The text message glowed on Yasuo's screen like a cursed omen. He uses fire.
Yasuo's hands shook so hard he almost dropped his phone into the sourdough starter. Beside him, Daisetsu was still asleep, his large, scarred body sprawled across the bed like a fallen king. Even in sleep, the Stoic Protector looked powerful, but Yasuo knew the truth. Daisetsu was a Wounded Soul, and the Superintendent—Ryuji's father—was a monster who didn't play games with recordings. He played with lives.
Yasuo crawled back into bed, trying not to wake the monster. But as soon as he tucked himself against Daisetsu's side, a massive, warm arm pulled him close.
"You're thinking too loud, Yasuo," Daisetsu rumbled, his voice thick with sleep and that sexy, gravelly rasp.
"Daisetsu... I got a message. From an unknown number," Yasuo whispered. "It said the Superintendent is coming. It said... he uses fire."
Daisetsu's eyes snapped open. The nonchalant sensei was gone. In his place was the Iron-Fist warrior. He sat up, his bare chest rippling in the moonlight. He took the phone, his face turning into a mask of stone.
"Tenshin," Daisetsu hissed. "He's the only one who would know the Superintendent's 'style.' If he's warning us, it means the threat is real."
Suddenly, the smell hit them. It wasn't the sweet smell of baking bread or the metallic scent of rain. It was acrid. Burning. Smoke began to curl under the crack of the bedroom door.
"GAS!" Daisetsu roared.
He didn't panic. He grabbed a wet towel from the basin and shoved it into Yasuo's hands. "Cover your face! We have to go, now!"
They burst out of the room. The hallway was a haze of orange and black. The back of the bakery—where the flour sacks were stored—was already a wall of flame. The Superintendent hadn't just sent a warning; he'd sent an executioner.
Daisetsu grabbed a heavy fire extinguisher, his muscles bulging as he blasted a path toward the stairs. "Go to the front, Yasuo! Get Grandma out!"
Yasuo ran, his lungs burning. He found Grandma Mayonaka in the hallway, looking surprisingly calm for a her in a burning building. He bundled her out the front door just as the windows shattered from the heat.
But Daisetsu was still inside.
"DAISETSU!" Yasuo screamed, trying to run back in.
Through the roaring flames, a shadow emerged. Daisetsu burst through the front door, his shirt half-burned, his skin covered in soot, carrying the heavy ledger of the bakery and Yasuo's favorite mixing bowl. He collapsed onto the sidewalk, coughing violently.
The fire department arrived minutes later, but the back half of Mayonaka's Sweets was a blackened shell.
Hours later, they were in a safe house—a small, hidden apartment Tenshin had provided. The adrenaline was fading, replaced by a raw, jagged edge of survival. Yasuo was sitting on the edge of a narrow bed, cleaning a burn on Daisetsu's shoulder.
"He tried to kill us," Yasuo sobbed, he finally breaking down. "He burned the bakery. Everything we worked for..."
Daisetsu turned around. He looked "Savage." He looked angry. He looked like he wanted to tear the world apart, but when he saw Yasuo's tears, he softened. He grabbed Yasuo's wrists, his strong grip and tight, and he patted his messy hair.
"He missed," Daisetsu whispered, his eyes burning hotter than the fire. "He tried to burn my home, but my home is right here."
He shoved the medical kit aside and crawled over Yasuo, pinning him to the mattress. The Physical Touch was at a breaking point. They had almost died, and that realization turned into a desperate, hungry "Savage Heat."
"I need to know you're alive," Daisetsu groaned, his mouth crashing onto Yasuo's.
This wasn't the "Passionate" love-making of the kitchen counter. This was "Extreme." This was a "Physical Payoff" for a night spent in hell. Daisetsu stripped off his scorched trousers, his hard, muscular body pressing Yasuo into the sheets.
He didn't use a condom; he didn't use lube. He used his spit and a frantic, Wounded Soul desperation. He entered Yasuo with a heavy, rhythmic force that made the headboard slam against the wall. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Yasuo's legs were hiked up over Daisetsu's broad shoulders, his heels digging into the Stoic Protector's back. He moaned loudly, his voice raw from the smoke, but he didn't want Daisetsu to stop. He wanted to feel every inch of the man, to know that the fire hadn't taken his heart.
Daisetsu's hands were everywhere—bruising Yasuo's hips, mapping the sweat-slicked skin of his chest. He bit Yasuo's neck, leaving a dark, purple mark that shouted to the world: MINE.
"Say it," Daisetsu panted, his thrusts becoming faster, more Savage. "Say he can't have us."
"He can't... have us!" Yasuo cried out, his body arching as the suprise moment hit him like a lightning strike.
Daisetsu followed a second later, his entire body shuddering as he poured everything—his anger, his fear, his love—into Yasuo. They lay there for a long time, the only sound their ragged breathing and the distant sirens of the city.
The bromance had been forged in fire. They weren't just a teacher and a baker anymore. They were two souls who had survived from a disaster.
As the sun began to rise over the smoking ruins of the city, a knock came at the door of the safe house.
Daisetsu stood up, pulling on a pair of clean sweats, his hand instinctively reaching for a heavy glass bottle as a weapon. He opened the door to find Tenshin standing there, looking unusually somber.
"The Superintendent just called a press conference," Tenshin said, holding up a tablet. "He's blaming the fire on 'faulty equipment' and 'negligent staff.' He's using this to shut down the district and build his new private academy."
Tenshin paused, looking at the marks on Yasuo's neck.
"But that's not the worst part. He's released your old police files, Daisetsu. The 'Iron-Fist' is on the front page of every paper. You're not a teacher anymore. You're a 'Violent Fugitive.'"