one ear crooked, and a sheen of sweat glistened on the skin beneath his choker.

Arthur was so consumed by mental calculations and stifling his moans that he didn't realize how completely his body had surrendered. His bare tip had long since hardened through rounds of relentless friction and torment, leaking a long, lewd trail of transparent fluid that dripped, drip by drip, onto Alfred's dark grey boxers, making the fabric increasingly tacky. The moment the finishing combo landed, he convulsed uncontrollably, especially the muscles at the roots of his thighs.

"Strip!"

Alfred looked down at the last piece of grey cotton remaining on his body.

Then, he looked up at Arthur—stark naked save for the choker, the sapphire belly ring, the rabbit ears, and the rabbit tail—Arthur, damp with sweat and shaking, his green eyes still burning bright enough to sear, the man who was screaming "I have not lost" from head to toe, even though he had clearly lost by every conceivable metric.

He smiled, hooked his hands under Arthur's waist, and lifted him up half an inch. The space was just enough for his other hand to reach down, grip the waistband, and push it down. As the fabric slid over his thighs, Arthur felt it—the heat that had been separated by a thin layer of cotton suddenly vanished into skin-on-skin contact—Alfred pulled him back down.

Arthur froze from the tips of his rabbit ears to his bare toes. The presence of that weight beneath him, now stripped of its last barrier, was so intense it sent his brain into a temporary blue-screen error. Volume, temperature, hardness—the influx of sensory data overwhelmed his central nervous system, triggering a full-scale overload that lasted a solid two seconds.

"There," Alfred's lips brushed against the rim of his ear, his breath sweeping over the sensitive cartilage pierced by his earring. "All stripped. Game over."

Arthur's Adam's apple bobbed once. "...I won! Hah! You brat! You suck, go practice more!!"

"No way! I don't recognize this! Any way you look at it, the HERO had the advantage! This is a draw at best!"

Arthur puffed out his cheeks, but didn't argue, implicitly accepting the stalemate.

The thumb of the hand resting on his waist finally settled onto his skin. His fingertip hooked the cold sapphire on Arthur's navel. With a slow, deliberate pull, he dragged the piercing down, stretching the tender flesh into a dangerous, angry red line. Arthur sucked in a sharp breath; his inner muscles, triggered by the sudden pain and stimulation, clenched violently, swallowing the poor plug even deeper.

"Don't... mnh!" Before Arthur could curse, Alfred's other hand hooked around the black riveted choker at his neck. He tugged the rough leather back, not too hard, yet enough to hold him like prey in heat, forcing Arthur to tilt his vulnerable throat toward the American wolf's gaze.

The cards lay scattered across the table.

Outside on the deck, distant laughter and the clink of glasses drifted over, someone calling for "another round."

Inside the cabin, the light fell on the jumble of English reds and American blues, on the overturned teacup and the empty sparkling water glass, on the two abandoned decks—the District 44 rose crests and District 1 star-spangled blues overlapping one another.

A T-shirt lay on the empty chair across the table. Two figures were locked in a scorching kiss in the chairs on this side.

The moment the last barrier of fabric fell away, the line between them labeled "reason" collapsed entirely under the thunderous roar of their own heartbeats.

Alfred gave Arthur no chance to pull back or reorganize his thoughts. He tilted his head, one hand locking the back of Arthur's head, the other encircling that impossibly supple, narrow waist. He flipped the naked little rabbit in his arms and kissed him hard.

"Mmph...!" Arthur's gasp was swallowed entirely by those searing lips.

A tongue pried open his teeth, parted by his ragged breathing, and drove in, greedily sweeping through every inch of the mucosa in his mouth. The lingering bitterness of Darjeeling tea and the sweet, crisp tang of lemon sparkling water were crushed and fused together, transforming into a sound of wet, skin-crawling friction.

"Tsk... chuh... nnh-ha..."

The wet sounds of saliva being exchanged were amplified to infinity. Arthur was being kissed until he couldn't breathe, his green eyes rapidly clouding over with a physiological mist. Instinctively, he straddled Alfred's solid thighs, knees braced on the edge of the chair, both hands clutching Alfred's broad shoulders, his nails digging unconsciously into the muscle.

In the midst of this suffocating heat, Alfred's hand slid down Arthur's smooth, bare spine until it covered the white rabbit-tail puff.

Then, Arthur heard a faint, distinct friction—that "magic paper bag" of Alfred's, seemingly possessing its own fourth-dimensional space, had been opened once again.

"You... mph... what the hell else do you have in there..." Arthur managed to choke out in the gaps between their teeth.

"Hush... Hero's treasure chest, after all, has everything."

Alfred aimed the nozzle of the lube tube down toward the cleft of Arthur's buttocks. A thick, transparent gel surged from the tip with a wet gloop sound. The moment the cold sensation struck the burning skin around his entrance, Arthur's waist arched violently, his entire body surging forward into Alfred's chest. The thread of saliva between their lips stretched to its limit before snapping, landing on Alfred's chin.

"Nnnngh!" Arthur's waist arched upward violently.

Alfred kept squeezing the lubricant, using such an extravagant amount that it overflowed. The transparent gel trickled down the cleft of his buttocks with a faint, wet sound, seeping "sizzle—sizzle— into the edges of the anus—a rim already rendered soft and pliant by body heat and earlier friction. Then, his index and middle fingers probed in along the side of the silicone cone, rotating slowly through the narrow gap between the plug and the rectal wall, the fluid churning into wet, squelching "gloop-gloop" sounds.

"Don't... too full... mnn-ah..." Arthur rested his chin on Alfred's shoulder, panting in short, sharp bursts. The pink-and-white rabbit ears atop his head swayed wildly with the tremors of his body. Every time Alfred rotated that silicone cone, the streamlined tip grazed Arthur's prostate with lethal precision, forcing waves of pleasure to crash over him.

"You're leaking so much." Alfred tilted his head, his warm lips brushing against Arthur's earlobe—the one pierced by the silver stud—releasing a scorching breath. "In the front, too. You're soaked. Look, they're even sticking together."

Arthur looked down in despair. His gaze traveled over his flat abdomen and the cold, shimmering sapphire navel piercing, landing clearly on a sight that threatened to incinerate his last shred of reason—his own pale, rigid sex, leaking a trail of transparent pre-cum, was pressed flush against Alfred's monstrously thick, hard length. The fluids spilling between them stretched into delicate silver threads, leaving their two throbbing cocks in a wet, messy tangle.

A streak of reckless, "burn-it-all-down" madness surged through him. Arthur gritted his teeth and grabbed both their lengths in one hand.

"Sss..." This time, it was Alfred's turn to gasp.

Arthur's fingers were slender, but they couldn't even begin to contain the combined girth. He could only trap them at the base, and using the slick, viscous lubricant and their own secretions, he began to pump.

"Can't handle this much? So much for the head of District 1..." Arthur panted, his eyes rimmed with red, his taunts dripping with provocation, though his hand movements were anything but uncertain. The wet, rhythmic slapping echoed between their bellies. Every stroke sent a tremor through Alfred's cock, making it pulse and swell against Arthur's palm, burning hot enough to brand his skin.

Alfred's breathing grew ragged, utterly ruined. A violent, predatory desire churned in the depths of his deep-blue eyes. He slammed a heavy hand onto Arthur's waist, gripped the base of the rabbit-tail plug, and pulled—without a hint of hesitation.

Pop!

The silicone cone that had filled him was ripped out by the roots. The vacuum created by the internal walls clutching the object was shattered in an instant, and a massive gout of mixed lubricant and juices followed, dripping steadily from the rhythmic, opening-and-closing entrance.

"Ahhh..." The sudden, gaping emptiness made Arthur's neck snap back uncontrollably, his fingers clutching tight.

He was limp, his cheeks flushed so deep a crimson they looked as if they might bleed. Yet, he cooperated fully, parting his legs and kneeling on either side of the chair, hanging himself suspended above Alfred's waist. The rabbit ears on his head drooped slightly, and the sapphire on his navel glittered with every violent rise and fall of his chest. Looking so utterly saturated with desire, yet wearing an expression of sacrificial submission—it was enough to drive any man insane.

"Come in."

"Yes~ my lord."

Alfred steadied Arthur's narrow, graceful waist with both hands. His glans pressed against the entrance—now empty, void, and twitching with a thirst to be filled—and guided Arthur down, inch by agonizing inch.

"Ugh... so hot... too big..."

Arthur's fingers dug into Alfred's shoulders. Even after the thorough dilation with the plug, when Alfred's sheer, American-sized proportions truly forced their way into his gut, the stretching went far beyond the limit of what his fingers or the plug had achieved. It was a sensation of extreme fullness that felt as though he were being torn apart. He only managed to swallow a third of the length before his body locked up, rigid, his gluteal muscles spasming in a violent collision of terror and ecstasy.

"Relax, don't clench so hard... relax..." Seeing Arthur's lips turned white from the pain, Alfred's heart ached. He checked his force, refusing to push deeper. He pulled his hands from Arthur's waist and wrapped them around him, pulling him into his embrace. He lowered his head, pressing his scorching lips against Arthur's pale, naked chest. His tongue flicked over the delicate silver collarbone studs, then slid down, accurately capturing the already-hardened, pale-pink nipple of the left breast.

"Ah... mnn-ha... don't bite there..."

Alfred's teeth lightly worried the thin silver bar piercing the nipple, while his tongue wickedly traced circles over the sensitive areola.

As Arthur was forced to throw his head back, gasping under the pressure of the pleasure at his chest, Alfred straightened slightly and took Arthur's sensitive earlobe into his mouth. His teeth grazed the silver stud, his tongue delved into the cartilaginous folds, and his humid, feverish breath spilled into the hollow of Arthur's neck.

"Good boy... take a breath, yeah... just like that, eat me up..." Alfred murmured, his voice a low, seductive rasp, luring him in. One hand stroked and kneaded his earlobe, while the other moved to their point of union, fingers slick with lube gently parting the tight, straining flesh, soothing it to accept even more.

Under this all-encompassing, dual-layered pacification, Arthur's body finally began to melt. He buried his face in Alfred's neck, his arms locked tight around his throat, and tentatively, inch by inch, his waist began to sink.

"Splutch... gloop..." Accompanied by the lewd, viscous sounds that would make anyone blush, the entirety of that massive, thick length finally disappeared into Arthur's body.

"Ugh—!"

The moment he sat all the way down, the glans slammed against the deepest, most sensitive point. Arthur shuddered violently, as if electrocuted, his pink-and-white rabbit ears trembling dramatically. He was stretched to the point of bursting; he could even see the bulging contour of the foreign organ pressing against his lower abdomen. The terrifying pleasure of having his soul completely filled left his brain in a state of absolute, white-out emptiness.

"So tight... Arthur, it feels like you're trying to snap me in half inside there..."

After the initial waves of fullness settled, Arthur, tears clinging to his lashes, began to move instinctively, clutching Alfred's neck and rocking his hips.

"Nnh... haah... so deep..." He tried to lift himself a fraction, then slammed back down. At first, the movement was stiff and clumsy, but Alfred immediately clamped his hands onto his side-waists like iron vices, guiding him, assisting him, finding the perfect rhythm of ascent and descent.

The crisp sound of flesh striking flesh began to echo through the quiet cabin. Every time Arthur sat down, his soft gluteal flesh slammed hard against Alfred's solid thighs, leaving bright, eye-catching red marks. The point of their union was churned into a muddy, chaotic mess; the intestinal juices and lubricant mixed into white foam, bubbling incessantly at the entrance with every thrust. The squelch-squelch sounds were loud enough to drown out the waves outside.

"Nn-mnn! Ah! Ahh! Alfred..."

"Hng... Artie... mwah... mnn-ah... so good..."

This face-to-face riding position was Arthur's undoing. He didn't even need to look to know that Alfred's searing blue eyes were locked onto him, unblinking. They were stuck together, a sticky, inseparable mess. Alfred used the power of his thighs to meet him, driving himself into the deeper, darker places, while tilting his head back to chase Arthur's lips.

They exchanged kisses laced with salty sweat and sweet, cloying saliva. Arthur's tongue felt numb, his lips swollen and ravaged, leaving him no choice but to whimper as he bore the tsunami of pleasure. The sapphire on his navel, with every violent oscillation of his waist, rasped against Alfred's honey-toned abs, leaving faint, ambiguous red welts on the skin, only to be washed away by the cascading sweat.

After God knows how many rounds, the lord of District 44—accustomed to staying on top, accustomed to giving orders—finally hit his physical limit. His stamina was blinking red in the face of this ceaseless, violent depletion.

"Can't... haah... so tired... legs are so sore..."

Arthur collapsed forward, his upper body going completely limp against Alfred's broad shoulders. The muscles at the root of his thighs were twitching uncontrollably; his inner thighs were so soft and ache-ridden he couldn't even manage to grip the man's strong waist anymore. He panted his pleas into Alfred's ear, his green eyes swimming with moisture, the corners of his eyes flushed with a pitiable, frantic heat.

"I'll take it from here." Alfred sat rock-steady. His broad, scorching hands clamped onto Arthur's waist like iron pincers, and in one fluid motion, he hauled that soft, boneless pelvis upward.

Arthur was forced into a face-to-face, semi-suspended, humiliating posture, his entire body weight supported solely by the thick, rigid length plunged deep inside him.

"Ah! Don't—" Arthur grabbed the broad shoulders of the man before him, his rear-end instinctively clenching into a vicious, tight vice. The internal muscles latched onto the invading giant with such desperate, heated suction that Alfred was nearly forced to surrender his own composure.

Alfred gasped, and a primal, brute-force strength erupted from his core. He began a savage, tempestuous assault from the bottom up. Slap-slap-slap-slap-slap-slap! The relentless, unreserved thrusting created a density of sound that felt like pile-driving. The wicked angle allowed Alfred to strike that one devastating sensitive spot—the one that had Arthur's mind coming undone—with every upward lunge.

"Ahhhhhh! Too deep... Alfred... slower... you're gonna pierce me through... ahhh..." Arthur buried his face in Alfred's neck. His prostate was being pummeled with unprecedented brutality. Every impact felt like a high-voltage current shot from his tailbone straight to the crown of his head. He was being pounded so thoroughly he couldn't even cobble together a coherent sentence, reduced to broken screams and sobs in the wake of the pleasure.

At the very moment when it felt like his soul was being slammed right out of his body, Alfred's inherent, sadistic streak—his love for a good show—was thoroughly ignited.

Alfred kept driving into him, red-eyed, his gaze locked onto the pink-and-white rabbit ears flapping wildly above Arthur's head with every impact. Feeling the taut, flushed cheeks of Arthur's buttocks beneath his palms, a wicked thought took root—a perfect rabbit, he decided, absolutely could not be missing its tail.

Alfred freed one hand, groping for the lubricant-slicked rabbit-tail plug he'd discarded by the table. Just as Arthur's eyes glazed over and his consciousness began to fray, his only instinct to emit high-pitched "nngh-ahhh" sounds, Alfred deliberately pulled his length back until only the tip remained, leaving a dangerous, gaping crevice.

He gripped the thick silicone cone, forced his way past the red-swollen, pulsating flesh, and—following the path of the shaft—he rammed the plug straight into Arthur's body, forcing it in alongside his own.

"EEEEE—!!!" Arthur couldn't even manage a curse; he only felt his rectum being stretched to a dimension that defied human limits. His canal, already stuffed to capacity with a massive cock, was being forcefully invaded by a thick silicone plug. The terrifying sense of being physically torn apart, coupled with the nuclear-grade pleasure of both objects grinding against his prostate simultaneously, obliterated Arthur's last scrap of sanity.

"Ahhhhhh... no... it'll break... ahhh it's too full... my stomach's gonna burst... pull it out... help me..." Arthur's green eyes lost all focus, whites rolling upward as his pupils dilated wildly. His mouth hung open, tongue lolling unconsciously, silver threads of saliva trailing from his chin.

The sensation of being filled to the point of overflowing was madness—pure, unadulterated madness. Every wrinkle of his intestinal walls was being brutally smoothed out; his prostate was trapped in a meat-grinder between the meat and the silicone, and even the slightest breath he took sent cataclysmic surges of electricity through his nerves. He shook his head in despair, his rabbit ears flailing; the tail behind him was jammed into the same cramped entrance as Alfred's cock, and lewd, milky fluids wept from the point of union, creating a tableau that belonged only in the most obscene of wet dreams.

"Mmh, looks like you really like that tail, little rabbit. Mwah. Clenching so tight... then you're just gonna have to wear it forever."

Watching Arthur's lewd, glassy-eyed expression, his mouth agape and drool-streaked, Alfred's breathing completely disintegrated. He reached out and shoved down hard on the base of the fuzzy rabbit tail, forcing the silicone ball deep into the bowels of his gut.

"AH-HAH—!"

With Arthur's pitch-shifting scream, Alfred gripped those slick, rabbit-tailed cheeks and hoisted him up. With every step he took, the two thick objects ground violently against Arthur's internal walls, forcing him to convulse in mid-air, while his tip sprayed rhythmic, translucent jets of pleasure-slick across the table.

Alfred swung a heavy hand, and with a thunderous CRASH, he swept the teacups, the sparkling water, and the high-stakes cards of the two underworld empires off the table, slamming Arthur onto the broad, green velvet surface.

The moment Arthur's sweat-drenched back hit the cool velvet, his long legs were forcefully folded over Alfred's shoulders. With the change in position, the plug and his cock compressed even tighter, stretching the already-swollen entrance until it was translucent.

"Now, it's the Hero's settlement round." Alfred pressed down, beginning his final, frantic assault.

Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap! The force was terrifying. The dark green velvet was soaked through with sweat and juices. Every time he pulled out, the meat clung greedily to the cock and the silicone sphere, creating bone-chilling gloop sounds; every time he slammed back in, the head of his cock, followed by the base of the plug, pulverized the prostate into a soft pulp. The heavy table groaned and creaked in protest under the strain.

"Ahhh... Alfred... too fast... the plug... it's slamming in with you... ahhh I'm gonna go crazy... I can't take it... I'm gonna cum... ahhhhhh..."

Arthur's hands dug into the edge of the table, his legs twitching helplessly against Alfred's shoulders. His tip was bruised-purple, his abdomen a mess of fluid, his entire lower half spasming from the crushing pressure and overloaded ecstasy.

Facing the body he'd pushed to the brink of ruin, Alfred lowered his head, pressing scorching kisses to Arthur's sweat-drenched forehead, his bloodied lips, and licking away the tears at the corners of his eyes. Simultaneously, his free hand seized Arthur's member, which was hovering on the edge of explosion, and began to pump it in time with his thrusts.

"Mnn-ah... cum for me, give it all to me... mnn... let's cum together..."

Under the double-layered assault—and the grinding from the plug within—Arthur's last line of sanity detonated. When Alfred's glans and the silicone cone rubbed against that lethal sensitive point for the final time, and he slammed his heavy balls against Arthur's buttocks—

"AHHHHHHHHHHH—!!!"

A torrent of white, turbid fluid erupted from Arthur's tip like a fountain, splattering over his own pale abdomen, the glittering sapphire navel piercing, and Alfred's sculpted chest.

"Nnh—!"

Almost simultaneously, Alfred buried his cock into the deepest reach of Arthur's gut, pumping volley after volley of thick semen into his tight, seething walls. The white, viscous fluid mixed with the rabbit-tail plug, overflowing from the stretched opening and staining that hidden territory in his own image.

The aftershocks of the orgasm left them both temporarily hollowed out.

Arthur collapsed onto the table, his chest heaving, the rabbit ears on his head flopping down, defeated. His brain was blank, save for the involuntary sobs and gasps of a man thoroughly played out. Alfred pressed down on him, kissing the corner of his mouth, breathing heavily, sweat dripping from his golden hair onto Arthur's hollow-eyed face. They remained fused together, too exhausted to string a single word together.

All around them lay scattered cards; the room was heavy with the thick, cloying scent of hormones and semen.

And then, in that moment of intimacy where neither of them could muster the strength to move a finger—knock, knock, knock.

A polite, reserved tapping came from the door.

"Hey, Al, I heard you and the Lord of 44 were playing cards down here, so I figured I'd—"

"......I am so sorry I am so sorry I am so sorry I am so sorry!!!!"

The wooden door was slammed shut from the outside with such terrifying force it nearly shattered the frame.