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When Kiryu had gotten the text from Nishida, he thought he knew what he was getting into. Yet as he wandered the hall of the batting center and saw no trace of Majima or any of his goons, he wondered if he’d gotten it wrong. He flipped his phone open.
Boss is in a REALLY bad mood today. If you were planning to meet, I’d stay away.
Kiryu frowned at the screen. He hadn’t particularly planned to meet Majima, but their encounters had gotten a lot more….sporadic….since the crisis had blown over. Sometimes they didn’t even fight when they ran into each other, just had a drink or went karaoke and pointedly refused to address the tension between them. And the text had made Kiryu’s insides feel a little…funny. He remembered the fight they had in the batting center months ago, how feral and vicious Majima had been. He could use to blow some steam with that version of the Mad Dog. But he wasn’t here.
Should I not go to Yoshida, he carefully typed out.
Nishida’s answer buzzed in his pocket just as he stepped out for a cigarette.
You didn’t hear this from me, but we had a few stressful days. He might not leave his apartment for another couple of days. You should be safe.
Kiryu took a long drag and thumbed the messages up and down. It didn’t sound like one of Majima’s schemes this time. Besides, he didn’t have a reason to fight him anymore. But he did say that fighting made him feel better. Had that been part of his act?
Kiryu frowned at the phone again as it dawned on him that he didn’t actually know where Majima lived. The thought of him having an actual apartment like a normal person was weird, as if Kiryu subconsciously though that he just existed everywhere in Kamurocho at the same time and never slept, just recharged in trash cans and under traffic cones. Which, of course, was ridiculous. Majima was weird, but he wasn’t actually crazy. Kiryu had known since the eighties, and Shimano being finally out of the picture had calmed him down considerably.
where would this apartment be, he typed slowly. He hesitated a long minute before sending it, but eventually hit the button. He didn’t mind showing his hand to Nishida a little. He was a good guy who seemed to care for Majima a lot, despite everything. He could trust him.
We just moved the family office to the millennium tower, said Nishida’s reply, and Kiryu’s heart dropped into his stomach. Boss’ apartment is on the 40th floor.
Of all the places, it had to be that one. Kiryu snapped his phone closed and slipped it back into his pocket.
Then again, in a way, it almost made sense. The bloodstained dirt where the tower had sprung up while he was in jail was the first knot in the snarled threads that bound them together, wasn’t it? If somebody had to squat on top of the corpses of Kiryu’s loved ones, perhaps Majima was the one he’d choose, too.
Grinding his cigarette under his heel, Kiryu decided it was time to visit the tower again.
And maybe this time, nobody had to die in his arms.
***
The tower had been rebuilt, as if the explosion that took everything from him had never happened. It was bustling with activity in the late morning, businessmen shouting into their phones, office ladies’ heels clicking fast across the marble floors. The occasional yakuza-looking man nodded at him respectfully even when they weren’t wearing the Majimagumi pin. Nobody tried to stop him, and why would they? There was a couple burly guys playing cards behind a desk on the 40th floor, but no security.
Then again, who’d be so stupid as to try anything on the Mad Dog of Shimano’s turf? Majima needed no security. Kiryu was certain he’s never met either of the men, but they both glanced at him and nodded. Right. Fourth chairman.
The 40th floor was close enough to the patched up explosion site the paint was still new, filling the hallway with a plastic smell that made Kiryu’s head hurt. It didn’t take a genius to know which door was Majima’s apartment, as the lacquered handle of his dagger stuck out of the expensive wood. Kiryu knocked, and received no answer.
He knocked again, more firmly. Maybe Majima really was in a bad mood and this was stupid and selfish of him.
He knocked one third time, his heart not in it anymore, and finally a sound came from the inside. Rustling. Something getting knocked over. A curse. Then the door swung open violently.
“Nishida when I say leave me alone I mean leave me fuckin---” he trailed off as his head tilted up to meet Kiryu’s eyes. “Kiryu-chan?”
He wasn’t wearing his eyepatch. Kiryu tried his hardest not to stare at the pale scarred flesh where Majima’s left eye was supposed to be. But anywhere he tried to look, he stumbled.
Majima looked bad. Pale, sweaty, his hair greasy and clumped to the side of his head. His lips were chewed bloody and his cheeks patchy with stubble.
Maybe it really had been a bad idea to come here. Then he noticed the blood, a thin trickle peeking from behind his ear and down his neck before disappearing in a smear on the white head of the snake.
“Majima-san,” he said. “You’re hurt.”
Majima blinked, his one-eyed blink even more lopsided without the eyepatch.
Kiryu reached into the door, intent on touching the blood to show him. He did not expect Majima to scramble back as if Kiryu was burning. He stumbled, clumsy where he would have normally been graceful, and landed on his ass. “Sorry,” he mumbled, rolling back onto his feet and touching his neck. He looked at the red on his fingers as if he doesn’t quite understand what it meant. “Musta nicked myself while cuttin’ my hair. Happens. ‘M fine.” He wiped his fingers on the only thing he was wearing, a ratty-looking pair of sweatpants covered in stains.
He didn’t look fine. Kiryu found himself stepping inside the apartment, kicking off his shoes even as Majima ignored him and headed for the bathroom. All the blinds were down, and the smell of sweat, cigarettes and slightly off food was suffocating. He stood nervously in the enormous open space living room, and tried not to look at the wasteland of undue violence upon furniture, the scattered books and broken ashtrays dusting the expensive carpeting.
“Niisan?” he said quietly when Majima returned, a towel pressed behind his ear. “Are you...ill?”
Majima’s laughter was too loud. Braying, fake. “Nah. Just crazy. But ya knew that, didn’t ya.”
“You aren’t crazy,” said Kiryu, approaching him again. Slower this time. Majima didn’t pull away when he reached for the towel and gently pushed it down. “Never were.”
The cut didn’t seem deep but as soon as the pressure was removed blood beaded again in Majima’s cropped hair. Majima’s breath hitched when Kiryu touched his skin, and then he leaned into it, into him, close enough Kiryu could feel the heat of his body. Blood slicked his fingers as he found himself cupping the back of Majima’s head, pulling him close, finally crossing the invisible line between them.
“Didn’t want ya to see me like this,” he sighed into Kiryu’s shoulder.
“Like what?”
Majima’s hands hovered for a second on Kiryu’s hips, but then pressed flat against his chest, pushing himself off. Kiryu held him a little tighter. He felt, stupidly, that if he let go now he was never going to be able to catch him again.
Majima danced out of his hold effortlessly, and smiled at him in such a false, forced way it made Kiryu nauseous. “Nevermind that. What did ya wanna do? Wanna fight? We can fight.”
Kiryu thought he wanted to fight, but he sure as hell didn’t want to now. He liked fighting Majima because they both enjoyed it. He was not going to help him hurt himself. He was about to say as much when Majima stepped right into his personal space again, fingers hooked in the v of his shirt and his smoky breath on his lips.
“I see,” growled Majima, his entire demeanor changed as if a switch had been flicked in him. Kiryu stepped back, and Majima followed, until he had him pinned against the armrest of a massive leather couch. “Little Kiryu-chan finally got over himself, huh?”
“Majima-san?”
“Let’s fuck,” said Majima, pressed against him. “Ain’t that what yer here for?”
Kiryu’s breath got trapped in his chest, Majima’s heat suddenly all over him. He tried getting away, and the ground left his feet and he toppled over the couch. He had barely landed and Majima was already climbing over his legs, straddling his sides, forcing Kiryu’s hands on his filthy pants, on his bare hips.
“C’mon, Kiryu-chan. Enough playin’ coy. I know ya want it. Why else would ya come all the way up here if it ain’t to fuck me silly?”
“Niisan,” he said, firmly, hoping it was firm enough to stop this. Enough to overrule the response his body was giving.
When Majima didn't stop, Kiryu pushed his hands off, clasped his wrists hard enough to feel the bones creak in his pams, tried to hold him still.
That seemed to only spur him on, his eye dark and unfocused in the dim light. His voice was feverish, more panic than arousal, or maybe Kiryu was hearing things under the roar of his blood in his ears. “Oh, that’s how ya like it? Shoulda known. That’s alright. Ya can do whatever ya want to me. Make it hurt. Break me. I can take it.”
“Majima-san. Stop, please.”
Majima stopped, quiet and still but still shaking on top of him. He felt so light, his wrists so thin in his hands.
“I’m not here for this. And even if I were….not like this. Never like this.”
Majima went even quieter, if that was possible, all the fight sighing out of him. Kiryu slowly released his wrists.
“Why are you here, Kiryu-chan? If it ain’t fightin’ or fuckin’, why even bother coming all the way?”
“Is that all people come here for?” Majima’s smile was so pained it hurt to look at. “Sorry.”
“Nothin’ to be sorry for, when it’s the truth. But you ain’t like other people, are ya.”
“Nishida said you were having a hard time.” He wasn’t sure where to put his hands. He rested them on top of Majima’s shaking ones, over his chest. “I thought maybe you wanted to fight, like that time at Yoshida. But now I don’t want to fight you. I just...want to make sure you’re okay.”
Majima moved as if in slow motion, melting and folding like a puppet whose strings were being cut. He slid down, slipping his long legs between Kiryu’s, draped himself over him, heavy and tired. He closed his eye with a sigh as his head dropped heavily onto his crossed arms. “Yer so good, Kiryu-chan. Ya know that? Yer so good. Too good. Carin’ for somebody like me is a fast ticket to an early grave.”
“Well, it’s a little too late now, isn’t it.”
Majima reached out to brush surprisingly delicate fingers down Kiryu’s jaw. Kiryu had never even seen Majima without gloves, let alone felt his bare hands on his skin; it was kind of electrifying, like a secret. His fingertips were rough. There was chipped black polish on his short, shockingly well manicured nails.
Kiryu tilted his chin, and pressed his lips to Majima’s palm, just a breath above his fluttering pulse.
Perhaps there was something he could have told Majima. Something deep, something inspiring. Something to stop him from hurting himself so much. But Kiryu was bad with words, and he’d had his own fill of inspiring and deep words in the past few months. They’d done nothing to fill the hollowness under his ribcage. So he took Majima’s hand in his, and kissed his scuffed knuckles. He looped his arm around his thin waist and pulled him closer, until they were nose to nose, chest to chest. He ran his fingers in his short, coarse hair, and Majima let him move his head around so Kiryu could kiss him just under the raised roped flesh of his scar.
“Yer so corny,” breathed Majima, but his heart was pounding against Kiryu’s.
Kiryu kissed his eyebrow next, the tiny hairless spot where the string of the eyepatch usually laid.
“Don’t stop,” whispered Majima, almost too quiet to hear.
Kiryu had no intentions of stopping. It felt right, and easy, in a way not many things felt for him, especially when it came down to intimacy. The Mad Dog’s weird predatory vibe was gone entirely and there was just Majima, quiet and solid, shivering under his touch, breathing and real like none of the ghosts Kiryu embraced in his dreams ever were.
Majima shuffled a little to press his forehead against Kiryu’s, to prop his arms at the sides of his head, fingers tangling loosely in Kiryu’s hair.
“Yer hair’s so soft,” he chuckled, his breath washing over Kiryu’s face. It smelled pretty bad, but he didn’t mind. “Yer so soft.”
“Like a marshmallow?”
“Like a cloud. Like one of those poofy kittens rich people like.”
Kiryu laughed. “Never been compared to a kitten before.”
“Guess nobody got to feel how soft yer fur is.”
And anybody who’d gotten close enough was dead. Wasn’t that a cheerful thought.
But Majima wasn’t going to end up like that, right? He was strong. He was legendarily strong, wasn’t he? Even if that legend seemed like an ancient myth now, the man in his arms very much non-legendary with his strong body odor and the blood still slicking up the nape of his neck.
Kiryu trailed his hands down Majima’s neck to his shoulders, his back. He was expecting scars - who in their line of work didn’t have scars? Yet he wasn’t expecting this. This intricate web of violence etched into his flesh, just under the ink of his hannya. Lines, grooves, dips, pockmarks, puckered skin, all over, like a cup that’d been broken and clumsily put back together over and over and over. Kiryu couldn’t breathe as he traced all those marks. This was the reality of a legend, right there under his fingertips. Just a lot of scars and the tremor in Majima’s chuckle as he said, “yeah, it’s kinda gross. Sorry.”
“It’s not. It’s part of you.”
Majima kissed him, a nervous peck on the lips. “There’s many things that are gross about me, Kiryu-chan.”
“Maybe. This isn’t it, though.”
Majima buried his face into Kiryu’s neck and let him roam free over his back, his scars, his weaknesses. Kiryu wasn’t sure he deserved this kind of trust. He wished he could heal every scar with his touch. He hoped he wasn’t making things worse.
“Anagura’s gone,” whispered Majima in his ear, his heart fluttering in his throat, under Kiryu’s palms. “Took us weeks to clear that shit out. Go through the records. Try to send whatever was left to their families.”
Kiryu stopped touching his back, and looped his arms around Majima, enveloping him as best as he could. He knew the stories, everybody knew the stories, but it was different to hear that word on Majima’s lips, the hatred and pain in his voice.
“There was a room in the back that was just. Bones. There were so many bones, Kiryu-chan. Broken Skulls. Whole ribcages. It was like walking on broken glass but it was people.” His breath hitched. He might’ve been crying, but Kiryu couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter. “We tried...we tried figuring out who they were but. It was impossible. We just burned it all. I hope they can forgive me. There were so many bones.”
“Shit,” said Kiryu, speechless with Majima’s reflected anger and horror. He’d worked for these people. At some point, respected them, called them aniki. Drank with them at family parties. They all did. Even Majima, who better than anybody knew what was going on, carried thousands of marks of it right in his flesh. “I can’t believe you…for this long….”
“I know. I’m a fucking. I’m a fucking coward. Just lookin’ after my own skin. I got some of my best men out the hole, you know that? Here and there, when I could pass it off like a punishment. I should have gotten them all out. I shoulda done more. I was….” he trailed off, shivering. “I was afraid,” he finally spat, like a curse.
“I’d be afraid too,” said Kiryu, thinking of the months of nightmares he’d gotten out of being tortured for a few hours. If the rumors were true, Majima had been in there for a year. “You did what you could. I can’t believe you survived for this long. Working for him.”
“Still better than his piece of shit kyoudai,” grunted Majima. Kiryu couldn’t quite imagine somebody worse than Shimano. “At least Shimano underestimated me. Thought he’d broken me cuz I played nice and rolled over when he told me to.” His voice was dripping with a hatred too visceral for Kiryu to comprehend. “Fuckhead.”
“You did good. Closing that...that place up.”
“We poured quicklime into it. And a fuckload of concrete. There was no fuckin way to….clean it. It was soaked in...people slime. I’m gonna be smellin’ that shit for weeks.” He sighed, and his lashes tickled Kiryu just behind the ear. “Haven’t been sleepin’ much. Keep dreamin’ of those bones. Keep dreamin’ of the shackles. Keep dreamin’ that I never left, and the past twenty years have been the dream.”
Kiryu slowly rolled to the side. The couch was large, but fitting the both of them face to face was a bit of a stretch. He still did it, because he needed to cup Majima’s face and look him in the eye as he said, “They haven’t. It’s real. All of it, it’s been real. The good, the bad. Not a dream. And you aren’t there anymore.”
“Thank god,” breathed Majima, and kissed him. For real this time. Soft lips, warm body, damp breath. Kiryu let him set the pace, sucked on that plump bottom lip, shivered at the tickle of Majima’s goatee.
Their legs tangled together. He pressed Majima into the backrest of the couch, slowly not to scare him. Majima surged against him, full of the fire Kiryu knew so well.
And then Majima’s stomach growled. Loudly. Insistently.
Majima’s lips twitched against Kiryu’s. Kiryu snorted. Soon, they were laughing and it felt like a century since Kiryu had truly laughed. And he sure had never heard Majima laugh like this.
“When’s the last time you ate, niisan?”
“Uh. Yesterday maybe? We should get food.”
“I will order something. You should….take a shower.”
Majima grinned. “Are ya tellin’ me I stink, Kiryu-chan?”
“Well. You said it, not me.”
Majima climbed around and over him, not sparing the knees in the stomach, and Kiryu kept laughing. “Fine! I get yer message! Order us some good shit, it’s on me, alright? Can’t be makin’ a single dad pay for my lunch. Dinner. What time is it?”
“Let’s say...late breakfast.”
“Nowadays they call that shit brunch, Kiryu-chan. Very cosmopolitan.”
“I’m sure.”
Majima was still laughing on the way to the bathroom, and soon there was loud off-tune singing bouncing off the tiles over the sound of running water. Kiryu briefly considered joining him, and his cheeks burned so hot at the thought he had to step outside on the massive balcony for some fresh air. Kamurocho was warming up to its usual bustle forty stories below him, almost muted and pretty from above. Kiryu messaged Nishida and asked for this “brunch”. Nishida almost immediately let him know food was on the way.
and, Kiryu-san? Thank you
Kiryu wasn’t sure he’d done anything he needed to be thanked for. But inside the penthouse Majima was dripping water everywhere in just a bright white towel around his waist, humming to himself as he shoved a bunch of dirty mugs off a counter to turn on the coffee machine. Kiryu watched the slender line of his neck and a pink droplet trailing down towards the rolling storm clouds of his tattoo, and wanted to lick it. Knowing he could made him smile.
Somehow, he decided as he stepped back inside to take care of that unkissed neck, they were going to be okay.
