Chapter Thirty Five

Two lines of tired men stood opposite each other, their skins glowing or shining with a glimmer of sweat, their shirts damp to various degrees.  But upon the one side, eyes were fresh with sweet tears of joy, while upon the other was a hint of bitterness despite the honourable mention of congratulations they voiced to the winners of the game.  It couldn't be helped.  From the beginning, as they had ran onto the neat, green field with its straight white, painted lines, they knew that only one side of those who played today would be victorious.  The others would leave this battle as losers and ever lament.

In the end, it had come down to just three points.

In the stands fans cheered, fans cried, but no matter their feelings, they could admit it had been an excellent game, exciting and not without trepidation right until the end.  So even those who'd seen their country lose were not completely dissatisfied.  Just disappointed.

But there were two men, at the very least, who had no sense of loss.  For them, there was still a sense of victory.

The head coach slapped his men upon their backs, pleased with their efforts and gameplay, even as he was frustrated that they had not grasped victory in the end.  Their opponent's strength and unity was just that much better than their own at the end of the day.  He ushered them to the showers after offering some words of consolation and encouragement.  This season might be over, this chance was gone, but there would be more in the future.

"You did well," he said to the tall man currently beside him.

"Thanks coach," Zandre grinned brightly.  He'd fought with all his might and though he couldn't help hold the World Cup this time, there was still a prize beyond value waiting for him in the stands, so there was far less desolation in his molten brown eyes.

Labelled priceless, that individual with golden hair highlighted by the sun's warm rays peered through slightly shuttered eyes as the woman who sold him for a ticket was kicking the ground with her branded pumps unhappily.  "What's wrong with Livvie?" Saburo leaned over his eldest brother's shoulder to whisper in his ear.  "She looks like someone snatched the last cupcake in front of her."

He shook his head, how could he know what went through a woman's mind, especially as what was going through his had nothing to do with one.  His mind was rather distracted by a reel of images involving his fierce Alpha as his muscles swelled beneath his shirt as he tackled other men and the serious concentration upon his face as he played.  Occasionally, when the referee paused game play for a handful of seconds, Zee would turn his head in their direction and Ichiro felt that he was seeking him.  His heart had raced at those points far faster than at those times when their country rushed to score a try or made a goal kick.

The crowds were thinning out now, there were only a few men and women dawdling in an unhurried way.  Staff had descended among them, encouraging them to leave.  Ichiro looked down at the field as he grabbed his thin jacket with a slight frown; what about Zandre?

"Ichiro," Saburo hissed as they received glares and he could only lift his feet towards the exits, his mood lowering with every step. Perhaps he'd been right to worry despite everything...

Barely as such a thought crossed his mind did two solid arms wrap around his body and draw him to press against a warm wall brimming with the deep forest scent he was long since addicted too. "Zandre," he murmured as the man nuzzled into the column of his neck, breathing in his own pheromones that had quickly stirred in greeting.

His whole being was turned one eighty and he finally got to see up close the man his eyes had been trained upon for most of the eighty minute match. Zee's two dark eyes shone and mirrored the two black gems captured in their gaze. A myriad of emotions swept through Ichiro, unleashed completely from the inner restraints formed from misguided beliefs over a lifetime and as if fearing Zandre would disappear from his life again, he wrapped his arms about the other man's neck. Truthfully, he had nothing to worry about for Zandre's arms that had encircled his waist only didn't tighten and cage him for fear of hurting him, but otherwise, the Alpha had no intention of letting go.

"I'm sorry...!" Both men voiced in unison, then hesitated for a moment before simply sinking into each other's embrace once more, but this time, their hearts felt lighter of weight.

"Ahem!" Olivia cleared her throat, just as Saburo giggled and captured the moment on his phone. Almost guiltily, the pair glanced around at those who had been completely forgotten as they wrapped themselves in a world of two. "I'll take the boys back to our hotel. Just message me... tomorrow... or whenever!"

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" Saburo joked just as his eldest brother frowned and yelled back;

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean!? Jiro, you keep an eye on him! He's not allowed near any foreign boys! Or any boys for that matter!"

"Yes, brother," Jiro replied, nonchalantly, before turning to his younger brother and saying; "I heard that our hotel has a luxury pool and spa, as well as room service as standard. You can also get pay for view movies, but you might have to put up with subtitles."

"Ooo! I want to order pizza!" Saburo declared and tugged on his brother's arm to head back to the train station.

Livvie sighed and looked at them indulgently for half a heartbeat and was about to offer Ichiro a 'see you later' when something occurred to her. "Hey! The hotel is billed to my name!" She quickly chased after them.

Zandre's forgotten agent bid them goodbye as well, thinking that he'd remind Zandre of their flight back home tomorrow. Now he just had to get a room elsewhere as he certainly could not return to the one he'd shared with Zandre this night.

Zandre's hotel was nearer the stadium, a twin room, but that was not going to stop the reuniting pair from filling it with their pheromones as well as other ambiguous scents of the body. The heady mix lingered in the air, a potent remnant of their personal battle of the horizontal nature. Even now, as they gasped for breath after the first release had been realised, Zandre did not climb off of Ichiro's, nor remove the object of desire from the depths hidden between the soft mounds of the other's body.

Hazily, Ichiro came to notice that he'd been pressed beneath the Alpha, but he no longer felt unmanned by it, but rather enlightened. Just because he was lying upon his back as Zandre claimed his body, did not make him less at all, in fact he simply had more choices. To lie here and greedily accept the pleasure his man was giving him or become an active participant as they wrestled beneath the sheets. Feeling pleased by the notion, a smile of satisfaction crept across his face. Only, that happened to spurn the man upon him and that buried object began to swell once more...

*****

"I grew up to believe that I had to marry a woman," Ichiro curled up upon Zee's chest sometime later, his legs entwined with the other's. A single bed really wasn't big enough for two grown men, but at this time, neither felt it wasn't enough for them. "To be a man, I had to be strong, get a good job and protect my family, my wife and children. This was what my father told me often."

Zee stroked Ichiro's soft, blond hair but otherwise just listened.

"I used to believe him, but what he wanted really was for me to be an Alpha," Ichiro sighed, then prodded the thick and defined pectoral beneath his cheek. It caused Zee to glance down at him in question. "Basically, if he could have had my mum produce someone like you, he would have been very happy. But my mum..." his voice cracked a little, but after taking a deep breath he continued; "My Mum was the best. She was a warm person, just a little too soft hearted at times, especially when it came to forgiving my father for his sins. She couldn't give him what he wanted, so she used to try and make it up all of the time to him. Even though, it cost her... cost us all so much in the end."

Zandre didn't need to ask what the man wanted so badly, Ichiro had already made it clear enough, so he asked instead; "What happened?"

"Have you noticed that Jiro doesn't really express any of his feelings?" Ichiro mentioned, thinking of the small child that had been so emotionally neglected back then. "From when I was old enough to realise something wasn't right, he has been this way. My mum blamed herself, but she wasn't the only one at fault. My father refused to acknowledge him due to his gender. So when Saburo was born, knowing he'd receive the same treatment, me, my mum and Jiro probably protected him too much!

"And then my mum got pregnant again. The scan said it was likely to be a little girl. Mum was really pleased. Those scans don't check for secondary gender... My father heard that there was a trial for secondary gender checks at the same hospital, so he took my mum... she... it was predicted that the baby was most likely an Omega.

"He was so angry. Then a few days later, it was my birthday. I was fifteen. It's a... milestone, I guess, in the life of an Omega boy. After this time, I'd suffer my first heat period. So like a good Omega woman, my mum got me my first collar, so I could be somewhat protected... you know, if I was away from home." It was not unlikely that an Omega engage in sexual relations during a heat, it couldn't always be helped. But the consequences of being claimed by a bite to the neck during that heat was generally unthinkable. "My father completely went mad, swearing at me to take it off, yelling at my mum for being useless and only producing Omega children. He began dragging her out of the house. He was stronger than us... actually, I think I was just in shock, I should have been able to stop him. And then afterwards, I could only blame myself for being stupid and weak.

"She died on the operating table of an unlicensed doctor as her baby was aborted under my father's instructions. So I swore to myself that I had to be a better man, that I had to raise and protect my brothers well so no one could hurt them like my mum had been. I couldn't rely on anyone else anymore. I didn't want to!"

Zandre didn't know what to say, he really couldn't say anything. How cruel had this world been to the man in his arms? And for him to have pretty much added salt to his wounds after weakening the defences he'd built during those times of hardship.

"You aren't weak at all, Ichiro," Zee murmured as he felt water dripping upon his chest and cooling his skin. "You are probably the strongest person I know. I don't think I could have done what you managed to. I doubt I would have ever had to either, being the middle child. Spoilt. Me and my siblings were all spoiled by our parents, we all got pretty much whatever we wanted growing up, we've never had to struggle in hardship. So I never thought of what you might have had to do to survive. Just judged you from my own standards, like a brat."

"Zandre..." he wriggled up to face the Alpha honestly, but before he could explain anything about that regretful history, a finger was placed over his lips.

"You have a sexual past, but so do I," Zee said, thinking about his ex-girlfriend and the mess he'd made breaking up with her. It might not be comparable exactly to Ichiro's situation, but both 'histories' almost derailed their relationship, so it was not completely wrong to state it that way. "That's over now. Now I just want to talk about us and our future. Can we?"

A hint of shyness softened Ichiro's midnight eyes. "En."

*****

Two boys settled into a hotel room after promising to view just one movie as they ate a pizza picked up along the way. With a sigh of relief, Olivia closed the door behind her and proceeded to the bar. She needed a drink.

The atmosphere at the bar was subdued, likely most of the occupants of the hotel were out seeking other nightlife nearby, so the woman sat on the stood and drank peacefully the first glass of red wine she'd ordered. Once it was empty, she ordered another one.

"Make that two," a masculine voice called out, before the owner of the voice sat down two stools down.

"Does that mean you are paying?" Livvie asked cheekily, as she looked at man with a slightly mature, but sophisticated air about him as he glanced at her in return. An almost sly smile curved his thin lips.

"If you will allow it," he replied, reaching for his wallet and she couldn't help but return his smile with one of her own. A minute later, two glasses clinked together in the quiet of the bar.