Boyfriend Privilege (Sam YU AU FF)

Alone to Bear

It was almost dark. Yu was sitting at the outdoor table Evan had placed right in the middle of the side lawn of the two storey house. Evan had his underlings handle the charcoal grill for them. It took more than an hour just to feed the fifteen men they had guarding the entire place. Yu was sipping on his green tea when Evan slid a plate of various grilled meats in front of him.

"Who the hell drinks tea during a barbeque?"

"Who the hell talks to their boss that way?"

"Who-"

Yu's forehead creased as he crossed his arms and leaned on his back. These two men had been bickering for as long as he could remember given that they originally came from different triads groups. It took Yu a long time and effort to make them work together in peace. "Stop. Just eat, will you?"

"I'm sorry, boss." They both said in unison. Evan opened up a can of cold beer and placed it in front of Yu.

"Just call me Yu, like you always do."

Evan pointed with a contorted face towards his underling, still in front of the charcoal grill. Yu understood. They called each other brothers but hierarchy was what made the clan lasted more than a hundred years. It was built on loyalty and respect. Calling Yu by his name in front of their more junior brothers would imply impertinence and lack of manner but Evan being Evan, he slipped his tongue more often than he realized.

Yu's eyes darted between the full table and the two men sitting in front of him.

"Enough. You and you, take everything and go eat them with the others." Yu instructed the two remaining men working the grill to leave.

"But, I'm not finished eating." Evan retorted in a rather hesitant tone, gripping tightly onto the edge of the paper plates in front of him.

"Okay, leave two plates."

"Three. Thank you, boss."

"You should eat too. Drink this." Richard opened up another can of beer for Yu.

"I ate enough, Richard. And why do you guys keep shoving me drinks. I'm good."

"You should make up all the meals you missed when- Aww!" Evan exclaimed, rubbing his head that had just been smacked by Richard.

"Have you stopped drinking?" Richard asked, hastily wanting to brush off the insensitive utterance made by Evan.

"Mm. No. I drink water and tea."

"I mean.."

"Hahah, I know. I can't say I've stopped but someone told me drinking is bad for me. So I've been trying to cut back. You guys should too."

"Oh." Richard ignored the foot that stepped on his, he slowly placed his beer on the table. He realized that by evading topics related to Sam would be needless, he doubt a second went by with Yu not thinking of the man. He had not the chance to know Sam but from what he could tell, the man was irreplaceable.

"Yu! Can I ask you something?" It was Evan's turn to mitigate the rather solemn situation after a brief period of silence.

"Why don't you have a tattoo? I mean, it's not like I was intending to look but you don't have one right? Most of us even have big ones on our back but you don't have even a small one." Evan asked, he was curious but he was not expecting an answer.

"Cause I won a bet." Yu answered as he took another sip of his tea.

"Huh?"

"And Oyabun lost, so I get to not have a tattoo." He slightly smiled as he recalled the trick he did to won the fencing match against the old man. It wasn't he fault that Oyabun didn't set the rules beforehand.

"You can do that?"

"Of course but I don't suggest you try it."

"Why?" Evan was persistant. He didn't know what for, he's just curious.

"Stop asking will you? The answer is obvious." Richard chimed in.

"What?"

"You have to be him."

"Oh."

Yu laughed. He didn't know how he was regarded by Oyabun but he considered him his father. Unlike his other 'brothers' who entered the clan out of their own will, Yu was brought up there. Oyabun did not have a son or a daughter so he spent a lot of his time to train Yu and teach him the way of the real world. Yu learnt but he didn't know how real the life outside could be. He grasped onto the dagger he had kept on his waist as his mind was harked back to the day of his accident. He remembered the pair of eyes he swa from his rear view mirror as a knife was held by his throat. The man forced him to crash onto the highway's dividers before jumping out of his speeding car, not before he warned him to make sure to die. That was Machida's second mistake. The first would be when he killed Oyabun. Machida wouldn't do that if he knew Yu was holding onto the files. He acted too rashly and too carelessly. Perhaps, the pain of Yu's stab through his stomach just a few months back maddened him to the point that he forgot about the files ever existed in the first place.

"And Boss, the files. Where did you hide it?"

"Shut up Evan." Richard scolded, hinted that Evan was taking things a bit too far. Asking that was like asking for Yu's life. He felt nauseous thinking that just by having information people would either bow to you or kill you to take it away from you.

"Somewhere safe."