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The first thing Kiryu sees is the stretch of skin along Majima’s back.
Majima’s always been a restless sleeper, with harsh breaths that rattle every part of him. Kiryu can so easily make out the shape of his spine with the way Majima’s hunched in on himself. Crust clings to Kiryu’s eyelashes still, and he can feel his eyes throb, but he still watches. The barred window on the wall carves out Majima’s silhouette, the rise and fall of his shoulders. There’s an uncanny silence accompanying the scene, and it settles in Kiryu. The sounds that should accompany a man like Majima have disappeared, no laughing on the street, no drifting music, no cars honking. The only thing Kiryu has to hold onto now is Majima’s rasping breath, and the sound of Kiryu’s watch on the end table.
He forces his hand out of sweet stasis, pulling it across the cheap sheets until it’s almost grazing Majima’s knobby spine. He watches Majima’s tattoo narrow as his shoulder blades draw tight, like he knows Kiryu’s there in some REM precognition.
He supposes there’s not much else to do now but slot himself against Majima, so that’s what he does. Night’s already passed, and it’s only a matter of time before this has to end.
Kiryu’s shoving his hand between Majima’s arm and his side, palming Majima’s hip selfishly. The warmth of Majima’s skin only extends to Kiryu’s palm. It pains him that he can’t feel the way Majima’s skin gives underneath his fingertips anymore. He rests his head to the back of Majima’s neck, nose pressing into his skin. He smells the sheets more than he smells anything of Majima, with their cigarette stench and yellowed color. Regardless, he can feel Majima’s coarse skin on his face, and his breast against Majima’s back. Immediately, Majima stirs. Some things never change, Kiryu thinks, Majima remains a light sleeper.
“Fuckin’ cold,” Majima rumbles. He sluggishly throws Kiryu’s hand off of his hip, pushing himself backwards until Kiryu’s rolling off of him.
Kiryu relents. He’s in no place to make demands.
Maybe it’s the way Kiryu’s still as a corpse afterwards. He knows Majima doesn’t do well with silence, either. Kiryu keeps his head straight, eyes on the patterned ceiling. He hears Majima take a deep breath through his mouth, and then a familiar clogged sniffle. The bed underneath them creaks as Majima rolls from one side to the other.
“Quit the pouting,” Majima huffs, his voice quiet and throaty. Kiryu has no idea what time it is.
Kiryu turns his head back towards Majima, who is facing him now.
There may have been a time, somewhere around 2006, or maybe 2012, where Kiryu would’ve been able to read Majima in ways he’d not admit, like a child with a secret. He fit nicely with Majima’s gusto, and Majima liked it that way, too. Even through the moments Majima would offer him a solemn glance, a serious snarl, that playful bravado still sat raw in Kiryu’s mind. Something familiar to hold onto, even in those moments. He doesn’t want to admit that Majima feels like a stranger, now. Maybe he thought that if he shoved hard enough, those pegs would refit back into their holes, and Majima would be just the way he wants to remember.
Majima’s more expressive side is squished against the feather pillow, the wrinkles obscuring bits of his face. He can still see the corner of Majima’s squinted eye, entirely focused on him. The other half still has his eyepatch in place.
His skin has gotten rougher. It strikes Kiryu with a certain unease, between the recognizable and the unknown. He wonders if Majima feels the same way. There’s scabs lining Majima’s collarbone, scratches along his arms. It makes Kiryu want to ask who he’s been fighting, if not him, he wants to pry . He’s starting to believe it was pity in Majima’s eye when he invited Kiryu into his bed.
They didn’t have sex. Maybe that makes it worse.
The yellowed calendar on the wall still reads ‘1999’ . The bodies moving by it dont seem to notice the discrepancy.
Majima runs his bloody nose across Kiryu’s cheek, digging its jut into his skin. He doesn’t stop moving until his jaw’s right at Kiryu’s ear, and it sends a violent shudder all through Kiryu. Majima’s goatee audibly scratches against Kiryu’s face, and his teeth tease at Kiryu’s ear. Everything feels like it’s digging its way through Kiryu, violent and pulsing, his stomach churns with a certain kind of nausea. This is what it’s like, his brain wants to tell him, this is what it’s like. Kiryu finds it easier to keep his eyes tightly shut, even as his brow begins to ache. To feel pushed and pulled without any warning, it lights up the same part of Kiryu’s brain as any other fight. It’s exhilarating, and Kiryu doesn’t know what to do with himself. His fingers itch with the need to do something about it. His hands cling to Majima’s coat the same way he does when he’s about to headbutt Majima. It feels like the most natural course of action, this is Kiryu’s script, and terror rolls through him as he’s knocked off course. Majima kisses Kiryu’s neck the same time his hand grabs his ass.
Kiryu shudders, throwing his hand to Majima’s bicep in a vice-grip.
Majima makes a low sound in his throat, forcefully dragging the hand on Kiryu’s ass up to his back, pulling Kiryu’s shirt out from his pants.
He can’t compare this to anything else. It’s all too overwhelming to feel wanted so strongly. Kiryu knows how to be coy, he knows how to smile the right smile, and he knows what to say when the girls he dates put their hands on his thighs. Nothing makes sense now, and yet it feels like it’s all coming together now, with Majima’s powerful grip on him. Majima feels like a leech, draining more and more out of him with each kiss to his throat, and Kiryu pulls him closer and closer. His teeth ache with how hard he clenches them. He doesn’t know what he’d do with himself if he forced his eyes open, forced himself to look at Majima touching him.
Regardless, Majima is guiding him backwards. Maybe later, when he’s given a chance to breathe, he’ll notice Majima’s barren apartment.
“What you waitin’ for?” Majima growls, his hand slipping underneath Kiryu’s shirt from where he’d pulled it up earlier. His hand can barely move from the way the leather clings to Kiryu’s sweaty skin.
“Huh?” Kiryu stupidly hums, his bubble popped.
“You scared of something?” Majima asks him, his voice one shade away from antagonizing.
Kiryu doesn’t need to look at him to know he’s got that look on his face, eye blown wide.
In more familiar water, Kiryu’s eyes crack open, finally meeting Majima’s wild face. Majima’s hunched over, his neck craned awkwardly. Kiryu can see his throat bob. The nervous twitch of Majima’s brow betrays the upturned snarl of his teeth, alternating between a grin and frown almost invisibly.
It registers in Kiryu’s head that his tone is accusatory, offended , almost. It makes Kiryu’s nose scrunch up.
Kiryu doesn’t mean to sour the mood, but he can’t help his mouth. When Majima meets him with teeth, Kiryu brings him bite. He can still taste blood on his tongue.
“You think I’m scared of something?” Kiryu retorts, his hand remaining tight on Majima’s arm.
It shouldn’t surprise Kiryu that this is the same Majima as the one on the streets, that uncanny man-monster with nothing but gleeful contempt in his eye, rolling the slot machine on what his mood will be. It hits Kiryu that it excites him, that snarl. He doesn’t have time to unpack that, though.
“Men’re always scared of something,” Majima answers, the tip of his nose tapping against Kiryu’s, “Always somethin’. You’ve got the worst one,”
“I’m not afraid,” Kiryu says with an embarrassing indignation, the kind of tone that means ‘I’m not afraid — of you ’.
Majima’s eye twitches.
Perhaps Kiryu rushed too quickly to a conclusion, because he watches that mean look twist into an even meaner smile, and Majima scoffs. Then, he’s watching Majima pry himself off of Kiryu. Kiryu’s throat draws tighter. The light flickers behind Majima.
“Fuck. Whatever, man.”
And like that, Kiryu watches Majima’s face drop unnaturally. It sends his stomach into flips, the uncanny wrongness of watching it happen. It fills him with humiliation, the same kind a child would feel when their parents found them out. It makes him angry. A more immature part of him begs to ask ‘ What did I do wrong? ’
Majima blinks, and then he’s rubbing the space underneath his eyepatch. Kiryu’s feeling the whiplash of being dragged out from his arousal, now. His chest throbs.
Majima pushes past him, and then he’s pouring himself a glass of whiskey. Time passes, and when Kiryu finally turns around to face Majima, he’s got his back turned on Kiryu, sitting in a chair covered in holes. All Kiryu can see is the back of his head.
A million questions run through Kiryu’s head at once. Every nerve in his body is telling him to run away.
“I should go,” Kiryu stutters. His throat stings.
Majima bends an arm up, waving Kiryu off without having to look at him. “Yeah,” He says.
And then he’s gone. With nothing else to do, when he’s lost in the streets, he checks his phone. The year is still 2005.
It’ll be a long time before he realizes just what Majima meant.
Majima climbs on all fours as he rummages the bed for his discarded pants. They’re hanging off the edge of the bed, so he reaches down. Kiryu can’t help but glance. Majima’s cursing quietly, and then he’s pulling himself back on the bed, his back popping. He’s got a cigarette and lighter in his hand now.
So, while Majima’s lighting his cigarette, Kiryu checks his watch. It’s four PM.
He throws his watch back on the end table. He should’ve been talking before Majima let him into his apartment, before Majima invited him into bed, but all Kiryu comes back with is a stammering silence. He can’t imagine what Majima must be feeling.
The blanket’s entirely off Majima now, as he lets his head rest against the headboard. The cigarette’s from a brand Kiryu doesn’t recognize. The box in Majima’s palm is crumpled, covered by Majima’s hand. Majima sniffles again. He’s staring at nothing in particular.
It’s the kind of silence that forces people to speak. It’s unbearably heavy. Kiryu’s throat bobs.
“What do you want me to say?”
Majima doesn’t glance his way. He barely shrugs.
“If you don’t got nothin’ to say, then don’t say shit.” Majima answers. There’s not much to his voice to discern anything of substance.
Kiryu rubs his face, his thumb over his eyes, picking up the last bits of sleep. He doesn’t acknowledge the stinging at his eyes. He sits up, and crosses his legs.
He wants to see the Majima he’d see in his Nagasugai dreams, his monster in shining armor. Is he so childish he still dreams of fairy tales? It’s so, so much easier than this reality. He wants to be different, too. The kind of man that opens his mouth and fucking speaks .
He gets up out of bed. Majima still doesn’t glance his way. It provokes Kiryu in just the right way, as Kiryu hovers over the bed, over Majima.
There’s nothing he wants more than Majima’s hands around his skull, again.
“Fight me,” He desperately asks.
There should be a spotlight over their heads. Majima should be circling him, too. There should be some sort of spark between them.
With the resounding fanfare of a fly on the wall, Majima finally glances Kiryu’s way, and opens his mouth.
“Nah,” Is all he says.
There’s a song playing on the radio. It came out last year, yet the way it crackles out of Majima’s car radio, no one could be faulted for guessing it was from the seventies. Majima’s got a hand on the gear shift, the other on the wheel. The whole truck rumbles violently, bouncing Kiryu rhythmically. There’s a keychain of a woman hanging off the rear-view mirror, and as it sways, it every now and then catches the light of the passing street lamps.
The truck’s got the clear indications that it has been on its last leg for a good long while. Kiryu supposes Majima breeds stubbornness in anything, even something like a run down truck. Empty cans and bags rustle against Kiryu’s ankles.
“—-Once he’s comin’ down from how hard ya spooked him, he’ll get right back into shape,” Majima finishes.
“He’ll bounce back,” Kiryu replies. He rests his elbow on the window, his forehead against his knuckle. “Be a stronger chairman than before. After living through that, the only place left to go is up,”
“Always the optimist, Kiryu-chan,” Majima hums. If there’s any malice in the way Majima talks about Daigo, Kiryu can’t tell.
“Especially with a good man like Saejima-san around, he’ll keep you two away from each other’s throats,” Kiryu muses, with a fond smile on his face.
Majima laughs. Neither of them know what’s coming.
“You think I ain’t being a fuckin’ saint with that brat?” Majima crows. After a good long moment, he breaks the silence with a random chuckle, like he finished the conversation in his head. He taps his palm against the wheel.
Kiryu wonders if he should ask about Saejima, ask if he’s settling in right. Kiryu decides it’d be better not to. He knows better than to ask for a man who's just lost his family.
“Don’t you worry your little head about us,” Majima suddenly says, like he’s read Kiryu’s mind. “You got those little runts to get back to.”
“I guess you’re right,” Kiryu answers. They pass by a sign announcing the airport is only two miles away.
So, the music continues on. It’ll static out periodically, but it always comes back.
Kiryu eyes Majima’s profile, his gaunt face highlighted by the passing lights.
There’s a lot he wants to say. If it’ll be the last time they see each other, he doesn’t want the rain between them outside the tower to be one of their last moments together. Kiryu pulls at a string on the end of his sleeve. Bruises pepper his wrist.
“I wanted to thank you, Majima-san,” Kiryu croaks. There’s a moment where he holds his hand over his mouth. He turns completely towards Majima. “You…You wouldn’t have gotten arrested if I hadn’t…”
It takes a moment for Kiryu to register the car coming to a slow halt, Majima turning onto the shoulder. The hand that was on the gear shift taps on the hazards. Kiryu looks at Majima quizzically. There still isn’t much to read on Majima’s face.
“Don’t need your thanks, and I don’t need the woe is me shit,” Majima tells him. The strange thing is, he doesn’t even have a mean tone about it. He rubs his wrinkled forehead with the back of his hand. “Shit happens.”
“It matters to me, Majima-san,”
“I know it does. That’s why I’m tellin’ ya to cool it. We ain’t got enough time on this world to be worryin’ about what-ifs.”
So then, Kiryu’s placing a firm hand over Majima’s. It feels like a victory when Majima doesn’t recoil away.
“I’m not relenting on this, Majima,”
Maybe it’s the regret that he never called Majima when he should’ve. Maybe it’s the regret that he didn’t accept Majima’s help back in 2009. He’s seen Majima cave more than enough times to know Kiryu can’t let it lie. He almost wishes they had more time, in a selfish kind of way, like he can pause the world for as long as it’ll take for him and Majima to get on the same page. He wants Majima to see the coast, too. He knows he doesn’t have that luxury.
Without a response, Kiryu continues. “You’ve had my back more times than I can count. Even when I didn’t deserve it. I feel like I owe you my life.”
Majima looks at him. His eye flicks across Kiryu’s face like he’s waiting for a punchline.
“Gotta watch who you say that to, Kiryu-chan,” Majima tells him, “Trust ain’t something to take lightly.”
“I know,” Kiryu answers, with the kind of reverence that surprises him, even scares him. Majima knows it, too. He doesn’t want to take it back, though.
Cars pass by them. He’s already missing Majima all over again, and he knows he isn’t getting another chance at this.
He knows it’s a coward's escape when he presses his lips to Majima’s just as he’s leaving for the airport. It’s easier to change your life when you know you have an easy escape out of it.
His lips were chapped. He smelled faintly of cologne.
“Did you hear me?” Kiryu says. His voice is rough, like a car that hasn’t been started in a good long time. Putter, putter, putter, goes his heart.
“I heard ya loud and clear,” Majima tells him. He lazily huffs out a cloud of smoke. “And I’m tellin’ ya I ain’t feelin’ like it.”
“I don’t care,” Kiryu replies. His fingers twitch, and he’s pulling them into familiar fists.
And then Majima’s raising a brow at Kiryu. To finally pull a face from Majima, Kiryu deserves applause. He can’t believe he forgot just how it feels to be scratched raw by Majima. He feels just as stupid and young and lost as he did when he was thirty-seven. This isn’t something Kiryu can fix with a few punches, but it’d feel so much better if he did, it’d feel satisfying, it’d feel familiar . And right now, that’s all Kiryu wants to feel. He wants to feel like his hair isn’t grey now, like he hasn’t been on Daidoji’s leash for the past seven years. Start the car, putter, putter, putter, where is Kiryu’s voice?
“Stop ignoring me,” Kiryu demands. He scowls.
Like he’s making a show of it, Majima slowly stamps out the cigarette on the end table, his eye on Kiryu the whole time. Then, he’s rolling his neck.
That’s when it finally dawns on Kiryu that this is about testing Kiryu. It only makes Kiryu angrier, and maybe that’s Majima’s goal.
So, Kiryu’s walking around the bed to Majima’s side.
“What you gonna do, huh?” Majima jeers, “What’re you gonna fuckin’ do?”
Kiryu’s heartbeat drums in his ears. He missed this. Majima looks up at him with a disgusted anger, all in such a languid pose, one leg crossed over the other. The key turns, and turns, and turns. Majima’s got his grip on him, and he’s turning. Start the car, motherfucker, start the car.
Kiryu flares up, and without a shirt to grab, he’s grabbing underneath Majima’s jaw, right above his throat, and then he’s cracking the side of Majima’s skull right into the end table table. It feels familiar. He feels relief .
Majima rubs his temple as Kiryu throws the folded chair down, and the crowd goes wild. Blood coats the mat beneath their feet, and Majima looks up at him with utter glee. Kiryu stands over Majima, the spotlights over them casting them both in a harsh light. Majima’s sweat glimmers, and Kiryu’s throat is dry. The announcer’s voice echoes throughout the whole room, but Kiryu’s not paying attention to him. So, then, Kiryu’s offering his hand to Majima, inviting him up. Majima throws his hand out, clapping his palm against Kiryu’s.
His hand is warm, his eye is crinkled.
Kiryu pulls Majima up to his feet, and then Majima’s shoving his knee right into Kiryu’s stomach, and as Kiryu’s keeling, Majima gets his arms around Kiryu’s midriff, lifting him up off of his feet and down onto the ground. Kiryu bounces, his brain surely slamming against the inside of his skull as his forehead hits the mat. Majima’s lifting his arms up, spinning around the ring with flamboyant fanfare. Half of the crowd joyously boos, the other cheers. Kiryu struggles to lift his head up off of the mat, using his fist as leverage to pull himself up.
He watches Majima’s hips shift, watches the way Majima’s tights cling to his hips.
The crowd claps for Kiryu’s resurgence, so he stomps back onto his feet. He spits blood down onto the mat, and fixes his hair. With enough distance between them, Kiryu takes a running start, throwing a two legged kick right into the back of Majima’s spine. There’s a violent crunch, and Majima lets out a rough howl. Kiryu bounces off the mat again, and then he’s climbing right up Majima’s body, pulling Majima into a tight headlock.
Majima’s body is searing hot and wet, and their thighs tangle. Kiryu presses his cheek against Majima’s, and he relents his grip on Majima’s neck. Just enough for Majima to breathe, but not enough for the crowd to get any ideas.
“Look at you,” Majima wheezes, his eye squeezing shut. “Still you ,”
Then, Majima’s punching Kiryu right in the brow. Kiryu throws himself back, holding a hand to his face in extravagant pain. The crowd gasps, and Majima’s back on his feet, dragging Kiryu up with him, thrusting his fist into Kiryu’s chest.
“Rusty as the fork I scratch my ass with, though,” Majima hee-hee-hees.
Kiryu pulls a face, and throws Majima into the cage bars to an uproarious applause. “I’ve got kids to raise,” He replies, splitting Majima’s lip on his knuckle. “Sue me.”
Majima bites his hand. “I’ll sue ya, alright, sue ya into oblivion. I’ll gavel ya with my fists,” And then he punches Kiryu upside the head. Guilty!
“You’d send everyone running if you set foot in any courtroom,” Kiryu says, popping Majima’s shoulder out of its socket, then doing him the kindly favor of popping it back in. “They’d put your face on every board,”
Majima scratches his face. “Face this dick!” He retorts cleverly.
If he had his knife, Kiryu can imagine him twirling it.
Kiryu’s breath is shoved out of him, and in the blink of an eye, Majima’s got him in a fireman’s carry. He lets out a snarl, and it’s invigorating knowing that nobody can hear it but Majima. Vertigo hits him as Majima spins him once, twice, and then he’s throwing himself and Kiryu backwards down onto the mat. The sound is loud, a violent thud across the mat, and the crowd responds in earnest. Pain shoots through Kiryu’s spine, his vision going white. For a moment, all he feels is static, and then he’s feeling Majima’s hand on the back of his knee.
His whole body is folded as Majima pushes his leg up to his chest, Majima’s other leg thrown over Kiryu’s free thigh. Kiryu watches Majima’s shoulders heave with each breath, spit flying from his open mouth and onto Kiryu’s face. The ref throws himself onto his knees, sliding with violent determination, and then he’s screaming right along with the crowd.
“One,” They clamor, hundreds of feet stomping the bleachers with excitement.
One ring for the death knell, and the ref’s bringing his hand down.
Majima’s got a lazy grin on his face, the spotlights above his head cascading him in an almost heavenly light. Bruises line his face, blood cascades from his hairline, and yet all Kiryu can think of is how handsome he really is. His crows feet crinkle, and his nose scrunches up, and he’s got one hand right by Kiryu’s face.
He’s not fighting back, at least for the moment. He’ll never admit to the near satisfaction he feels when Majima’s got one over him. He doesn’t know what it says about him that the only thing he can compare it to is an afterglow, a girl with her arms around his shoulders. It’s a terrifying amount of vulnerability, and it makes him shiver knowing it’s all in Majima’s hand.
It’s easy to pretend it’s all about the show, now. Maybe that’s why he agreed to it in the first place.
“Tired already?” Majima pants.
“Why, thinking about giving up?” Kiryu huffs playfully. His head’s burning, and he’s sure he’s bleeding, but he doesn’t look away from Majima’s gaze. He’s not oblivious to the irony, which is why he’s got a smirk on his face.
“Two,” The ref slams down once again.
Two rings for the death knell, and Kiryu wishes he could live in this moment forever.
“Clock’s ticking, Kiryu-chan,” He growls. It passes right by Kiryu’s brain and straight into the pit of his stomach. With no shirt to hide it, he knows Majima can see the way his stomach lurches in response.
Majima loses his balance, just enough for his leg to slide right in between Kiryu’s. No one else notices, but it sends fire all through Kiryu.
He doesn’t notice he’s laughing as he slams his fist into the side of Majima’s gut, sending him tumbling right off the side. One last ring for the death knell, with Majima’s head as the bell.
Majima holds a hand to his temple, like this was the last thing he expected to happen. He looks up at Kiryu, and Kiryu looks down at him. He’d do anything, anything, to make it right. This is all he knows what to do. He watches Majima stumble onto his feet, and it finally strikes Kiryu how small he truly feels now. Blood trickles down the side of Majima’s face. Kiryu can’t help himself, with rage on his face, he’s never been able to stop once he’s started. Majima looks at him with a lowered brow, his head downcast. The look can only be described as carnivorous. His eye twitches, flicks across Kiryu’s face, and his nostrils flare. There’s no sound between them.
Kiryu feels like a ghost. He’ll never be able to stop haunting the people he loves. He’ll never be able to stop haunting himself .
Majima doesn’t say a word as he puts all his strength into pushing Kiryu back, nearly sending him tumbling to the ground. Kiryu stumbles, pushed hard enough to pass the bed and into the dresser. A knob digs right into his back, and he doesn’t have enough time to react to Majima throwing himself right at Kiryu, turning his body low as his leg launches right for Kiryu. He barely catches Majima’s leg, blocking his face with his forearm. He hears a snarl dig its way right out of Majima’s throat.
Kiryu grabs Majima’s arm, feels the bone creak under his grip, and spins the two of them around just so he can throw Majima right over his shoulder. The cramped hotel room doesn’t have much room for any sort of movement, but Kiryu doesn’t care. Majima rolls over the side of the bed onto the other side with a thud, and Kiryu’s following him on foot. When Kiryu reaches the other side of the bed, Majima’s greeting him. In the short time Kiryu had to walk across the room, Majima had already gotten a hold of the cable to the end-table lamp. Majima jumps to his feet, heaving his shoulder with the weight of the table lamp, he thrusts it right into Kiryu’s head.
It crashes, and Kiryu hears thunder. There’s a second where Kiryu feels nothing, and then he feels everything all at once. He finds himself on the ground.
It takes everything he has to roll away from Majima’s foot, putting all of his strength into a stomp on the carpet floor. He barely evades it, and pulls himself onto his feet into a full crouch, sweeping his leg out and catching Majima’s ankle, bringing him down with Kiryu.
Kiryu throws himself onto Majima, and Majima squeals, kicking his legs up to strike Kiryu’s back, digging his fists and fingers into Kiryu’s sides, all with that look in his eye. Kiryu grabs the sides of his face and slams his forehead into Majima’s, just so he can feel that split-second nothingness again. His vision flashes, and he’s being rolled onto his back next. He feels Majima’s hand gripping his throat.
Kiryu’s vision refocuses, and there’s Majima over him, sweat shimmering, his chest heaving. Kiryu knows he’s breathing, Majima never, would never choke him, but all he can feel is pain in his chest, his lungs, pounding like he’s suffocating. He blinks blood away, realizing the lamp had split his brow.
Majima punches him, and punches him, and with each strike, the strained gasps out of him sound more pained than anything else. All Kiryu can focus on is the tremble of the hand on his throat.
‘ I don’t care, ’ He wants to say, ‘ Do what you want, ’
He watches blood collect on Majima’s knuckles.
The captain wipes the crusted blood off his hands on the leather of his thighs with the flippant attitude of a man drying his hands out of the bathroom. He scratches the side of his face next, doing nothing but streaking four red lines down his cheek. He smells like cheap cologne, and he’s the most unpleasant man Kiryu’s had the displeasure of meeting. He’s got the body language of a preteen girl with the way he skips over the bodies on the ground, and it makes Kiryu sneer.
Kiryu pants, but he lets his stance fall, standing up straight with that formalness he’s learned to copy. His face scrunches up in what he means to be confidence, but it comes off as entirely childish.
“Aw, c’mon, no thanks?” The captain says, the light catching his chains. He twists his head to the side.
Kiryu looks down to the ground, to one of the goons at his feet, and he makes a note to kick the body. It groans.
“I could’ve handled it myself,” Kiryu says coolly, adjusting the lapels on his jacket with practiced gusto. “Majima-san.”
There’s the sound of music in the distance. The rain stopped not too long ago, and the gutters are still dripping. Kiryu adjusts his posture, and his heels scratch against the wet pavement. Majima squints his eye, and gives Kiryu a gross smile, all gum and no joy. Kiryu doesn’t offer him much outside of a glare as Majima lifts his bat to Kiryu’s face. Kiryu knows better than to mess with a captain like Majima, especially from a family like Shimano’s. Nishikiyama’s in his head, again, telling him to mind his business around the big dogs. He’s got a story to tell when he sees him again.
Majima’s stomach is almost concave, his ribs sharp on his frame. His bat’s been through more than Kiryu cares to think about, yet there it is right by his face.
If Majima’s about to crack his skull open, Kiryu supposes all he can do is take it like a man.
The bat presses against the side of his face. Once, twice, and it registers for Kiryu that Majima is patting his cheek in a mock-affectionate gesture. It makes Kiryu’s ears burn.
“You’ll wrinkle real fast like that,” Majima tells him, and in a tone that makes Kiryu not even realize it’s coming out of him for a moment. Like a customer service representative.
“Huh?” Kiryu stammers. It makes Majima smile harder, if that’s even possible.
Majima turns his head to the other side, his voice shifting. A shadow catches on Majima as he leans to one side, blackening his figure. Despite it, his chains shine in the light. A dog barks in the distance.
“You’re real funny, real, real funny,” Majima hee-hee-hees, “Just pounded through seven guys and still got the energy to play boy scout,” He pulls his bat back only to thrust it in an indecent gesture on that ‘ pounded ’.
Kiryu flicks his gaze down to watch Majima swivel his hips.
“What’s Shimano-ojiki got to do with this?” Kiryu asks, climbing over a couple bodies to lift his briefcase back into his hand. He leans back and runs a hand through his hair.
“Boss-man’s got nothin’ to do with this,” Majima tells him, resting a foot on another unconscious man, pushing him back and forth.
“And I’m supposed to believe that?” Kiryu replies. “No reason for a family captain to get involved with another family unless there’s personal stake.”
“Ooh, what a hypothesis,” Majima coos. He twirls around until he’s right at Kiryu’s side, pushing him forward. “You think about how I may just be gettin’ my good samaritan points?”
Kiryu begins walking, and Majima follows him.
“Sure. And you’ve done your job. Will you be on your way, now?”
Majima laughs.
“You oughta know how nice I’m bein’ right now, studmuffin,” Majima says, patting Kiryu on the back. “Cuz I could go right up to the boss man and start wailin’ about how Kazama’s boy’s creatin’ trouble for Dojima, ain’t playin’ nice with the company-tee-shun,” He gestures backwards to the crowd of bodies. “Is that what you’re lookin’ for?”
Kiryu makes a noise in his throat. He grips the briefcase tighter.
Majima continues. “And, take note, that’s what I ain’t doin’. I’m just lookin’ for some fun,”
“And your fun is butting into my business?”
“Bingo, baby,”
“Great.” Kiryu rolls his eyes.
Majima ignores that, or at least doesn’t notice it. He still has a smile on his face, the bat slung over his shoulder. The pedestrians they walk by eye them strangely.
“I’m always itchin’ for a fight, buddy of mine, and you’re a fuckin’ magnet for it,”
“It’s not by choice,” Kiryu answers, “Trouble just finds me,”
“Nah, nah, nah, I’ve seen how you fight, kid, you’ve gotta fire in yas. The kinda fire that makes a motherfucker beg for a fight. Ain’t that right?”
Suddenly, Majima’s gloved hand is on Kiryu’s head, firmly digging into his skull. He’s shaking Kiryu’s head, running his hand through Kiryu’s slicked hair. It only makes Kiryu’s face burn.
“What do you want from me?” He grunts, pulling his head away from Majima’s grasp.
Majima relents, his hand falling to his side. Kiryu never noticed how lanky Majima really is.
“Don’t know that myself, kid, who the hell knows. Does anyone really know what they want want?”
Kiryu pauses for a moment.
“Yeah,” Kiryu agrees, then, “Wait, no. Huh?”
Majima grins again. His teeth are unwashed and yellow.
“You’re real funny,” Majima says.
Kiryu frowns. It makes Majima laugh harder.
“I guess you’re a certain kind of funny, too, Majima-san.”
“Trynna butter me up real good, aren’t ya, scout-boy?”
Majima twirls his bat like a parasol. Kiryu checks his pager, trying not to let it be so obvious that the man flusters him, chalking it up to the man’s superiority rather than anything else.
Cars skid against the wet road, light reflecting off the ground in an almost elegant way. Mist collects at the back wheels, scattering in the wind. A girl holds a hand over her mouth as she laughs, a man looks up at the sky over his umbrella.
And here he is. Kiryu’s never stopped to wonder what causes a man to become like Majima, or what path someone would have to walk on to even become close to him. Kiryu can’t even fathom it. He supposes all he can do is smile and nod. He can’t deny the man’s efficient brutality, something he’ll come to appreciate eventually.
He’s not expecting it when Majima decides to swing around and slug Kiryu right in the thigh, but he can’t say he didn’t enjoy the fight that led to.
He knows later, when he mentions this, Nishiki will gawk, grab at his shoulders, and repeat the haunted rumors of the Mad Dog, the monster of Kamurocho. And Kiryu will laugh. For some reason, it’ll be Majima’s chains that sit in Kiryu’s mind, more than his aching head. He remembers smiling as he picked at the scab on his brow.
Majima’s hair wildly frames his face, clinging to the sweat on his brow. He’s bracing his knees on each side of Kiryu, and his hand is still on Kiryu’s neck. His teeth are bared, seething out every breath until drool is hitting the sides of Kiryu’s face. The light is catching the blood on his temple. His chains are dangling from his neck.
“Come on, come on,” Majima goads, far from any good nature a previous him might have had. “Come on, fight back, where are you?”
The hand on his throat slides to the underside of his jaw, fingers pressing into his jowls. The hand covered in Kiryu’s blood, with busted knuckles, presses to the side of Kiryu’s face, right at the space between his eye and brow, and he pushes, violently pushing Kiryu’s face around, pulls at his skin. It reaches his hairline, touches his hair, and then rolls right back to his cheek. Kiryu’s face throbs, and he can hear it, his pulse in his throat. Majima’s palm is painfully calloused, rough skin cutting into Kiryu’s face, his fingernails are too short to scratch him, but still his fingers dig into his cheek. It feels like some bastardization of something , but nothing comes to mind.
Majima’s hand pushes Kiryu’s brow until his eye is forced wide open, and so Kiryu looks into his eye. His thumb is against a crease in Kiryu’s forehead, his other hand is holding his jaw. Majima’s hair is fanned out around his head, it teases at Kiryu’s face.
“Where’d ya go?” Majima heaves, tugging on Kiryu’s jaw, “Huh? Where’d ya go?”
It hits Kiryu that the only thing he can compare it to is rummaging . Like Kiryu’s head is Majima’s last resort to find something .
Where has he been?
Majima’s face is eleven years aged from the last time Kiryu’s looked at him, with hair that’s too long, blemishes that Kiryu doesn’t recognize, clothes he’s never worn before, where has Kiryu been? Majima’s brow is upturned, concerned, horrified, and Kiryu’s wondering if Majima feels the same. He’s never been able to tell just based on Majima’s face what he’s really feeling. Skin stretches across his muscles, arms tensing and relaxing with each passing second. Does he drive to work everyday now, or does he raise his hand for a cab? Does he wake up in the morning and greet his brother in the kitchen, or does he still jump when he hears bare footsteps?
His shaking hand wrestles Majima’s fingers from his face, squeezing his wrist. He doesn’t know what he wants. He doesn’t know what he wants to do. All he knows is that he’s in pain, and he can’t make it stop. He can’t feel the warmth of Majima’s skin underneath his fingertips, and he doesn’t know how he could ever move like he used to. It’s not his fault, because it’s not about the weapon, it’s about who wields him. He doesn’t remember what his own laugh sounds like.
So, he laughs.
It struggles out of his chest, dying before it even has a chance. It croaks out of him like a death rattle. His face stretches into a smile for a second. His teeth are red, and the blood makes him want to vomit.
“I must disgust you,” He admits, holding Majima’s wrist tighter than he means to.
Majima’s lip quivers. Kiryu counts the wrinkles in his face.
“Kiryu,” Majima says.
His body jumps, his stomach twitching, and then his chest is hollowed out all over again. That’s what genuine shock feels like, as he hears his own name for the first time in years. It feels like just how he did when he lost feeling in his hands in 2014, watching them turn bluer and bluer in the snow, adrenaline bouncing through him with no power to let it out. But, there it is, his name. It sounds horrible and old and unused, but that’s his name.
Kiryu punches him in the stomach. He coughs spit all over Kiryu’s face.
He drags his hand across his shoulder blade as the water washes the streaked dirt off his skin. There’s the sound of the breeze outside, the pine trees rustling violently against each other. He’s gotten so used to the sound of cicadas that he’s forgotten they’re even still squealing this time of year. The water is lukewarm, but feels freezing on his sweat-stained skin. He runs a hand against his breast, runs it through his hair, and wonders if he’s ever going to get the sand out of his nails. He breathes evenly, watches the way his hands waver under the water ripples. Veins bulge from his forearms and his ribs poke out from his skin, but here he is, alive and dying. The faucet drips once, twice, and the water continues to ripple. There’s a mosquito buzzing in the room, and he can tell from the way it beats against the thin wooden wall. His clothes are folded in the corner, and he misses his shoes.
He leans his head forward into the water, and he wants to submerge his whole head, too. His hair is long enough to see it card through the water. He sees a lot more grey, now. When he bathes, he tells himself that this’ll be the day he finally drowns himself.
He doesn’t gesture towards the figure in the doorframe. Slowly, he lifts his head out from the water and flicks it back with his hand.
“What do you want, now?” He asks. He stretches out his shoulders, popping his bones. The mosquito in the room hits the wall with a quiet tap.
“It looks like you’ve been getting accustomed quickly,” Asano tells him. Or maybe it’s Yamamoto. Kiryu hasn’t kept track of them all.
“I’d much rather get accustomed without getting berated every week.” Kiryu replies with a certain kind of dead air.
He-whom-may-be-Asano hums in consideration. There’s the shuffling of fabric, and he can tell he’s adjusting his tie.
“And yet, your snark hasn’t left you…” He remarks, smirk in his voice, “It’ll be a protection job this week.”
Kiryu blinks slowly.
“You already know the drill,” He-whom-may-be-Asano continues, “This one comes from east of Hiroshima. Have you ever been to Kobe?”
“Don’t bother.” Kiryu answers, “Just leave the documents when you go.”
There’s not much in the way of conversation anymore. Kiryu stands up with a stooped posture, and he doesn’t hide his nude form, either. When the mosquito lands on the back of his neck, he kills it before it bites him. He dries himself off and leaves the man in the blue-colored suit in the room behind him. Anything else would be a better waste of his time.
The man’s name is Naohisa Okada. Kiryu sits at the antique chabudai with the corners rotted off, legs crossed with the briefcase opened right by his knee. He’s another éminence grise for the Fixer. There’s the mention of other names he doesn’t recognize, a rival he’s opposing by the name of Aoki, what car Okada will be driving, where his business will lead. It all slips past Kiryu. He’s stopped caring about the specifics, because all he has to do is get on a train and greet the right people. They won’t know his name, and he won’t care enough to remember theirs. His knuckles are still scabbed from the last job.
He’s picking at the seams on his samue. It’s still damp, and he knows he should’ve let it dry for longer.
He turns towards the opened shoji doors, and he watches the birds above the pine trees. His hands are restless. He wants to scratch at the trees until his fingernails bleed. He wants to remember what it feels like to have a head on his shoulder. He wants to burn the skin off the soles of his feet.
When he sits outside with his hands on his knees, it’s easy for him to pretend he’s meditating. He tries to imagine smaller footsteps than his in the dry garden’s sand. Without any clattering, without any singing, it’s closer to a haunting than anything comforting. He knows he needs to stop.
He wakes up when he’s told to, he eats when it’s available, he works, he bleeds, and then he goes back to sleep. The skeleton that makes up his life hasn’t changed since he turned 18, and when he goes to sleep, he dreams of all the ways he can and has violated flesh. When he wakes up, he wants to bash his head into the rocks.
Perhaps that’s why the man he calls Master considers him with such disappointment. Kiryu hates him, too.
The man he calls Master sits him down when the sun’s gone down, and the doors have been closed, and he speaks.
“What have you thought of today?” He asks.
“Nothing,” Kiryu answers.
“There is nothing to gain from lying, except your pride.”
Kiryu makes a face, wrinkling his nose. His hands are in his lap, and he’s scratching at his already-cut fingernails. He’s never had an answer for the man he calls Master. He guesses he’s holding his tongue now. He doesn’t know what he’d speak into existence if he could.
The man he calls Master produces an envelope from the inside of his eri. It’s yellow in color, with a ringed coffee stain at the corner. It has a wax emblem sealed on it, though Kiryu doesn’t get a good look at the design. The man he calls Master places the envelope on the table separating the two of them, his boney, aged fingers bent like a claw as he slides it towards Kiryu. As he leans back, he rests his hands together between his legs, looking at Kiryu with an upturned nose. He sighs deeply through his nose.
It takes Kiryu awhile for him to open the envelope. The man he calls Master doesn’t push him. There’s a long silence between the two of them. There’s the sound of a frog croaking outside. When Kiryu finally places his rough hand onto the envelope, he can’t help but feel something coming, that sinking feeling in his chest, that pounding in his heart that he can hear in his ears, he knows something is coming. He moves the envelope closer to him, closer to his chest, and the sound is getting louder.
And, in reality, there is silence. He feels his own shadow loom over him. He wants to bring this fake temple down all around him.
“You must remember what is at stake,” The man he calls Master solemnly tells him, his tone saddened, raw in his sagging throat. “Why you must let go, now.”
He doesn’t want to open the envelope. It angers him that he can’t hide the shake in his hands. It’s in his hand now. The envelope appears straight out of the highest of offices, the most casual of businessmen, it’s a sore thumb here. He’s unsure if He-whom-may-be-Asano left it when he left earlier, or if it’s something the man he calls Master has been holding onto. There’s no way to tell.
He carefully fingers the envelope open, feeling the weight in his hand. He already knows what he’s going to find, but it doesn’t make the horror ripping through him any easier.
He wants to make them feel the same rotting terror he does. He wants to see it in their bastard eyes. There is no god stronger than the fury burning Kiryu alive.
Kiryu locks Majima’s head in his elbow, pulling him around the room like he’s a ragdoll, and Majima slams his fist into Kiryu’s ribs until the skin’s purpling, right hook, left hook, and Kiryu knees him, kicks his ankle, and then they’re both off balance and hitting the wall together. It quakes under Kiryu’s force, and Majima forces his open palm into Kiryu’s throat. Kiryu gasps, his arm slipping from around Majima’s head, and then Majima’s pinning Kiryu’s shoulder to the wall. Once, twice, he’s hitting Kiryu with open-palmed slaps, like he can’t bear to make fists anymore. Kiryu pushes him forward, kicks his feet out from under him, and catches Majima’s arm as he falls. He twists Majima’s arm to the base of Majima’s spine, and Majima writhes, violently rocking his body back and forth with fervor. Kiryu’s mind blanks, and then Majima’s pulling out of his grip, turning around and revealing the closest thing he could grab, slamming Kiryu’s own shoe into Kiryu’s temple. It bounces off of him, hits the ground with a pathetic thud, and Majima turns around entirely to knock Kiryu right off of him.
Majima gets back onto his feet, stumbling in his own step as he stands over Kiryu. His body convulses, his jaw clenched.
“Get up,”
Kiryu rolls onto his front, coughing blood into the carpet. His fingers create imprints below.
Majima twists his head unnaturally to the side, his jaw popping as he opens it. He gets a running start and forces his foot into Kiryu’s stomach.
“Get up,” He squeals.
Bile rises up Kiryu’s throat, and as he rolls back onto the floor, he coughs it out. Even still, he pushes himself back onto his front.
There’s nothing stopping him. He’s been through gunshots, he’s been through fire, he’s been through knives, the blood in his teeth is nothing. He’s forced himself back on his feet on worser days. He sits himself up on his knees, knowing all he can give to Majima is his utter conviction. He gurgles, and the clouds finally part.
Sun strikes the sides of their bodies with violent force. Majima’s flared hair catches the light as sharply as his chains, the blood on his face like the light on a river. For a moment, everything is golden in the room. In that moment, somehow, everything finally makes sense.
When it passes, so does the revelation. The room returns back to its grey. It feels like waking up from a dream. Kiryu suddenly drops his head.
“Get…”
Majima goes for a punch. Kiryu catches it.
He speaks in fists, speaks in blood. He’s dreamed of it. He wants it all over his face. He wants it on the walls. Majima tries retaliating with his other hand, and Kiryu catches it too. He holds his arms like he once did for Haruto, clapping his tiny hands together, he grips Majima’s wrists so he knows he can’t get out, and he stands.
He kicks the ground like a rearing bull, wrestling Majima in his grip. His throat burns with bile, his mouth tastes like blood and vomit, there’s red in his eyes, and all he can do now–
Kiryu screams. All he wants to do is scream, so he screams, and screams, running forward, pulling Majima into him, wrapping his arms around his midriff, he’s a bull and then his head is to Majima’s chest. He wonders how he ever survived without this, how he ever denied himself, he wonders if he’s already dead.
They hit the wall again. This time, Kiryu cracks it under Majima’s spine.
He feels like he’s been moving for a while. The sheets underneath his back feel like they writhe underneath him, even as he lies there still. Maybe he is moving, maybe he isn’t, there is no way to tell anymore. The lights behind his eyes flash, and flash, and flash, and there’s voices and he can’t hear what they’re saying but he knows they’re there, circling him, enveloping him, moving him when he’s not moving at all, and then there are hands touching him, grabbing at him, and they’re cold and they don’t feel real, it’s not skin that he’s feeling. He remembers a thin red line against white, he remembers feeling alive.
Light hits the stage in a wholly artificial way, like the fluorescent buzzing of a bathroom. He’s never been made for TV. Hands pamper his face, they pull at his suit, pushing out the wrinkles. He’s never thought about what it’d be like to be famous, the life never really interested him. He recalls his brother sitting cross-legged in the apartment, beer in hand, watching the television with a sort of gleam in his eye, the kind that just said; ‘I’ll get there, someday, ’
He leans forward in his seat, rubbing at his face. His hands are cold, so he rubs them together. He can taste coffee still in his mouth, there’s crumbs on his pantleg.
“Do you smoke?” The interviewer asks. Her blouse is low cut, skirt tight. She has a mean face, but not a mean voice. Her hair is black.
The stage is yellow in color, the audience is obscured. The camera moves towards him.
“Is that what they’re asking nowadays?” Kiryu replies quietly. He clears his throat, resting his fingertips to his chin, and clicks his tongue. “Tch, ah… I suppose I do. I’ve wanted to cut back, though.”
She hums in consideration, resting her hands on her lap. Her shoulders are perched, her suit is nostalgic.
Kiryu crosses his legs and discreetly itches his foot with his heel.
“Do you have any family?”
Kiryu nods his head, one hand on his knee. The chair feels small. “I do. I was adopted when I was a baby. I consider everyone I grew up with in the orphanage as my siblings. The man who raised me was the closest thing to a father I had.”
She looks at him blankly. Then he realizes she’s looking past his shoulder.
“What I mean is, do you have any surviving family,”
Kiryu makes a face. There’s a sharp pain in his bicep, but he ignores it. “I don’t understand.”
“Are you aware of what ‘ next-of-kin ’ means?”
“Legalities don’t define family for me, miss. And neither does blood. I’ve spent my whole life skirting through the line of what is right . I wouldn’t say I have the luxury of playing any legal games.”
He’s finding himself itching his foot again. The interviewer is fixing her brown hair, then places her lanky fingers upon her legs, wrapped in a loose pantsuit.
“Can you tell us about your medical history?”
“What is this, an autopsy?” Kiryu huffs. He can feel the camera in his face. It shines a light in his eye, and he winces. “I’ve been through a lot, so excuse me for not being able to provide you a memoir of my life.”
“It’s clear you’re very passionate,” The interviewer says. Kiryu’s unsure of her tone, her face unexpressive.
“I have to be,” Kiryu replies. “When anger can’t keep you alive anymore, it has to be passion that picks up the slack. I’ve had to learn that.”
“We’re doing all we can, but for the moment, the only thing we can do now is wait.”
Kiryu blinks. He turns towards the audience.
“His body temperature is slowly improving, and I don’t want to worry you with the specifics. This can be very scary, but I need you to be able to temper your expectations.”
Kiryu opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He watches the interviewer bow her head, a smile on her face. Everyone claps, except for him.
“Thank you for your time, Miss Sawamura.”
When he sees his feet again, they’re bare, and the ground isn’t the ground.
There’s an ocean, and his feet trudge heavy through the sand like snow. The wind cards through his hair, and he can swear it feels like fingers. He swallows around nothing.
The water feels warm, and he’s missed it more than anything. It strokes behind his ears, wipes his neck, cleans his eyes. Pain shoots through his hands, right to his fingertips, and then he eventually stops feeling it. When the water touches him, it feels like his head upon his father’s thigh. He feels small, but he doesn’t feel scared. It makes him breathe easy. Sleeping feels like the movies, he remembers watching ‘Get ‘Em All ’ on his father’s lap, and he remembers deciding Hiroshi Mizuhara would be his boyfriend. Hiroshi Mizuhara died when Kiryu was ten. That was before death was a scary unknown, when death was the most honorable thing a man can do. At least, that’s what Kazama told him.
It’s 2012 now. There isn’t a lot Kiryu can say about honor.
His fingers don’t twitch, and he is dying from pneumonia.
He won’t remember him being there, but he remembers the voice. His eyes were open, but he still couldn’t register anything but the ventilator, everything in his vision shining bright, blooming flowers.
Hand at his head, it tries not to jostle him, it rests at his hairline, rests at his temple, and the callouses disturb his focus, it feels dark, it feels like it’s night time, it feels.
“I need you here. I need you here . Do you hear me? Close your eyes. Don’t try to speak.”
He closes his eyes, and the hand keeps to his head. He misses the taste of candy. Did he do enough?
The hand will be stroking his hair, and then it will disappear. It returns momentarily, and then it’s gone. It feels better than the headache that’s become so constant it’s a housemate. The hand strokes his cheek, strokes his chin, all like it’s searching for something.
A memory replays in his head, a 1999 calendar on the table, a hand upon his spine, what did he mean?
‘ Men are always scared of something, ’ And it finally clicks. Majima’s hands upon him, he wasn’t antagonizing Kiryu, he wasn’t testing Kiryu, it was a question, it was a plea. Kiryu had taken it wrong, he had misunderstood, ‘I’m not afraid of you,’ and then Majima was pulling away. In his youthful immaturity, he never gave it a second thought. It was a passing failure to be added upon the rest of passing failures. ‘Always something, always something, You’ve got the worst one,’ Majima knew him more than he knew himself.
“ I’m not scared ,” He tries to say. It’s jumbled, muffled by the ventilator, none of it makes sense. He’s not scared of himself , he’s not scared of what he wants. That’s what he needed to say to Majima.
He’ll forget this by 2013, the revelation passing in his head like the train he couldn’t catch. Only by death’s door did he finally get it.
He’s not going to remember Haruka’s head to his chest. He’ll wake up seeing her gloves folded neatly on the end table, covered in his blood. Red line across white.
When the ocean suffocates him, fills his lungs, betrays him, that’s when he finally fears death. He doesn’t feel anymore hands at his head, heads upon his chest, he doesn’t feel the hands grabbing at him, he doesn’t feel the voices talking for him. Instead, he is left with only his own thoughts and the weight of his own body, pushing down on his chest, trying to crush the air from his lungs.
And that is when he wakes up, the ventilator pulled from his lungs. Blood rushes to his head, and he sobs.
Tears run down the bridge of his nose, mixing with the blood dripping down his face. His ruined hands have found their way to Majima’s arms, desperately clinging onto his skin, like they’re all Kiryu has left to grab. The violent imprint Kiryu has left in the wall remains, a permanent reminder, now. Majima stands limply, pinned against the crack by Kiryu's head pressed against his chest. Kiryu's blood is boiling, his chest is tight with a rage that he can't contain. His body is on fire, his head is screaming for release.
“I can’t fix what I’ve done,” Kiryu shakes, “I’ve been dead for eleven years.”
His path follows him , broken and cracked and terrified of what he’ll do next. He’s guided people to their destruction, inconsolable and hurt, and he can’t fix any of it. He wants to be young and stupid again, he wants the stakes to be lower, he wants to be small, he wants to be forgotten. He wrings Majima’s arms like he can wring out his own guilt from it.
“Forgive me. Forgive me for asking that of you,” He can’t know the years of grieving he’s put everyone through since 2016. Since the beginning, he’s always been a coward.
There’s hundreds of ghosts all looking over their shoulders at him, all standing in this room. They’re younger, happier, sadder, angrier, but they all understand the world more than him. They wear his and Majima’s faces, echoes upon echoes of memories. Is he really the final end? He is the anticlimactic demise of Kiryu Kazuma, and all he can do is cling to Majima, and all the ways he remembers him.
Then, he’s feeling skin upon him.
Majima cusps his arms to Kiryu’s back, hands pressing to his shoulder blades. His hands are wet, streaking red wherever he leads his fingertips. Kiryu hears himself hiccup on his tears, and he can feel his body lurch. He lets his hands fall from Majima’s shoulders, until they’re both hanging limp at his sides. His knees still bent, he feels Majima pull his shoulder against his, feels Majima pull him to his feet. All he can do is feel Majima’s heavy head on his shoulder, fingers grasping at his flesh. He’s beaten Majima, again, but Majima grabs at him like a victor, greedy and angry and yearning. Kiryu lets his head roll slack, eyes on the ceiling, and he cries, fully seized into Majima’s violent grasp. This is the only revenge Majima can bring.
“You’re not dead, you bastard,” Majima murmurs, his voice like the rolling of thunder, first it’s a confirmation for himself, then it’s an affirmation for Kiryu, “You fucker , you broke my nose, you’re not dead, ” Majima’s breath is heavy and hot against his neck. “You’re not dead until I say you are,” He promises.
Majima’s blood is caked onto Kiryu’s face.
“You kept me waiting,” Majima tells him, “All this time, and it was the fucking boredom that hurt the worst.”
“I feel like I’m going to suffocate from how angry I am,” Kiryu states. “Everyday, my leash was passed from bastard to bastard, tighter and tighter, all because they knew I wouldn’t stop them. I sacrificed everything I believed in.”
Majima forces Kiryu’s head toward him, pulling until their noses are touching. He stares at him like they’re both two dogs on opposite yards, staked down and lonely and wild, choking themselves with absolute desperation. In Majima’s eye, reflected right back at him, Kiryu sees his own bloody-maw reflection.
“Don’t you go lookin’ at me for your absolution,” Majima demands of him, “Not when we’re both still in the fence,”
When Majima leans Kiryu’s head down, Kiryu closes his eyes.
“You scared of somethin’?” Majima asks him, a far-off 2005 echo finally reaching him.
“Not of this,” Kiryu finally finds the right answer. He loops his arms around Majima, making the steps to reach Majima himself. “This is what I want,”
Majima presses his bloody split mouth to Kiryu.
Her name was Sato Akiko. Kiryu still remembers her name.
Before Kiryu rode his bike into the ditch back home because he was young and dumb and thought he could somehow outrun the turn, she would ride with him in front, standing with her legs on the bike’s hub, her hands on the stem, and he’d have to peek right past her body to see where he was going. Nishikiyama would be lagging behind, because he broke his bike sooner than Kiryu, and he was jealous and didn’t hide it. First about the bike, then about the girl. This was high school, after they stopped pretending life wasn’t about pretty girls and smoking cigarettes. They had skipped any formalities of Nishikiyama being any sort of protective force for Kiryu, because Kiryu was meaner and badder than anything Nishikiyama could dish out, and the boys could tell. Kiryu knew Nishikiyama would smoke with them under the makeout-staircase when it was after hours, and he knew they’d talk about it. Kiryu remembers Nishikiyama stopped hanging out with them once he broke two of their noses.
On one of Kiryu’s nicer days, he lets Nishikiyama squeeze onto his bike’s seat with him. Nishikiyama only agrees once they’re far enough away from the school that nobody would see them.
“I’ve got a date,” Nishikiyama tells him.
“You’ve got a date.” Kiryu repeats.
“I’ve got a date.” Nishikiyama confirms. Kiryu can’t see him, but he’s got a smile in his voice.
“What, are you asking me permission, or something?” Kiryu barks.
“What’s your problem? Try to be happy for me,”
“I’d be happier if your ass wasn’t on my bike.”
“You offered!”
“Whatever. Who’s the girl?”
“Arai Shiori,” Nishikiyama answers.
“From your geo class?”
“That’s right,”
Kiryu remembers smoking with her once in the stalls. There’s no telling how many nicotine addictions Kiryu birthed in those restrooms.
“Rad.” Kiryu blankly replies. “You doing anything?”
“Gonna take her somewhere nice.” Nishikiyama answers.
“With no bike.”
“Eh?!” Nishikiyama nearly rolls right off the seat. He gives Kiryu’s shoulders a shake. “Not even going to let me borrow your bike for this? The hell’s your problem?”
Kiryu smirks, but Nishikiyama certainly can’t see it. “You want the bike, you’re gonna have to trade me.”
Nishikiyama groans, but relents, because he really, really wants the bike. “Fine, what is it?”
The bike rolls over a rock, and it takes a moment for Kiryu to stabilize them. After that, he answers.
“Get your dirty ass laundry off the floor!” Kiryu suddenly yells, lifting one foot to give Nishikiyama a firm kick.
Nishikiyama yells back. “That’s not even mine, that’s yours! That’s some unfair shit, dude!”
“Get it up!”
Immediately after this, Kiryu loses his balance, and sends both of them into the hell of skinned legs. Nishikiyama takes the trade, and after that, Nishikiyama had a girl.
Kiryu didn’t date, but it was less about availability and more about the connection. He found the girls he liked spent more time around him once they found out he was single, and they were not. Smile and nod, your boyfriend said what, that’s crazy, I’m here for you, let me pet your hair, let me fix your shirt, let me hold your hand, let me talk to them, they won’t bug you anymore. He was a refuge for the girls who thought he was like them, and he kept it that way, because they’d sling their legs over his, and he liked smelling their perfume when they’d hug him. He’d sneak them cigarettes in the bathrooms, and he’d bully the boys that bullied them. He knew he was on a thin tightrope, and everyday he’d fear he’d step just a bit too far and lose it all. There was no possibility that Kiryu would pursue the girls that crowded around him, but the boys still put him to the test. The vague threat of it was scarier than any confirmation, and so the boys played their games, and Kiryu played his.
And then there was Sato.
She had a mean face and a sweet voice, and there was never a time Kiryu remembered where her relationship with her boyfriend was anything but tumultuous. They had that sort of relationship, where it was more about the drama than the relationship itself, and Kiryu waited outside for it all, umbrella in hand. She was spunky and nosey and Kiryu knew less about her than himself, but he still liked her than he liked most girls.
Whenever there was a camera, either for yearbooks or whatever else, Sato would throw her arms over Kiryu’s sturdy shoulders and press her cheek against his. When they’d sit outside the school, she’d rest her head on his lap. Kiryu would pick her up playfully, and he could do it just like the boys, too.
“It’s not fair,” She muses, playing with Kiryu’s long hair.
“Huh?” Kiryu asks. They’re both on the ground, and his skirt is long enough that he can sit as indecently as he wants. He rests the hand with his cigarette on his bent knees.
“Me and Noriko were talking about you,” She says. She has that playful voice on her, like she’s spreading rumors. She’s holding back giggles.
“Cool.” Kiryu replies. He takes a moment to smoke, and then he coughs. “What about?” He wheezes.
“We were talking about how we’d be fighting over you if you were a boy,” She laughs.
Kiryu hums. “Right,” He answers. “And you’d be my girl?”
She sits back on her haunches, reeling back as she holds her hands over her mouth. She makes a squealing sound, then taps his shoulder. “You’re so bad!” She replies. “Like you’d have time for girls. You don’t even have time for boys!”
“Hey, hey,” He warns, gesturing his hand towards her. “What’s your problem? I don’t care about boys.”
“It’s about time you start!” She puts a hand on his shoulder. “You scared pretty much everyone in the school already, so maybe we’ll get an exchange student you can date. Real cute maybe, too,”
Kiryu adjusts himself on the grass, and turns his shoulder to her. As he presses his cigarette to his lips, he gives her a coy smile. Despite it, there’s a moment of fear pinging him. “I’d be surprised if any boy’d ask me out, even someone who didn’t know me. You said it yourself, I’m real bad,”
She laughs again. “Cut it out!”
They’d continue like that again and again. Each time, that subtle fear would reveal itself more and more, like the bogeyman in the shadows. The confirmation nobody was looking for.
This was when ‘ Sailor Suit Rebellion Alliance’ had just come out, and before the TV Kazama had brought finally broke down. Seeing his reflection on the TV screen angered him more than it gave him solace, because that’s when he found out what he wanted for himself wasn’t enough . It wasn’t what he saw on TV or the fear mongering pamphlets or the stolen magazines. His presumed style had just become a genre, and all he wanted was the girls to kiss him like they meant it.
Sato’s boyfriend didn’t have a name. Well, he surely did, but Kiryu didn’t care enough to remember it. He was one of the boys Nishikiyama smoked with, and one of his friends died in a car accident. Kiryu always assumed Sato didn’t talk about him much to her boyfriend, because her boyfriend never offered him any sort of look in the hallway. Perhaps the rumors hadn’t reached him yet, but then again, he still smoked with Nishikiyama.
He officially met Sato’s boyfriend outside school, in the middle of town. For Sunflower, it would take a taxi to reach anything populated, but Kiryu had a bike and dreams and a nicotine addiction.
“What’s your problem?” The boy with a blue shirt says, pushing Sato’s boyfriend into the brick wall of the used bookshop, right on the outskirts of the alleyway they found a dead body in last year.
Kiryu’s on his bike, a bag on his back. He’s stolen more clothes, and this time, he remembered Yumi’s size. He knows she’ll turn them down again, but at least then he can deny it even matters that much to him. That’s when he finds Sato’s boyfriend, and the boys roughing him up.
“Oi, oi,” Kiryu calls out, bike wheeling to a stop. He holds himself and the bike up on one leg, and his socks are red. When he speaks, he speaks with practiced threat. “Quit the fighting, dipshits.”
There’s the boy with the blue shirt, one with a sweater, and one with a jacket. Sato’s boyfriend is still wearing his school shirt.
“Stay the fuck outta it, bitch,” Blue shirt says. It’s not the first time Kiryu’s heard that, and certainly not the last. It’s funny how kids can be almost unrecognizable from adults, with how the spiels never change. At least as far as Kiryu is concerned, anyway.
“Yeah, yeah,” Sweater adds. “Take your pretty face home,”
Kiryu barks out a mean laugh. ‘Bitch’ isn’t new, but ‘pretty’ certainly is. If they’ve got as much attitude as they do with him, there’s no telling how they’re talking to their girls, or how their papas talk to their mamas. He slips off of his bike, and it hits the ground with a loud clack.
“Fuck off, ugly,” Kiryu replies, pointing right at Sweater. “And quit picking on that little shit. I don’t care if he deserved it. You guys just piss me off.”
“Are you picking a fight with us?” Jacket says, incredulously. And it’s genuine .
Kiryu brushes his hair past his ear. “Why should I? I know I’d win.”
“Huh…” Jacket whines.
“Man, I’ll fuck you up, I mean it!” Blue shirt warns. His voice wavers a bit, like he doesn’t really mean it. That just pisses Kiryu off more.
So, something else happens, Kiryu doesn’t remember. Kids say stupid shit, kids do stupid shit, all he remembers is that poor little Blue shirt had more teeth for the tooth fairy, and Jacket had to reconsider his life trajectory that day. Blood is blood, and this is before Kiryu really understood what that meant to him.
When Sato’s boyfriend is finally recuperating from the barely-there roughing up he endured, that’s when Kiryu approaches him.
“Thanks…” Sato’s boyfriend begins to speak, but Kiryu punches him right in the jaw.
“I wasn’t helping you, idiot. I’m just protecting my rep.”
Sato’s boyfriend holds his mouth. His eyes are wide. All the arguments, all the petty drama, and now Kiryu is seeing the boy himself, in his most honest state.
So, Kiryu fluffs his own jacket, and fixes his hair once again. “Remember it. I’m a badder man than any of you combined.”
When he says that, it’s equal parts comforting and alienating. It was a taunt, but it was just enough to finally tip Kiryu off that tightrope. The straw that broke the camel’s back, or whatever.
When he cut his hair finally, Sato stopped talking to him, and he got over it. He learned that fearing what you want was safer than the alternative.
Majima’s hands ride along Kiryu’s arms all the way to his wrists, then back around. His hangnail scabbed fingers grab at Kiryu’s sideburns, and then he’s dragging his tongue from Kiryu’s chin to the tip of his nose. He’s breathing like something fierce, finally getting back into his old skin, and Kiryu lets him take his time. It almost feels like a theater troupe practicing their lines, Mad Dog speaks, Dragon bites, he just has to remember the steps. Finally feeling Majima kiss him sends his chest into turmoil, like nausea begging to overtake him, Majima kisses him again and again. Kiryu sinks his nails into Majima’s back, and Majima grabs his ears until they burn.
“Whadd’ya want?” Majima asks him, knee between his legs.
Majima caves into Kiryu, his mouth on his. It strikes Kiryu that the soft underbelly of any predator is exposed when they’re over their prey. Majima exposes his with each kiss, and Kiryu knows it’ll never be about submission.
“I want this,” Kiryu answers, in between Majima biting his lips.
“What do ya want?” Majima asks him, hand pulling and grabbing Kiryu’s shoulder.
“I want this,” Kiryu answers, pressing his palms into Majima’s bruises.
“What do ya want?” Majima asks him, arms tangling around Kiryu’s chest and neck.
“I want this,” Kiryu answers, then presses his tongue into Majima’s mouth.
“I want this,” Kiryu sinks his hips down onto Majima’s thigh.
“I want this,” Kiryu feels Majima’s tongue on his neck, his hands at the back of Kiryu’s head.
“I want this,” Kiryu gasps with Majima’s teeth on his sternum.
“I want this,” Kiryu bites Majima’s ear and grips at his ass.
This is when everything finally feels inconsequential. Every misery, every death, and yet here Kiryu is, writhing underneath Majima’s seething grasp. It’s nostalgic, Majima’s hands gripping him tight, it’s familiar, feeling Majima’s teeth on his shoulder, neither of them shed their clothes, and Kiryu prefers it that way. Once again, it’s familiar. He lets Majima do what he wants, because Kiryu wants it, too. Majima trails his mouth across Kiryu’s jaw, and Kiryu sighs. He’ll do anything to take everything Majima offers him.
“It wasn’t the Yomei Alliance,” Kiryu whispers into Majima’s breast. “It was Daidoji Minoru. His people.”
“You kill anyone?” Majima asks him with pained urgency. His hand teases Kiryu’s waistband.
“No,” Kiryu answers. He pauses, and decides he isn’t sure about that. “I don’t know.” He elaborates.
There’s a sound at the back of Majima’s throat. Kiryu grabs Majima’s chest, and rolls them over.
“Mighty weight to carry,” Majima tells him. “You been a ghost since 2016,”
“They promised they wouldn’t mess with Haruka, or anyone else I cared about, if I was the collateral.”
“Really pulled that death off well…”
“It’s easier when you really want it.”
Majima holds his head close. He kisses the side of Kiryu’s neck, right behind his ear.
“You’ll fuckin’ regret saying that.” He warns.
“I did.” Kiryu squeezes his eyes shut. Kiryu doesn’t know when it’ll stop being past tense. “I don’t know if they’re still looking for me.”
Majima drags his hand through Kiryu’s grey hair.
“Where’d they keep ya?”
“A temple up in Hiroshima,” Kiryu answers. “It was under Daidoji’s name. It wasn’t a legit thing, at least, it wasn’t by the time I got there.”
Majima pets Kiryu’s back. Kiryu rocks against Majima’s thigh.
“What made ya come back?” Majima finally asks.
Kiryu squeezes Majima tightly. He crushes his nose against Majima’s shoulder until it hurts all over again, until he knows he’s hurting the both of them. Majima clings to him, too.
Out of him, it comes out. “I wanted to watch the Tojo Clan die with my own eyes.”
Majima kisses him. He stops asking questions, and rolls Kiryu back over.
“You kept me waiting,” Majima eventually says it again. “You kept me waiting.”
The anger hasn’t left the way he says it, but then Kiryu catches something else. It’s something like gratitude. Each time Majima says it, he squeezes Kiryu, threatens each bruise on Kiryu’s body.
Majima’s skin is warm and rough and sweaty, and their skin clings to one another each time they meet. He can’t say anything Majima does is soft . His beard is painfully coarse, and Kiryu’s stomach twitches in arousal. They’re both quietly groaning into each other. Majima’s sighs are gentle and high-pitched, the closest Kiryu’s ever gotten to hearing his natural cadence. When Kiryu’s eyes slide open, Majima’s is already meeting his gaze. It flusters Kiryu to realize Majima’s going to keep his eye right where it is. It makes the heat between them almost unbearable. Kiryu kisses Majima again.
When they do find their rhythm, it’s with Kiryu’s head on Majima’s shoulder, arms looped underneath Majima’s armpits, fingers right at the nape of Majima’s neck. Each gasp out of Majima drives Kiryu forward, and Kiryu can feel Majima’s heart pounding out of his chest.
“I’m not askin’ if you’re gonna stay,”
“I don’t know if I will. I don’t know where I’m going.”
“You scared any?”
Kiryu’s boxers drag against his front with each thrust against Majima’s thigh. He can feel Majima’s penis against his hip. His body is bounced against the bed until it creaks underneath the two of them, rhythmic squeaking that gets Kiryu’s bell ringing. He gasps in a breath, his throat burning. Majima rests his head against Kiryu’s, his hawkish profile against Kiryu’s cheek. Majima’s shoulders are covered in acne scars, imperceptible by eye. Kiryu runs his wrists against them. Majima runs his face all across Kiryu’s chest, Kiryu’s shoulders, and digs his fingers into all the bruises he’s made. Kiryu presses his mouth against his open temple.
“I guess I’ll find out when I get there,”
Kiryu arches his back against Majima, and his arms go slack. His front aches violently, and he’s thrusting harder into Majima. Another surge runs through him, and power returns to his limbs. He throws his arms to Majima’s shoulder blades and sinks his fingers into him.
“Majima,” He pleas, his mind finally fizzling out. He thrusts until his glutes are burning, until his body is begging him to stop. “ Majima ,”
Majima’s hands go to Kiryu’s hips, picking up the slack where Kiryu’s falling behind. Kiryu drags red across Majima’s back, and Majima kisses his breast.
“Shit, shit,” Kiryu swears. Everything swarms around him, and overwhelmed, Kiryu does what naturally comes to him. “Fuck off, fuck you,” Nonsense, swearing, everything pulls its way out of him. “I’ve got–I need–So much for you, you, you ,”
Majima gasps. Kiryu pulls himself up off of the bed with Majima as an anchor, and he comes, kicking his legs out and into Majima, beating his palm against Majima’s skin, and Majima wraps his arms entirely around Kiryu, urging him to take what he wants. Kiryu digs his way deeper into Majima, and howls.
The aftershock rolls through him as Majima massages his breasts. His front throbs in sync with his pulse, the sound violent in his ears. It feels strange to have his chest be paid the attention Majima gives it, but he lets Majima do it. He lets his eyes close.
“When…” Majima murmurs, but he doesn’t quite finish it.
Kiryu lets himself be lost in the feeling of Majima running his hands across his body. The air is thick, and everything smells of sweat. It feels like he’ll never catch his breath again. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever stop tailspinning.
Regardless, Majima has his hands on him for the moment. He savors that.
“When you get where you’re goin’,” Majima’s voice is raw, his throat wet. “I’ll meet you,”
Kiryu kisses him again. He wants to believe in that. Somewhere deep in him, far past his suicidality and anger, he looks forward to it.
Outside, rain begins to hit the window.