Archive of Our Own ^beta

2005 ended with a bang. Also: several further bangs, a horrifying boom, and scattered paper showers.

The resultant 2006 is difficult.

Some days are the type that are absorbed through frosted glass, hazy and indistinct, until Kiryu realizes a day has turned into an unknown number of weeks without him even noticing.

Some days are the type where he can't even think of their names without the vivid hurt manifesting itself into a series of knuckle-scraping blows and dents upon the empty walls of his spartan bedroom. 

There are also some days when his only accomplishments are: pulling himself out of bed before four in the afternoon, snapping open a beer that inevitably goes flat after two sips, staring at the wall for three to six hours, and hating himself for how it feels like a victory. (Thankfully, those days are becoming less frequent.)

But then there are days like this, when it's just him and just Haruka, and he feels strong enough with her to soldier past. 

It's still difficult. Everything is still difficult. Regardless, he continues to don his old suit, like a shed skin, and he can feel the invisible channel locks in his chest click themselves another notch tighter when he recalls how Nishiki hated the drab gray thing. Kiryu sways for a moment when the memory hits him, slowly breathes out his nose, and succumbs to the emotion rolling over him. Then, just as swiftly, it’s past him, like a sudden, fleeting gust of wind. 

Kiryu doesn't feel like himself; he sincerely doubts he ever will again, but it's possible he can remember the sensation well enough to at least cobble together a workable facsimile on these days. They’re becoming less of a rarity as more and more calendar pages separate him from the worst December of his life. He's slowly emerging from his self-imposed hermittitude, and knows the only reason he's made it over the hump is thanks to Haruka, smiling and irrepressibly cheerful, at his side. She deserves more than he can give her, but he does his best to make sure all her needs are met. As long as she sees something in him worth believing in, he owes it to her. Whatever it is. 

So he holds her sweaty hand in his slack fingers, and takes her on a tour of the nooks and passageways through this godforsaken city. Shows her the sprawling subterranean retail suburb and buys her lunch. Lets the ache in him ebb for a little while and slowly settles into a genuine good time.

Haruka's eyes light up when the two of them walk by the second to last shop in the underground mall. Its glass storefront is stuffed to the brim with evening gowns and puffy dresses, everything dripping with sequins and rhinestones and ruffles. To Kiryu, it looks like the kind of place hostesses would purchase their work attire, but there is also an extensive collection of miniature ball gowns on display. He assumes it must serve some need. There must be some esoteric clientele taking children to galas and cotillions every other evening. 

While Haruka may be made of sterner stuff than other kids her own age, she is still a child, and isn't at all immune to the glittering drama of the store. Kiryu notices how she obviously sucks in a breath as they pass and cranes her head all the way around to keep the mannequins within line of sight. So, he stops and pats her head.

"Do you want to try one on?"

"Oh! Oh… I dunno." She looks hesitant, scuffs her boot on the ground, and twists her fingers together until they're clasped behind her back. 

"What is it?"

"It's okay, Uncle Kaz. I don't wanna… Even if I like it, I can't wear it when I go to school or anything."

"Hmm. Well… if you had one of these dresses, where would you want to wear it?"

"At a fancy restaurant! Really fancy! Like the one mom had at the top of Millennium Tower!" She laughs out the answer, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. The simple reminder stings, and he lets it happen. He must have that look on his face because she's giving him that other look, the one that informs him he's letting the silence stretch too long, so he steers his focus back.

"Oho, that would be nice." 

Haruka is fidgeting backwards and forwards, rocking on her heels and stretching her linked arms behind her. Kiryu thinks for a moment, does some mental math, watches her squirm, and figures to hell with it. If he can't buy a pretty dress for this literal perfect angel, then what was even the point of him not dying on the top of that tower? (He wonders that constantly regardless, but he’s wondering it right now too, with regard.)

"Well, what if I take you out to a fancy dinner? You'll need a dress, or they wouldn't let you into the restaurant."

"But that's so much money! You don't have to do that," Haruka says in a rush, like a formality, blushing furiously. She gives a little forced laugh, digs her front teeth into her bottom lip, and sways. Kiryu lets her sweat, just for a second. She kicks at the ground again for effect. It's all very precocious and well performed, so he gives in.

"I know I don't have to, but I want to." 

She's just barely containing her excitement. It's adorable. He's never seen anything so cute. It makes him want to go punch cinder blocks and sob until he can handle it. Instead, he softens his expression and waves a hand towards the store. 

"Go ahead. Pick one out."

Haruka makes a high-pitched squeal and runs into the store. Kiryu was wrong. Now he's never seen anything so cute. He very nearly clutches at his achingly empty core, but manages to evade the impulse by focusing on frowning as hard as possible and clenching his hands into fists inside his jacket pockets, instead.

"Y'know ya just got played, right?" Majima says from wherever he's hiding. (Kiryu assumes it's somewhere above him, based on the source of the sound. Ceiling? How did he get in the ceiling? Aren't they underground? Kiryu quickly remembers he doesn't actually care right now.)

"Yeah, but look at her. It's worth it."

Haruka, charming as ever, is excitedly chattering with the employee inside. She's already wearing a feathery hat and dragging three dresses whose combined weight nearly tips her over. The clerk manages to right her at the last moment. Haruka says something to the skeptical-looking woman, points out at Kiryu, and he waves back with a nod.

"I think I'm being summoned," Kiryu sighs fondly. "Do you mind?"

"Nah, it'll keep. Go be a dad." Majima's hand emerges from the vent above him and gestures him along. (The vents! Of course.) Kiryu makes sure his expression doesn't betray how impressed he is by that tactic as he joins his young ward.

They spend a little over an hour in the shop while Haruka tries on nearly everything they have in her tiny size. By the end of it Kiryu has been talked into buying Haruka not only a dress, but also: a pair of gleaming white Mary Jane's, a crystal tiara, a faux-mink stole, a child-sized purse on a long strap strung with pearls, and a pair of tiny elbow length opera gloves. Kiryu momentarily stresses about if this means he will have to take her to an opera one day. (They're just so sad!) 

He makes an absent mental note to stop by the pawnshop at some point in the near future to sell whatever variety of precious metal platters and broken stun guns he has lying around. When he remembers he also promised her a fancy meal, he responsibly adds the coliseum to his list. He always feels a little guilty making his money via bloodsport, but he'll do it for her… and because he loves to fight without any moral quandaries weighing him down. (He'll have to draw the line at the opera though. Unless she's in the mood to magically win some more cho-han later on.)

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Haruka is dancing up the stairs that lead from the underground thoroughfare up to Showa Street, while Kiryu trails a few steps behind her. He's hauling all of her glittery bounty, a very voluminous garment bag and an assortment of tissue-stuffed boxes carefully slipped into individual bags. Haruka is wearing her new purse, a gashapon capsule from the machine downstairs very deliberately tucked inside of it. She's positively thrilled, clearly, and Kiryu can't stop himself from smiling at her infectious exuberance. She skips up the last few stairs and sings out a syllable with each step. "Thank! You! Unc-le! Kaz!"

"You're welcome, Haru—" Kiryu is cut off the moment he emerges at street level when his nose is broken by a high velocity sandwich board.

"Told ya it'd keep!" 

It did indeed. Kiryu's nostrils are instantly replaced by two matching hemo-geysers. He does his very best not to feel crestfallen when Haruka lunges to save the garment bag before checking on him. It's fine. He'd be very upset with himself if he got blood on her brand-new outfit anyways. She's just doing him a service. She's still an angel.

But then Majima high fives her and congratulates her on a perfectly executed distraction. 

Kiryu just stares and lets the back of his throat rattle thickly, swallows a gross lump of blood. His face, very intentionally, betrays no identifiable emotion. Haruka must know him well enough by now to understand that's not a great sign, because she has the good sense to look suitably remorseful when she makes eye contact. She instantly starts trying to mitigate her involvement. Loudly. 

"You said you weren't gonna do anything mean! That's not fair! I wouldn't have helped you if I knew you were gonna hurt him!"

See, still perfect. She was innocent. It's fine. 

"Kid, I hafta train him up! You flashed him one smile and now look: his nose is a crater!"

Haruka looks back at her father figure, furrows her eyebrows, and scrunches her mouth to one side like she's actually taking Majima's bullshit into consideration.

And… that's the line.

"Haruka," Kiryu manages to hork out around the blood gushing from his snoot. He makes extra sure to keep his tone and expression neutral, because he isn't mad at a little girl. That would be immature of him. He isn't mad; he's disappointed. "Why don't you take your bags and go wait at Serena?"

Majima and Haruka exchange a harried look, as if they're only just realizing what a poor, poor idea teaming up had been. Kiryu snatches a wad of tissue paper out of the shoe box, holds it to his nose, and stares icily. Majima helps Haruka gather her assorted purchases and encourages her along with an entirely too insistent shove. She looks over her shoulder as she leaves, her eyes swimming a little more with each step.

"Kids, right?" Majima turns back around just in time to catch a glimpse of Kiryu glaring at him from the window of a departing taxi. He watches him leave and considers the possibility that recruiting the one good thing left in Kiryu's life was a miscalculation. "Shit. I mighta’ fucked up."

Kiryu sits in Emoto's clinic and calmly waits for the doctor to finish extracting that crawfish from the poor man who'd walked in after him. Once Kiryu understood the severity of the situation, he'd insisted his nose could wait.

He leans forward, elbows propped on his knees, and idly wonders if he should've stuck around long enough to actually fight Majima, or if he's going to be forced to spend the rest of the day punching anyone who accidentally brushes up against him. The thought makes him want to sigh, but when he tries he only succeeds in dislodging whatever clots have managed to form inside his sinuses. A second windfall of blood evacuates down his face. This is, admittedly, ninety percent of the reason he'd picked a blood red shirt as one of his signature items in the first place, so he's not too terribly bothered. He tips his head back and scowls at the ceiling, anyways. 

Haruka's going to be upset with him. 

That hadn't been right of him, to send her away in anger. She's nine. Nine year olds are dumb. You could probably convince her to put her mobile phone in the microwave to charge it. 

(In fact, Kiryu maintains that could happen to anybody, if someone trustworthy enough kept insisting it was true. Especially if the target of the prank was someone who’d just spent a decade removed from literally the entire world. He never would've taken Kazuki for the type to pull that shit on him.)

Haruka's a sweet girl, and she has remarkable intuition more often than not, but every nine year old is bound to make stupid mistakes. That's why they don't have to do their own taxes. In the grand scheme it really hadn't even been that bad. The pain certainly doesn't bother Kiryu, and he'd given up counting how many bones he'd broken over the years. 

(He knows exactly when he’d stopped counting, and it was right after deflecting Kuze's motorcycle-powered lead pipe with just his forearms, to no observable effect on his skeleton. Sometimes Kiryu's body is just magic like that, and other times he gets out of bed wrong and breaks a toe. He generally tries not to think about it, or else he winds up feeling that strange, existential terror that maybe his choices aren't his own.) 

So! He just ignores that little psychological detour, as always, and aggressively steers his brain back on track.

It's not the beak breaking that pissed him off; it was the betrayal. Which, Kiryu readily acknowledges, is far too dramatic a word for "the crazy eyepatch man told her to be cute at a specific time," but it sure felt like an officially endorsed move from the Judas playbook. He mulls over the thought; how the idea of the two of them conspiring was the second scoop of raisins that had pushed him into the bran. If the two of them are in cahoots… 

His stomach clenches. 

Haruka is privy to some very secret and really, super, extra personal information. Kiryu had confided it in her as a metaphorical token of the implicit trust between them. He definitely hadn't stoically nodded his head and simply answered 'yup' the very first time she had asked him 'Uncle Kaz, do you like-like the weird guy that's always trying to fight you?' In his defense, he’d been working his way through a bottle of breakfast whiskey at three-eleven in the afternoon, barely two weeks after he'd identified all of his loved ones in the morgue. Look, not everyone can be a dad on day one. He's forgiven himself. More or less. It made sense that there had been a learning curve, and of course it had been followed by a grieving curve, and it was just bad luck that it happened to coincide with a drowning-his-sorrows curve. (And then, finally, a karaoke curve… which Haruka had loved!) Anyways, it hasn't been easy, but he's doing his best. 

Philosophical dread, unresolved trauma, and self-loathing aside, Kiryu is still left to grapple with the mildly anxiety-inducing notion of Haruka and Majima plotting shit behind his back. He wonders when, exactly, Majima had even managed to huddle up with her and hatch the distraction. It doesn't seem like it had taken very much to convince her. It would probably take even less to get her to let the cat out of the bag about Kiryu's embarrassing infatuation, assuming she hadn't already. Oh god, if she had said anything to Majima, he might just have to send her to the glue factory after all. He genuinely hopes she hasn't spilled his secret, because he's grown pretty fond of her and would really miss her.

Kiryu's phone buzzes from his pocket as if on cue, and he sees a text from Nishida upon investigation. Ugh. This shit again. He doesn't bother to read it, too annoyed with Majima's standard hijinks to deal with whatever vintage shenaniganry this message is sure to be the herald of. 

Stupidly, Kiryu had hoped that the two of them had mutually moved beyond the stage of their acquaintance where they needed to communicate via a third party, and, personally, he'd been keen to try and roll that momentum forward into a friendship… ideally with benefits, or some kind of fuck buddies arrangement, at least. But, if Majima is regressing to using Nishida as a middleman, then Kiryu can only interpret that to mean Majima is rolling their status from friends back to platonic punch pals.

He almost groans.

Of all the people to wind up with a crush on, of course he catches a case of the vapors from the single lamest, most embarrassing option possible. Why wouldn't he? It's not even like Majima is particularly attractive, not when compared to someone like Yumi or Nishiki. But, super-duper unfortunately, they are both pushing up daisies, and, as far as Kiryu's aware, the dead still aren't reanimating, just as a general rule. So there is next to no chance of running into either of his potential childhood sweethearts… well, he hopes there's not. Not like that, at least.

Besides, even if they were still kicking (or shambling), it's not like either one of them would bother going through the very flattering effort of harassing Kiryu through the entire city… while wearing very tight leather pants and slick pointy shoes… They probably wouldn't bother keeping him on his toes or consistently challenging him, plotting electrifying ambushes, surprising him with a singing blade suddenly at his throat and a tantalizing flash of tattoos and— 

He thinks unsexy thoughts in a hurry. Can't let that plane leave the runway, not in public.

Kiryu is so absorbed in his wallowing, he doesn't even realize Emoto is next to him, until he feels assured thumbs line up briefly on his face and then brute force his nose back into alignment by way of a horrifying crunch and gruesome twist. 

"Sorry, had to put a little english on it this time."

Kiryu remains admirably stoic, though if one were to put their ear next to his mouth, they'd hear the high frequency whine that escapes with his next exhale. 

"Hey… you've got a kid, right? Think she'd want a pet crawdad?" Emoto looks unimpressed and grabs a large empty jar off a nearby shelf. 

Kiryu isn't sure if Haruka would want that or not… but he is definitely sure that he would. So he says yes. He names her Nancy, carries the jar to Serena reverently, and chuckles every time Nancy snips her adorable little claws at the jar in defiance. What an idiot, thinks she's gonna escape right through the glass. She doesn't even have fists!

"Why's he gotta make everything into such a thing!" Majima shouts in the direction of Nishida's general zone. He yanks his knife out of the upholstery of his chair just to fling it right back in. He's sitting crisscross-applesauce on his desk and scowling, while he casually destroys a ¥700,000 Eames lounge set. Nishida gives out a horrified whine with each new shred, so Majima picks up the pace. Nishida is still fun to mess with, but he’s a poor substitute for the man he’d originally planned to spend the day agitating. 

"B-Boss, maybe if you tried calling Kiryu-san from your own phone?"

"What? Kiryu-chan thinks he's too good to talk to ya? You're great! He should be so lucky!"

"…Oh! Thank—"

"Shut the fuck up, Nishida. I'm still talkin'!"

Nishida bobs his head. 

"Anyway, my phone is still somewhere back in those vents, but the maintenance guy started cryin' as soon as he saw me… and I didn't feel like dealin' with that garbage this early. So for now, it's on you!"

Nishida nods with grave devotion. The Majima Family does have a very explicit 'No Crying Before Dusk' rule written into the charter, so at least he's consistent.

"So… Since it's your job and he's not takin' your calls…" Majima pauses and leans towards Nishida, wearing a very expectant look. He gestures the tip of his knife in a wide circle a few times, like he's trying to lead him to some foregone conclusion. 

Nishida knows better than to bite, and stubbornly maintains his silence, in the most respectful manner possible. Majima grows impatient, as always. 

"C'mon! It's not rocket science. I'm over here doin' your job for ya!"

Nishida gives a limp, sweaty shrug and frowns with expertly honed confusion.

"I'm sayin' ya hafta go deliver him a message in person!"

Shit. Come on Nishida, course correct. "Uh… Don't you think the invitation would have more impact if it came from you, Boss?"

"I know you're just afraid of him." Majima may be impatient, but he's not blind. (Well, half of him isn’t.) Nishida is reliably afraid of anything lethal, and Kiryu is eleven tons of lethal stuffed into a ten-year prison sentence; that’s what makes him fun! 

Despite no longer technically being a patriarch, Majima knows he can still order Nishida to basically do anything. If he wanted, he could demand that Nishida go defuse a bomb with literally no training just for his own amusement, and this anxious little goober would do it. Sweatily. After a little bit of coercion and encouragement. But he would suck it up and do it. It's what makes him fun: his undying loyalty! (One day, Nishida will definitely wind up dying as a direct result of how undying that loyalty is.)

"He's so strong! And I know he doesn't like me after everything last Christmas… What if I set him off?"

"Firstly, Kiryu-chan loves you. He loves everything weak and defenseless."

Nishida is a little offended by how reassuring that actually is. He doesn't consider himself terribly weak, but most things are pretty defenseless when the judge is the Dragon of Dojima.

"Secondly, he's not the Hulk. You're not gonna 'set him off'. Just treat him like a person; he eats that shit up."

Nishida's eyes widen slightly as it dawns on him that, underneath the intentionally erratic delivery, everything his boss is saying is completely sound and rational. If anything, for Majima, this is practically a soothing and patient pep talk on Kiryu Kazuma Practical Standards and Best Practices™. 

Oh god, he's really gonna make him do this. 

Majima’s going to send Nishida into the dragon's den, waving a white flag, on the very same day that he had turned that little girl to the dark side. The girl that Kiryu had recently puréed half the Tojo Clan over. Nishida wonders what he did to deserve any of this, but somehow never considers the fact that he’s a grown man who’s completely capable of just saying no and walking away. (Besides, if he did, Majima would just send Minami, and they’ve been trying to keep that goblin chained down in the dungeon for as long as possible. He’s just so embarrassing.) 

"Thirdly, get your fuckin' ass out the door and make sure they're at Crown by seven-thirty sharp. 'Cause I’m gettin' bored and thinkin' 'bout tellin' Kiryu-chan everything last year was your idea in the first place — oughta liven things up!"

Nishida requires no further motivation and runs out of the office at a pace that would make even Seabiscuit a little envious. (Just a little, though. That horse was really fast.)

"And make sure he's wearin' a tux!" Majima shrieks after him. He doesn't hear a reply, but he also doesn't feel like getting up, so he's just going to assume Nishida heard him. "Yeah, he definitely heard me."

Nancy turns out to be quite the hit with Haruka! Kiryu’s unspeakably grateful to his newest charge for her selfless shellfish assistance. The novelty of a new addition to the family helps Kiryu and Haruka power through any lingering awkwardness and just leave everything comfortably unaddressed. The two of them go right back to their usual interaction style. It's nice, not having to address the elephant in the room, and it's largely thanks to the crawfish in the room.

Kiryu is always pleasantly surprised by how much parenting can be accomplished when he just ignores something until it stops being "a thing". Kazama had taught him well. That whole Jingweon incident had really torn Kiryu up for a while as a kid, but just through sheer, willful avoidance and staunch, masculine refusal to ever talk about anything so mired in emotion as 'feelings', they'd gotten past it. Even from beyond the grave, Kiryu feels like he's still learning from his father ('s and mother's murderer. Kiryu crams that thought back down into the 'no-thank-you-not-today' part of his brain.) figure.

"Do you think she needs water?" Haruka asks, holding the makeshift terrarium in both hands and gazing at the crustacean from below, fascinated. Kiryu absently notes she's wearing her new tiara. He's glad she likes it.

"Hmm, they keep lobsters in water, right? I think it'd make sense for Nancy to need some." Kiryu has no idea, but he'd learned back in real estate that if he just says anything with enough confidence people generally tend to believe him. Everything else he just punches. These two combined tactics have gotten him disturbingly far in life. Pfft, and Yumi had told him he'd never amount to anything if he didn't at least finish high school. Sure hadn’t helped her, now had it?

Kiryu blinks. Intentionally takes a second to process his internal monologue as the sedimentary grief he’s stupidly managed to stir up washes over him. 

Haruka fills Nancy's jar halfway at the sink behind the bar, sets it on the counter, and promptly forgets about her once she notices Kiryu making that pinched face he does when he’s sad. She walks over and sits on the couch next to him. After a quiet moment she asks him to help gather her shopping bags. 

Kiryu takes heart in the ease of her company and tries to focus on the problems of the living. He scowls when he realizes that leaves him with simmering over Majima all over again… but maybe if he just ignores this whole Majima thing it will magically stop being a thing, just like those rascally Jingweons. So Kiryu stands and busies himself with the requested task. 

"Alright. Ready to head back to the apartment?"

"You're not still mad about the Majima thing, Uncle Kaz?"

Jesus, he's got to teach her to read a room. This is very much the opposite of avoidance. "Hm… It's fine, Haruka."

Thankfully, she leaves it at that, and the short train ride to their complex is spent in gentle amicability. Kiryu relaxes when Haruka nods off for a few minutes and leans her head against his side without hesitation, tiara sliding downward unable to find any purchase in her clean head of silky hair. 

The old lady sitting across from them awws audibly. When he makes eye contact with her, she presses a finger to her lips, then mimes the international signal for 'photo?' Somehow, Kiryu manages to get his phone out of his pocket without rousing Haruka, and the woman snaps what winds up being his new background. She waves when she disembarks at the next station, and Kiryu mouths 'thank you'. 

Two stops later, Haruka yawns and wakes. They exit the train hand in hand; she pauses when they step onto the platform and makes him wait while she readjusts her crown very precisely.

"Does it look right?"

"Mm, it’s perfect."

She grins and it summons that crushing feeling in Kiryu's chest again: the one where he thinks he needs to cry and punch things until he can handle how good this perfect angel child is. But then she says this: 

"I didn't tell Majima-san about how you wanna kiss him lots, I promise."

Kiryu thinks she might actually be trying to kill him with the mood whiplash. Is this just a girl thing? Or is it a kid thing? Just pull at his emotions and then shame him the second— 

"Hand," she mumbles, and he instantly lets hers free.

"Sorry, did I— "

"No, it's okay, I caught you this time!" She wriggles her fingers up at him and laughs. "No squishing!"

Kiryu breathes in relief, and they keep walking. When he doesn't reach for her hand again after a few minutes, Haruka simply lets out a pouty ‘hmph’ and clutches the cuff of his jacket. 

Her patience is staggering. 

He's suddenly acutely aware of what a jackass he’s been all day. Stewing for hours, going in circles over some stupid crush, dramatically overreacting to any perceived slight in the selfish pursuit of a distraction… He's wasted a perfectly lovely day by trying to actively avoid thinking about the hollow cavity in his chest where Nishiki, Yumi, Kazama, Shinji, and Reina had once lived.

He's such an idiot. The most important person in his life has been right here at his side the whole time. Trying to help, to pull him out of his head, and somehow he'd convinced himself she was part of the problem. 

He’s ashamed of himself, and she deserves an apology. So he stops her at the gate in front of their complex and looks her in the eye to say what he needs to. 

"Haruka, I'm sorry I overreacted today. That wasn't right of me… I should've trusted you more." 

"It's okay, Uncle Kaz. I knew you were just worried about your secret. You're really easy to read!" She says it with a giggle, completely oblivious to the fact that he can't recall anyone saying those words, in that order, to him, in his entire life. "I'm sorry too, he—"

Kiryu crouches down and cuts her off with a hug, mindful of his strength but firm enough to let her know he means it. "I'm really lucky to have you in my life, Haruka."

She looks confused as he pulls away, but not unhappy. It's that look she gets when she has to choose between which type of sweet bun to pick out.

"It… it’s just important to me that you know that," he adds. She reaches for his hand and he takes it. Marvels at how much smaller her hands are, stays mindful of how much more delicate hers is under his clumsy, callused grip.

"I think I'm really lucky too… I know that, um…" Haruka says, concentrating hard on how to phrase what she wants to say next. "I know that I only get to live with you because a lot of sad things happened, but… I still think I'm really lucky. I like our apartment a lot more than Sunflower."

"Me too." Kiryu smiles down at her and feels his chest swell. He'd ruined their day sulking and spiraling, and yet she'd instantly bestowed amnesty. She grants him forgiveness as if he deserves it, and her compassion makes him feel like he possibly could. “I’m very grateful to you for staying with me; I know it’s been hard.”

She laughs and shakes her head like he’d told her the funniest joke. Pulls him along to their home and he follows. 

Nishida is standing in the hallway in front of their apartment's front door when they arrive home. He’s pale and fidgety, and confesses to them, in a hurry, that Majima wants to take them out for that 'fancy dinner' as an apology. 

Haruka shrieks and runs inside to change into her new outfit, so Kiryu figures that's that. He follows her inside, pauses, and, after a contemplative moment, casually invites Nishida to wait inside. 

"Oh thank you, Kiryu-san! That's very thoughtful of you."

"Mm." 

"It's still pretty cold, for April, you know…?" Nishida steps inside and shuts the door behind him. He rubs his hands together and keeps talking, somehow. "So I really appreciate it! Waiting inside… I mean, it’s very nice of you to invite me in!"

"Ah."

"Umm, a-also, Boss wanted me to ask you to wear a tuxedo. It’s actually a really nice place, I swear!"

"Right."

Nishida seems like an okay guy, and he's obviously an intimidatingly schooled master of small talk, so Kiryu stalks off to change before he can corner him with any more questions like ‘got any plans for the weekend’ or ‘seen any good movies lately’. 

Kiryu doesn't own a tuxedo, so Majima will have to make do with his funeral suit, which still feels appropriate for too many reasons. He rinses quickly in the shower, zhuzhes his hair with some gel, and tries not to wince when he scrunches his purple nose in the mirror experimentally. He steps into his bedroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. Suddenly, someone sits up in his bed, giggling as they reveal their hiding spot under his blanket. Kiryu aggressively clutches his towel tighter around himself with renewed terror.

"Haruka, what are you doing?"

"I wanted to talk to you before we go!" 

"Stay under there for a minute, let me get decent."

"Ew!" She flings the covers dramatically and fully disappears beneath them. 

Kiryu shakes his head with a tired smile, and, once he's got his boxers and pants on, he lets her know the coast is clear. She emerges from her comforter cocoon, a very sparkly, over-accessorized, actual princess. Kiryu wonders how she got so many pieces of clothing on so fast. She looks like she's waiting for something, and oh, of course, how dense could he be?

"Haruka, you are the most beautiful person I've ever seen. You look gorgeous in your new outfit, and you are very intelligent." Kiryu doesn't want her thinking looks are all that matters. Besides, the last part isn't even a lie. He's beginning to suspect she's smarter than him some days, but she doesn't need to know that. Not yet, at least.

"I'm so pretty!" She flips her hair and beams. Twirls in a circle and laughs at all the glitter she's scattering right into his sheets. "Thank you for the dress, Uncle Kaz!"

"You're welcome. I'm glad you like it," Kiryu nods as he attempts to wrangle his necktie around his collar, silently cursing himself for untying it all the way last time. Haruka pauses in her prancing, gives him her newest take on The Look, and he just crouches down to one knee to let her tie it. "Thank you, Haruka."

She grabs one end in each fist, however she levels a very intense stare at him before she begins working. Kiryu can sense he's being assessed. 

"...What?"

"Well… I didn't say anything to Majima-san…" she says. She scrunches her lips to one side, like she always does when she's thinking seriously about something and says, "But I really think you should."

Kiryu leans back so he doesn't start sputtering right in her face, but he doesn't get very far at all. She yanks on the two ends of his loose tie, still looped around the back of his neck, and reels him in again. 

"I'm serious, Uncle Kaz! If you like-like him, you should tell him!"

"Haruka… it's not really that simple."

"Why?"

"It's just… complicated. I don't know how to explain it."

"Don't you wanna be happy, Uncle Kaz?"

"Haruka, being here with you is what makes me happy."

She shakes her head, and he feels like a monster when her eyes shimmer with unshed tears. "But… I have my teacher, and my friends, and everyone back at Sunflower. A-and… I know you're still really, really sad. I hear when you have nightmares."

Kiryu leans forward, and threads a loose hair hanging over her forehead between his fingers. Gently brushes it back and tucks it behind her ear while he tries to think about what to say for himself. He frowns.

How long has she been worrying over him like this? How bad had he let things get? His hands shift to her shoulders. He glances at the ground and then back at her. There's something important he knows he needs to say, to make sure she understands. Tries to think about how to phrase it. 

"Haruka… I'm so sorry I worried you, and you're right, I am still sad. You're still sad about your mom sometimes, right?"

She nods, but still no tears leak out, too resilient for how young she is.

"Well, having your teacher or your friends, it doesn't make you miss your mom any less, does it?"

Haruka shakes her head, aghast at the idea, hanging on every word he's saying.

"So even if I told Majima-san, and everything worked out… it wouldn't solve this. You can't fill up your heart with someone else." 

She looks pained, like she wants to argue, and the weight of the expectation he’s placed on her these last several months suddenly dawns on him. He pushes through his guilt, realizing he’s never given her the permission he should’ve, that she’d been too busy trying to fill his heart like it was her job.

"Haruka, when people you love pass away, you just… You have to be sad for a little while. It's okay to be happy too, like taking you shopping today. I had a lot of fun, but it doesn't erase the grief I have. It's something you’re supposed to go through, until it's all dried up. Then one day you realize, when you think about them, it doesn't hurt the way it used to. You can be happy when you remember them, instead. But if you don't let yourself be sad first, you'll never get to enjoy the good memories either.”

He’s surprised to find he has no hesitation telling her what he's feeling, no problem admitting to her when he's wrong, and no complications apologizing without pretense. So he continues. 

"I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I was being stupid and selfish, and I let it go on for too long... but I want you to know you’re allowed to be sad too. You don’t have to hide it from me."

She appears to consider this for several very, very long seconds, and then, like turning on a faucet, she bursts into huge, loud tears. Kiryu can't get his arms back around her fast enough. 

"I miss my mom…" she whines out miserably. 

"I do too, Haruka." He feels her nod against his shoulder. 

She snivels and cries; hugs him so tightly he's honestly impressed. Kiryu adjusts his hold and lifts her into his arms, carrying her like she is a much younger child. The bed creaks when he sits on it, and she curls up in his lap sobbing openly. He strokes her hair and rubs her back and tries to grapple with how much she always amazes him. 

Haruka teaches him things about himself he's never even known, and she bestows these revelations upon him like they're nothing. He wasn’t sure what he felt until she needed support, and the words suddenly came out. Like a light was clicked on. She can reach into his chest before he is able to stop her, tell her it’s empty, and, to his astonishment, she always finds something; always reveals another piece of himself he thought he'd lost, but it turns out was only buried.

Kiryu is and will always be grateful to Haruka for saving him; for opening him up and not relenting until he was willing to allow someone in. Destruction was the only thing he created for so many years, he’d forgotten he was even capable of anything else until he met Haruka. 

He's opening himself up to her again before he even realizes he's thought it. 

"I'm here for you, if you ever want to talk about your mom… Or if you just feel sad and need to tell someone." She nods right into his neck. Her soft skin drags on his sandpapery jawline, and Kiryu feels more similar to a human than he has in months. 

Gentleness used to be a guilty, shameful act, but with Haruka it's so easy. Her presence makes him want to be someone better, makes him scoff at the thought that being tender or doting was ever even something he should've felt ashamed of in the first place. She makes him feel, so deeply, that softness isn't just permitted, it's correct. It's right. It's restorative. He feels stronger for it, every time.

"I'll always be here, as long as you'll have me. I'm not going to let you be alone ever again." He lets his scarce tears fall, soaks up her presence, and is surprised by how cathartic it feels simply to hold and soothe her.

They sit there for hours, but eventually all of her sobs are emptied. When he looks at the clock next to his bed, he sees it's truly only been twenty minutes, but Haruka looks just as exhausted as he suddenly feels. 

"We don't have to go out, if you're tired. I'll tell Nishida to blame me."

Haruka shakes her head furiously and scrubs at the dried trails her tears left on her cheeks. "No, I want to go out in my dress!"

"Okay," he smirks, impressed with her fortitude, as usual. He owes it to her to try, and thinks maybe an evening out with Majima might not even be the worst possible thing. "Then come help me with my tie."

She sobers up quickly when given a task and is all giggles by the time she's tightening the half Windsor up to his throat. They clasp hands and head out, surprised when Nishida is missing from the apartment. They discover him outside on his cell phone, stage whispering.

"I don't know! It just sounded like they started crying! I didn't do anyth— Kiryu-san! How nice to see you… What's? Oh." He hands his phone over, looking very pale. "Boss wants to talk to you. Do you mind if I use your restroom? I think I'm going to stress vomit."

Kiryu waves the sweaty man inside and accepts the phone call. "Majima-san?" 

His expression doesn't change once over the entire conversation.

"Mmmhmm… Oh, right… Fine."

Haruka bats her eyelashes up at him for a moment, twirls in a circle once, twice, and then pulls her gashapon out of her purse. She learns it's difficult to open with her gloves on.

"Hm… No, no. I see your dilemma. That's a tough one…"

Haruka gnashes her teeth on one fingertip and uses them to peel a glove off.

"…I suppose that depends." An extended pause. "…And, how exactly?"

Haruka gets the capsule open with her freshly released hand. Triumph!

"…I'm not sure— No, nothing like that…" Another long, glassy pause. "Well, just generally, I mean…"

Haruka lets the glove dangle from her front teeth while she waits. 

"Yeah, that should work… Okay, see you then."

Kiryu snaps the phone shut and tosses it over the railing. Nishida exits the apartment just in time to miss it, and Kiryu feels a little bad when he remembers it was Nishida's phone, not Majima's. (Not really that bad though, he's not a nun.) He turns and levels Haruka with a stern look.

"I have bad news. Dinner is cancelled." 

Haruka lets out a long childish whine, as children are wont to do. Kiryu's next question instantly silences her. 

"So… You told Majima?"

Haruka drops her gashapon. Glove still clutched in her jaws, she runs inside the apartment and locks the door.

"Haruka?"

Kiryu hears the deadbolt click. 

"I have keys."

The distinct scraping of furniture being barricaded in front of the door answers him. 

Kiryu sighs and figures he'll give her some space. He orders Nishida to stand guard outside while he's gone, and promises him a nose to match his own if anything happens to her. He waffles for a few minutes, has a cigarette, doubts if leaving right now is actually the right call. Just as he’s finishing his smoke, a flimsy piece of ruled notebook paper is ejected from the mail slot. 

'I'M SORRY UNKLE KAZ

I only told him cuz he said He likes you alot so its his fawlt for starting it'

Well, Kiryu honestly can’t argue with that logic. Most things reliably are instigated by Majima. There is a stick figure drawn in shaky pencil. It has one eye and a terrible haircut. It’s so accurate Kiryu snorts. He flips the paper over and sees a small line of much tinier writing. 

‘good luck and can i order a pizza for dinner???’

Kiryu would go to war for this girl, again, in a heartbeat. He crouches down and holds the mail slot open. Speaks through the door. "We’re going to have a talk about lying when I get home, but… it sounds like you were coerced. Tell Nishida what kind of pizza you want. Bed by nine. I’ll see you later, Haruka. Enjoy your night off."

He hears her giggle on the other side of the door and smiles.

When Kiryu arrives at Serena, Majima is waiting outside, in front of the elevator. He's wearing a suit that looks like it was once very fine but may have possibly been recently thrown into a food processor. He's clammy and trembling. Cuts litter his nose and forehead, swollen and slowly seeping blood. His one eye looks haunted.

"Majima-san?"

Majima shakes his head, apparently in shock. Kiryu tries to brush past him, intending to head on up to the bar. He figures Majima will follow him whenever he's able, but Kiryu has got to start drinking now if he wants to be able to have this discussion... because at some point they will be negotiating the awkward details of what’s going into where and whose safeword is what because why. He’s excited but Kiryu has absolutely no expectation he'll be able to handle that talk without a fifth of liquid courage. Before he can slide by, Majima stops him. He clutches at Kiryu's shoulders, horrified, and bodily prevents him from entering that elevator. 

Kiryu very nearly snarls as he realizes this entire rendezvous is probably just another setup. Majima is just fucking with him, isn't he? And not in the fun way he'd very boldly proposed over the phone. Goddammi—

"Don't go in there, Kiryu-chan." Majima takes a shuddering, traumatized breath. "There's a real, real angry and I think possibly drunk… Uhhh—" He shakes his head, at a loss. "—skinny kinda, crab baby, thing?" He mimes his hands like little pincers. "It's inside the bar and it means business."

Kiryu stares at him like he’s spoken in tongues before he realizes what the fuck he’s talking about. 

"Oh, that's just Nancy. She's a crawfish I got from my doctor after he removed her from a salaryman… I wouldn't have taken her in if I'd known she had a drinking problem, though."

Majima looks catatonic for a moment while he processes what Kiryu's just said. Realizes it is unprocessable. And leaves.

Ever the optimist, Kiryu follows.

2005 ended with a traumatic series of bangs, but the first bang of 2006 goes remarkably better. As do the next several.