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This may be the worst idea that he has ever had, and there are plenty to choose from. An entire sea of bad motives, even worse decisions, rolling in with every tide.
The rain stopped a while ago, puddles shaping the roads and splashing up when the cars drive past. Neon lights are reflected back at him, cascading across the pockets of rain streaked along the asphalt. Any other night, he might find this peaceful, comfortable, or familiar.
In the time since Kiryu has been away, Nishiki doesn’t visit the batting cages anymore, but he’s here now. He doesn’t do much of anything that he used to, no more bowling or karaoke or anything that reminds him of the good times that he’s lost. It’s strange to be back, like he half expects Kiryu to be walking alongside him, like he can smell his favorite brand of cigarettes lingering in the air around him. He sees and feels Kiryu in everything, in all the gaps and cracks of life that he hadn’t realized Kiryu had ever been in.
This is the first step in moving on, he thinks. He hopes. But it feels so stupid that he can hardly believe he’s actually doing this.
Behind the batting cages, there’s a stairway to the roof. He climbs it, one step at a time, as if there’s still a chance that he can convince himself this is an absolutely horrible idea. But his mind and his feet are operating on two different systems, legs moving without telling them to, making all of his decisions for him. Maybe that’s how he’s always been, thinking with his brain last.
When he reaches the rooftop, he’s met with a deep silence followed by laughter that’s almost mocking and cruel. In between the flashes of neon and shadow, he can see the outline of a snakeskin blazer, the expanse of bareskin in the dim light.
Goro Majima, the stuff of legend. In the 80s, Nishiki heard stories of what was done to him; tales used as warnings for any others who dared to try anything treasonous. The eye — or, lack thereof — staring back at him is proof of that maxim.
The two of them fought once, back in the 80s. It feels like a lifetime ago now, in the days of the Bubble when all he had to worry about were his clothes and car. And when he met Majima — when he fought Majima — he knew that there was some sort of unharnessed power bubbling beneath the surface. There is a reason that he has earned his title, the Mad Dog of Shimano; he has felt it firsthand.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Majima scoffs, taking a puff of his cigarette before letting the smoke billow out in Nishiki’s direction. He’s sitting on the ground, back pressed against the wall with his legs stretched out long before him.
Nishiki frowns; he considers turning around and heading right back down the stairs toward the street. It’s stupid — so fucking stupid — and he should be ashamed that he’s even considering doing this at all. But he takes a step closer towards Majima anyway, and that’s when the stench of booze reaches his nostrils. He’s found his edge.
“You don’t have anything better to do than hitting the bottle alone?”
Majima snorts, “Not when ya put up with the shit I do in a day. My boss is breathin’ down my neck right now, ‘n my own punks always need to be taught some kind of lesson. Shit’s hard.”
Nishiki slides his hands into his front pockets. “We don’t talk much, do we? Why is that?”
“I dunno,” Majima rolls his eye, glancing up at him, “Never really took ya for havin’ anythin’ useful to say.”
Nishiki’s blood boils a bit at that, something bitter coming up to settle against his tongue, but he bites it back down. “I could say the same about you, really.”
Majima eyes him for a lingering moment, like a rubber band that’s about to snap, until he scoffs, “Ya lookin’ for a fight or somethin’? I ain’t the guy ya wanna pick it with. Couldn’t beat me a few years back, certainly can’t now.”
Nishiki frowns. “I’m not looking for a fight.”
“Yer a sourpuss,” Majima says, flicking cigarette ash just mere inches away from Nishiki’s shoe. “Remind me of my bro like that.”
Taiga Saejima. A legend in their world. Nishiki has heard of him, but only secondhand. He shot and killed eighteen people back in the day, and from the stories that he’s heard Majima should be rotting in prison right alongside him. Something tells him that there’s an explanation for that missing eye wrapped up in there somewhere.
“I heard about that,” Nishiki says, the words lingering like there should be an apology floating at the end of it.
“Yeah,” Majima shrugs, puffing at his cigarette again, “It’s old news.”
He’s quickly losing his out, Nishiki knows. He didn’t come all this way just to chat about the past. So, he takes another step forward. “I’ve heard other things. About you.”
“Hm,” Majima looks uninterested, “I’m sure people’ve got lots to say ‘bout me.”
Cocky bastard, Nishiki thinks. What is he doing? It’s not too late to back out of this completely and just go home for the night, forget any of this ever happened and move on. But his lips decide for him: “Heard about some particular relationships you’ve had.”
The corners of Majima’s mouth turn up, just for a moment. “So that’s what this is ‘bout, huh? A guy like you should be above blackmail. ‘Sides, most already know so it ain’t gonna get ya very far.”
“I don’t mean it like that.”
Majima looks him up-and-down. “Hm. Not sure yer my type.”
Nishiki stares down at him, face gone slack. There is just something about Majima that really pisses him off. Maybe he’s still bitter about how badly he got beat by him a few years ago. Maybe it’s that smug look he’s got plastered across his face because Majima knows that he’s untouchable — knows damn well that a guy like Nishiki has got nothing on him, couldn’t even if he tried.
“Fuck you, I’m being serious.”
Majima frowns, “Grow a pair ‘n stop beatin’ ‘round the bush, then.”
His heart is crashing against the inside of his chest, faster than after any fight he’s ever been in. He feels like if he doesn’t just come out with it, he’s going to explode — combust into a billion little pieces with nothing left to remember him by. And he can hardly believe the words are spilling out of his mouth as he says them: “Kiryu and I… we were the same.”
That gets Majima’s attention. Suddenly, he’s an active participant in this conversation, with his cigarette stilled between his gloved fingers. A trail of smoke billows out into the night sky while he looks up at Nishiki, his one eye blown wide. “Really!? Kiryu-chan ‘n you!?”
Nishiki isn’t amused, doesn’t find any of this as interesting as Majima does. “You don’t have to let everyone on the block know… You’re the only other person I know that I thought might… understand.”
Majima laughs, “I’d say that’s a pretty bold assumption, but I guess it’s not really.”
“I don’t know any other people that are—”
“Like us?” Majima smirks, “Eh, just have to know where to look.”
Nishiki hates how nonchalant Majima is about all of this, like it doesn’t matter at all that he’s pouring himself out to him right now. He never thought much about a moment like this, saying the words out loud for anyone else to hear them, but certainly if he had, Goro Majima would have been the last person he envisioned.
“You and your kyodai, were you…?”
Something weird flashes across Majima’s face, and it’s gone so quickly that Nishiki isn’t even sure that he saw it to begin with. “Yeah.”
“How do you do it? How do you live without him, then?” Nishiki asks, and as soon as the words leave his mouth he wishes that the floor would just swallow him up. Maybe he could stay underground until Kiryu comes back, pretending that no time even passed at all.
Majima picks up the bottle beside him and holds it up, “Sometimes like this.”
Nishiki wonders if, really, that is the truth behind why Majima is sitting up on the roof of the batting center alone, drinking and smoking in his own corner of the world. He slinks down onto the ground beside him, his back pressed against the wall, the bottle of booze nestled between them.
Majima glances at him, then holds the bottle out toward him. “Ya look like ya need this more than me.”
“Thanks,” Nishiki says, a bit taken back by the change of tone, but he hides it well. He takes a swig straight from the bottle, feeling it burn down his throat into his stomach. And it pools there, mixing with all the other bitterness boiling inside of him. He’s not sure how much more of this poison his body can take. “I don’t know how to deal with this.”
“Ya came to the wrong guy,” Majima says, glancing up toward the night sky. There are no stars, too much light pollution. Too much emptiness in the obsidian expanse above them. “I’m still tryna figure it out myself.”
“I’m waiting for it to get easier.”
“Stop waitin’ then,” Majima says harshly, “It ain’t ever gonna get easier. Don’t work like that… Been over ten years without my kyodai now, ‘n there ain’t a day I don’t wake up lonely.”
Nishiki blinks a few times, eyes burning trying to fight back the tears swelling there. He doesn’t need to look any more pathetic in front of Majima. “Then what am I supposed to do?”
Majima shrugs, “Just live yer fuckin’ life, kid. What else am I s’posed to do when the better half of me’s behind bars? Trust me, I’ve been over it a billion fuckin’ times in my head. Ya gotta just go forward.”
Nishiki looks over at him, and he is seeing a Majima that he has never met before, like he is seeing the man behind the curtain. There is something about Majima’s unpredictability that he is envious of — the invincibility behind being untameable. However, the moment doesn’t last long, not when Majima snatches the bottle back and takes a long sip from it.
“This is the good shit,” He mumbles, booze dripping down onto his chin, “Makes just ‘bout any pain feel better.”
Nishiki doesn’t believe him, and he’s not sure that Majima does either.
***
The sun will go down soon, the city will come to life in a rush of neon, but not quickly enough. And he can hardly remember how he ended up at his office after they left the bar, but Majima’s talking Nishiki’s ear off about something he could certainly bother someone else with. At least the place is empty, so no one else has to suffer it.
It’s been a long day. A bad one. Another to add to the endless collection of awful shit that’s been going on lately.
He can feel his blood boiling, venom seeping into every pore of his body. Majima has been pushing his buttons, like he’s trying to see just how far he can get under Nishiki’s skin because, for some reason, Majima is like that. And today Nishiki is angry at Majima, at himself for everything that has gone wrong, at Kiryu for being a better man than he could ever dream to be.
Maybe, really, he’s just angry at himself.
But, now, they are alone, and Majima is right there in all the places that Kiryu isn’t. He is here and Kiryu is not. Kiryu is in prison, in the space where Nishiki should be.
Before he can think better of it — before he can think about what it will mean — Nishiki grabs Majima’s face in his hands and kisses him. He kisses him so hard that he’s nearly lightheaded, like he’s pressing his face straight into fire. Maybe he deserves to burn.
Majima stumbles back, then catches himself, like for just a sliver of a moment he forgot who and what he is. His hands take hold of Nishiki’s hips, and they kiss each other like there is something to prove — like if they kiss hard enough they will break through the shells of each other and find what they actually want.
It’s not possible, Nishiki knows. But there is a hole growing inside of him that is threatening to swallow him up whole, like one moment he may be standing still and the next pulled below ground. And there is an itch eating away at him, like he needs to do something about it right now or he’s going to lose his mind.
And he wonders if Majima actually wants this, or if he’s trying to scratch an itch, too.
Nishiki doesn’t even realize that he’s working at the button of Majima’s pants until his hand is swatted away. The haze in his mind makes no effort to clear, pulls him further into a spiral of questionable choices.
“Lemme,” Majima says, tugging at Nishiki’s zipper instead. Soon, he’s helping Majima pull his slacks down until they puddle at his feet. He’s trying to pretend that his breathing isn’t as ragged as it seems while Majima slides down onto his knees before him. And that makes quite a sight.
The Mad Dog of Shimano, the One Eyed Demon, on his knees for him.
His cock is out now, he realizes only after a few seconds of Majima’s hand curled around him. Nishiki never even noticed Majima took his gloves off, can’t think of a moment when he had the time to do that. And Majima looks good in the same way that fire burns: sprawling heat, melting the sanctity of love like wax from a candle.
So this is how it feels to burn.
Nishiki’s mind fades to Kiryu, because if Majima is fire then Kiryu must be water, only harsh when he has to be. And it pools in his stomach, something akin to guilt, something like shame wrapped up inside of him and coming undone at the seams.
Majima takes an experimental lick at the head of his cock, then glances up at Nishiki as if a man like him needs permission for anything — as if a man like him doesn’t just demand and take, as if Nishiki was going to deny him anyway.
Nishiki nods, slowly, maintaining a semblance of control, and gasps as Majima takes him in his mouth. The wet warmth of Majima’s mouth is not enough to forget, not enough to scratch the itch, but just enough to pretend that he is not moments away from coming apart completely. Like he is a spool of thread reaching the end of its strand.
In this way, he can understand how Majima ended up like this. But, there is something else about him that Nishiki knows should have killed him, probably would have killed most. The remnants of a broken man splinter out of him despite Majima’s best attempts to hide them.
Nishiki understands.
Majima makes a sound that tears Nishiki straight from his thoughts, reminding him of the mouth attached to his cock. Majima looks so comfortable like this, and the distance between them continues to grow. Nishiki has only done this with Kiryu, whereas there is no telling how many times Majima has hollowed himself out in a desperate attempt to be whole again.
Nishiki’s hips jerk forward, fucking into Majima’s mouth. He is biting back a string of curses, fighting against the urge to tug at the short strands of Majima’s hair. And there is no love to be found here, just desperation and denial — just memories and ghosts.
He can feel himself hitting the back of Majima’s throat, watching as Majima’s face turns red around his cock, drool running down his chin. He wants to say that he likes the view, that he’s actually enjoying himself right now, but he can’t. He’s watching himself fucking Majima’s mouth and feeling absolutely nothing.
But, still, the sensation is building up inside of him, and he’s thrusting his hips in ragged timing to chase the feeling. Majima’s nails are digging into his thighs, and his eye is closed while he lets Nishiki absolutely use him, mold him into whatever it is they both need.
“I’m gonna cum,” Nishiki pants out, offering it up as a warning, but Majima keeps his hold and rides it out with him. Nishiki comes in a sputtering shock, like electricity jolting through his veins.
Majima swallows, wipes his chin clean of the drool that has spilled there. He looks spent, looks distant like his mind and body are split in two different places and he’s not sure which he wants to be in. Nishiki can’t help but wonder if Majima was imagining himself doing this for his kyodai, instead — if that made it easier.
Once the haze in his mind clears, he reaches for Majima’s pants again, but his hand is pushed away.
“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” Majima says, like he’s done an act of charity or something. Nishiki hates it, feels the burn in his chest, that feeling of being pitied corroding inside of him.
“Fine, then,” Nishiki huffs, pulling up his pants and tucking his shirt back in. He makes his way towards the door in a few, hurried strides, not once looking back over his shoulder. “I’m leaving.”
He’s out the door before Majima can say anything, if he was going to say anything at all. There is shame bubbling inside of him, like he has done something wrong. And perhaps he has, at least, done it with the wrong person. He’s not sure how much more of this he can take before he breaks apart completely.
And maybe he should just let himself shatter into a million little pieces, make it impossible for him to be put back together into any shape that resembles who he was. Maybe, that way, it would be easier.
Maybe he could learn to leave behind the ghosts that haunt him.
***
The ink etched into Majima’s back is staring at him, peering into his very being with watchful eyes. It’s mesmerizing, really, and he’s trying to piece together exactly how Majima managed to sit still long enough to get all this work done.
“Fuck,” Majima moans out, rolling his hips backwards to collide into Nishiki. He glances over his shoulder with his good eye, his lips parted while Nishiki slams into him. The only thing Nishiki can think about is how he wishes he would turn his head back, let Nishiki pretend for a moment that the ink along Majima’s back is a dragon instead.
Nishiki thrusts into him, and it doesn’t seem to matter how many times they have done this, it is never exactly enough. He is always left, for the most part, unsatisfied but craving more; he has yet to come to peace with the walking contradiction that is Majima. Though he knows, really, they could do this a thousand times, and it will never be what either of them actually want.
Majima only proves this point when he gets lost in it, and calls out Saejima’s name instead. And Nishiki isn’t sure if Majima has forgotten or if he’s simply pretending that when they are together, Nishiki is someone else — a hollowed out shell for Majima to fuck and pretend that he’s whoever he wants.
That anger pools in Nishiki’s stomach, the ever present reminder that he is only second to what Majima actually wants. That he is second to fucking everything and eveyone in his entire life. For once, he wants to be first, and he is going to get it.
Nishiki stills, holds onto Majima’s hips as tight as he can to stop him from thrusting back into him. And before Majima can even turn to look at him, Nishiki all but growls at him: “Say my name instead.”
Majima blinks, stunned for only half a second before Nishiki watches it transform into a devilish smirk. “Earn it.”
Nishiki isn’t sure that anyone can tame the Mad Dog, but he’s willing to try. He knows that he will never be Saejima. And he knows that Majima will never be Kiryu. There is no point in pretending that they are anything other than ghosts, placeholders for someone better — someone they actually want. Someone they love.
It’s hard to imagine Majima being in love, seems a bit too vulnerable for him — a bit too human. But Nishiki has heard the way he talks about Saejima. He has felt it in the way that Majima clings to him while he’s getting fucked to the memory of someone else.
A memory.
Nishiki thinks of sunflowers. He thinks of an inked dragon sprawled across the expanse of muscular skin. He thinks of home.
And every time he looks at that eyepatch staring back at him, he’s almost sick.
“Ain’t never gonna be him,” Majima breathes out, like he can hear Nishiki’s thoughts. A mind reader and a hypocrite.
“Speak for yourself,” Nishiki huffs, steadying himself on his knees, his brain firing on all cylinders while he decides if he wants to continue on with this anymore. If he would rather just tell Majima to fuck off so he can wallow in his own misery for the rest of the evening and lifetime after that.
Majima chuckles, “Do as I say, not as I do.”
Nishiki hates how smug Majima is all the time, like how he pretends that everything is fine and not absolutely falling apart inside of him. Nishiki knows, he can sense it, feels the way that Majima is one strong enough gust away from crumbling completely like he’s being held together by patchwork stitching. They are more alike in that way than it seems.
He has heard of some of the things that Majima has been through, and other things he hasn’t had to be told; he can see them in the scars that lace Majima’s body, in the blank stares he gets while he smokes a cigarette. He is fairly certain that if he cut Majima open, demons would spill out of him — life pooling at his feet in puddles of gore.
Nishiki frowns, then slides back in, fucking Majima like if he does it hard enough, fast enough, they can both forget. His hands are sturdy against Majima’s hips, pounding into him with such force that he’s certain he’s going to blackout.
“Ooh ffuck,” Majima moans out, gripping the padding beneath him, and comes in a sputtering flash until he goes limp in Nishiki’s half-held grasp. Nishiki continues to thrust into him, holding onto him as if he let go they would both disappear into the nothingness that is threatening to eat them alive — that is watching them in the dark with vengeful, hungry eyes.
“Fuck,” Nishiki grunts out while he comes, shuddering while he rides it out. Just like every other time, he still feels empty. He’s not exactly sure what feeling it is he’s chasing, what he’s hoping that he’s going to find after each time they do this.
He pulls out of Majima, watches as his legs give out and he collapses onto the mattress before him. Majima’s breathing is heavy, the inked mask on his back rising and falling with each breath taken — like he is breathing life right into it. Nishiki has never asked if Majima feels just as empty, too, but from the way he wordlessly fumbles around for a cigarette, he can assume.
They both know the other is temporary, that if either of their loves waltzed back into their lives there would be no need for their meetings. Because they are helplessly chasing after phantoms, memories suspended in time they will never be able to grasp hold of. Perhaps Majima was right, that the only thing they can do is go on living, see how far it gets them before they come apart completely.
And if there is one thing that he has learned in the time that Kiryu has been away, it is that he cannot tame the Mad Dog, and he cannot tame the anger that burns deep inside of him.