Chapter Text
Majima opened his eye and blinked away the blurry astigmatism to see nothing but blue. Coalish and deep, he lay there on the shitty seats and sat in this underwater atmosphere. The aging grey of the interior was stained in the cobalt, washing the whole place in an ink bleed. The world outside the car window was just as bleak. Right into the view of a deep night. With a squint, he could catch the ash-grey clouds reflecting winter light and occasionally the stripped branches of trees passed by as the car drove on.
Black on black on black. A miracle he could see anything at all.
He didn’t have to wait long for his mild annoyance to be solved—the car kept trucking along and they passed by a bright orange street lamp. For a flash, the world was covered in pumpkin, and through the wet sparkling spots on the window, Majima could see a flurry of snow hounding down under the vivid light. But they drove on and the world was thrown back into indigo. The sheet of grey clouds made sense, as well as why he could see them too. Light bounced off the snow and back onto the clouds. Something he’d think was pretty if he hadn’t been surrounded by snow for the past few years. They were supposed to be heading south.
Majima took a deep breath, inhaling ozone and gasoline, and extended his folded legs until they were propped up on the car door, teasing the idea of pressing his soles against the window. He did a similar motion for his arms, only bringing them back to fold under his head and the spare jacket he was using as a pillow. Sleep, his favorite off again on again mistress, had gone out the door and left him with a sore back. Catching some shut-eye in the backseat was well beyond his years, but he enjoyed the charm of it anyway. Felt like something he should’ve been doing as a young buck and now, well, might as well make up for lost time.
Smooth driving if he slept till it became dark. Ought to give his compliments.
Majima flopped his head to the side and saw Saejima sitting in the passenger seat, the features of his face only visible when they drove past another orange street lamp. Even his thick green coat turned tigerish for a moment. Rawr.
The car was freezing, despite the fans in the center console sputtering with a small rattle of hot air over his wool-inlaid parka. This beater was an old beast, he outta be thankful she blew hot air at all. Praise be an early aughts Suzuki Cultus Crescent. Your assistance in getting their little band in and out of a frosty fishy hell will earn you plenty of accolades. But mighty as you are, you have no skills in breaking a simmering tension between people that Majima referred to as a ‘bomb’. Know anything about that, Ms. SCC? No? Damn.
Majima pressed his heel into the passenger window.
“Yo,” he cut into the silence and his knife immediately got lodged into Saejima’s stone expression at the road. “Where the hell are we?”
Majima croaked out the words, his throat scratchy as he had neglected to drink water in the past eight hours. Snow came down in shredded strips around their car. Really, if he wanted, he could stick his head out the window and wait for the weather to quench his thirst. Of course that begged the question as to why it wasn’t rain. If it wasn’t melting, that meant they were still locked to the north and they oughta be in Tokyo right now. What the hell did Saejima agree to while he was taking his nap, huh? He squinted at him, willing—not for the first or last time—to read his brain. Nada. But his expression was a clue.
Same with the silence weighing in the air like a guillotine about to come down on all their heads. Chin up, you sad fucks. The guillotine already visited them.
“I said, where the hell are we?”
“We’re making a detour,” Daigo spoke and Majima shifted his head towards the seat in front of him. “Tomorrow we’ll head for Tokyo.”
His voice was calm and stable—a well practiced facade that Majima hadn’t heard this earnestly since he was Chairman. No wonder Saejima was still.
Majima turned his head to the ceiling. Still blue. Dropping his voice to take on a sharp air—a warning shot—he spoke. “Not what I asked. Where are we? Do you know, bro?”
Saejima kept his eyes on the road and didn’t make a sound. Before the purposeful pause got out of hand, Daigo grumbled and sighed, breath hot. He opened his mouth to talk but only a pained half-grunted noise came falling out of his mouth.
Daigo had a habit of being honest about his feelings—a bright brilliant brutality he had pushed into Majima during their stay. There was a trick to the madness that Majima mirrored from him. Certain subjects made Daigo clam up and refuse to acknowledge.
Majima grumbled, ready to snap at him for wasting his time, but Saejima entered first. “We left ‘cause we got things we all gotta take care of,” the gruff but polite tone of his bro took hold of the pressurizing silence and made it sit down. “While you were out, Daigo told me he has somethin’ to do. That’s what we’re doin’.”
Daigo took a full breath hearing the voice of reason and the shadows plunged into a deeper blue. The lights were more infrequent, taking away the only other color here. The atmosphere rounded back to the reflective silence before he got talking which only made his eye twitch. Majima grumbled before pushing himself up, sitting with an aching back in the center seat. He ran a gloved hand through the hair at the nape of his neck, observing that it was getting too long. He swung his legs forward, planting them wide in front of the heater, and got a good look at Daigo in the hot seat.
His hands were locked 9 and 3 and curled around the wheel in a death grip. His jaw was tighter than a wire around a neck and his eyes were on the cracked road ahead of them. After a bit, he turned left onto a side road with a single bent post that Majima couldn’t read. He slowed their ride and the flashes of orange were damn distant now. Snow piled up on the pavement and with soft indentation on the snow, they could see tracks of a previous car that had gone down this road.
The Little Prince may have been chauffeured all his life, but the stress of winter night driving was not enough to warrant this whole kit and caboodle. How many hours did he just tack onto their journey? They wasted enough time deliberating going back before pulling this trigger and Majima needed to know if Daigo actually wanted to take the bull back by the horns or do this errand and stop short of returning.
Majima flicked his eye over to Saejima and his silent prayer must’ve been answered because he looked back at him. He gave him a steady look—use caution. Alrighty. Which subject in Daigo’s black box was he chasing after? Kiryu was in Kamurocho so that couldn’t have been it.
“Who are you going to see, Daigo-chan?”
Saejima looked back at the road upon Majima’s low, steady tone. They didn’t have a lot of time to get to Tokyo. …Kiryu knew that better than any of them. That guy—always dispensing wisdom. Even when the medicine was shoved down their throats ‘till they all started to choke.
Daigo squinted at the road and flexed his grip on the wheel, but said nothing. Saejima spoke before Majima could stab the tension again. “Majima is right. Ya’ve been driving fer a while and it’s gettin’ dark… and I’m too old to sleep in a car. We gotta stop soon.”
“I know,” Daigo muttered, his voice nearly at a whisper. The windshield wipers cleared off more melted snow. “We’re almost to her house.”
Her! Her?
Her. Her.
Ah… Daigo…
A deep breath and Daigo’s chest trembled. “Saejima. I know you never met her, but we’re going to see my mother, Yayoi Dojima.”
Majima propped his elbows on the shoulders of the front seats and sighed. Saejima turned to Daigo, but this time Majima wasn’t letting his bro ask questions Daigo wasn’t going to answer. If any of them were going to rip this bandaid off, then why not him?
“Why?” Majima hissed and leaned further. A devil or angel hovering by his shoulder. “Last I heard she was livin’ with her sister. That sis ain’t involved in this mess at all.”
Daigo managed to clench his jaw tighter somehow. Any harder and he was going to crunch through his teeth. The anger was fair. Majima never kept up with the family drama of Yayoi leaving the Clan the moment Daigo became sixth in the title of Worst Job in the World. Kashiwagi told him the story once after he “lost” to Daigo in Purgatory’s Coliseum. Something about how it was a complete cutoff from the business, leaving Daigo’s fate open. Didn’t they call over the years though? Majima could’ve sworn that happened. But the sister. He remembered Kashiwagi’s comment on the sister.
“Now, under any circumstances, we cannot contact her. If we hear about Yayoi, it’ll only be through Daigo. She’s a civilian with her sister now.”
Saejima had no context to any of this. Not enough at least. Sometime years ago Majima told him about the Acting Chairwoman period and with the info of her being Daigo’s distant mama—but that was it. Saejima could read a room though and could see the immediate tension in Daigo whenever she or mothers in general were brought up. It wouldn’t hold either of them back from getting right to the heart of a problem.
Daigo ran from this topic. Good thing they were trapped in a car.
Saejima spoke with a powerful battle-ax bluntness and it came down heavier with the genuine concern in his tone. “Don’t leave us hangin’ like this. We’re yer friends, not yer luggage. And we ain’t in the business anymore. We’re getting things done right.”
Daigo let out a slow breath and shook his head. His eyes remained locked on the blank field of white that was the road. The car’s shitty headlights could only scan so far, forcing them to crawl along on the ice and cracking pavement that might’ve been gravel by now. He swallowed and the sound echoed. “It doesn’t matter what we do in the future. It’s what’s been done.”
Majima kicked Daigo’s seat. As much as he could anyway with the seats so close together. Got in a good thump though. “Enough with that sunk cost bullshit,” he growled. “We already went over this shit before we left.”
Saejima nodded and affirmed with a steadier, firmer tone. “No more looking back. We agreed.”
“I know,” Daigo bit out.
Under the reflective glow of the dashboard and stale glint of the headlights, his face was colored an odd pale. With all the indigo swirling in the air, he looked gant. Sick. Bags bigger than usual. He looked—Majima grit his teeth—scared.
Daigo took a sharp breath, nearly gasping and his hands flexed oddly on the wheel. His whole body seemed to curl forward a fraction, scattered eyes searching the unforgiving atmosphere for an answer. The inhale was the signal to let the damn burst.
“But it matters to her. I know she keeps up with the news, I know the last time she saw or heard anything from her son was from a fucking internet persona calling me a coward for the whole world to hear. I know she knows that I ran and hid like a cockroach over these past few years because I failed to do the one thing she ever expected of me to do. Then, the one project that was something I could truly be proud of, disintegrated because of my fuck ups.”
Daigo took in another breath, air wheezing in through his shaking body. The more he talked the closer he got to the edge. Every syllable was drowned in pain.
“She’s been vindicated that her son is a failure. The promise I made to her to get better, all the effort she took to give her dream away so I could have it, the faith she put in me—I just—it’s gone. All of it’s gone, the Tojo is gone. I didn’t even say goodbye to her. Not even a phone call. I…” Daigo went silent.
The car slowed to a stop in the middle of the road. Shaking, he dully put it in park. There was no indication of where a road could be other than the trees lining the sides. There was not a single speck of orange light left to bring warm contrast into this coffin. Just. Blue.
Daigo stared ahead past the shine of the lights at the wall of hazy darkness. When Majima looked at the same sight he could see the wall of ink trees that the road faded into, but just behind it stretched the grey sky. A shade of steel, but it wasn’t blue.
“I…” Daigo’s voice croaked as the car idled. “I don’t remember… the last thing I said to her.”
After a thick beat of silence, Daigo swallowed. He ran a hand down his face and eyes squeezed shut. Saejima kept his eyes on his lap and Majima turned his head to the side to see the shadows of fences to houses in the drab countryside.
Then, with a hollow look, Daigo put the car back in drive. They rolled along the narrow path with the tires crunching over ice and rocks. The trees, only shadowed figures before, began to crowd the road. The open sky shuttered closed, with branches cutting black lacerations into it. After a minute of this stale cold air lingering, Majima spoke.
“You’re a damn masochist.”
Daigo didn’t say a word.
The snow was gentle that day, falling to the muddy ground of the fishing village like shredded petals. Ice dancing in the air, a tango to match the moves of their collective routine of a fight. But in the aftermath, that gentle snow was only a weighty and silent witness to their pleas and anger.
Kiryu stood, with his back turned toward them, before he looked over his shoulder. The snow clung to his silver hair, grey wool coat, and the hollowed lines of his face.
“I came to ask you guys for help. But maybe all I wanted was one last fight.”
Kiryu turned his back on them and walked away.
Majima sat back in his seat and folded his arms. One hell of a thing to contemplate death and worry about last words. The last memory you leave behind for someone. And for certain people, Majima knew he wanted to leave a scar as a last memory. He couldn’t blame Daigo for struggling with legacy—that was a burden each of them held—but unlike him and Saejima, dear old Daigo-chan had to hold the last remarks of both his dad and mom.
Majima frowned and looked at the ceiling. Everything was blue.
Daigo stood in ankle-deep snow and stared at the glow on the hill, the only light in the world.
Majima and Saejima shuffled out and around the car parked on the side of the street until they were behind him. Daigo’s hands turned into a scattered pattern of red and white nerves, but didn’t care to put them in his pockets, letting ice swirl into the skin. He held his breath and watched the calm sea ahead of him. After a beat, he stepped into the powdery waters. Step by careful step, Daigo made his way to the iron bar gate. He burned his numb hands when he unlatched the lock then tugged it open with a yawning creak. He entered the field on the property and heard the soft crunch of footsteps behind him. The rhythm and direction dusted off an old memory of when he visited as a kid.
It was decades ago and the reason for the visit was unknown, but he remembered the smell of the pine trees around the property and the wide stones underneath his polished shoes. Mom had his hand in a tight hold and told him not to slip—it was raining the day they arrived.
Daigo advanced, each step landing heavily on the ground, and kept his head up at their beacon of a porch light. The walk seemed just as long as it did as a kid, despite being much older.
His aunt’s house sat at the edge of a forest, surrounded by a wall of thicket and a spattering of tall pine trees that stood as charcoal monoliths. Snow covered the world in every direction, clinging to every branch and suffocating every needle. It wrapped around the trees like a thick quilt, dampening every sound but bringing no comfort. Neighbors were few and far in-between, leaving no other guiding light than the pseudo-moonlight hanging above the front door and the deep shade of midnight that everything existed in. Given the lack of sound, their trio were the only things that were alive in this remote world.
Startlingly similar to the fishing village, but it was never quiet there. Both the wind and the crash of the ocean cut through the walls of the shack. Howls and groans, water cracking the ground, their boots on the asphalt as the snow melted on it. That place had entropy, a rhythm. Here, Daigo couldn’t help but hold his breath as he walked towards the edge of the world.
The atmosphere held a massive weight above them, ready to be cut loose and crush them to death at any moment. However, Daigo knew better than to expect it was for him. That was just how these kinds of environments worked—against you, at every step. This blue silence was just that: a silence.
Daigo took in a slow inhale; the cold air sharpened knives along the insides of his rib cage and his lungs prickled and constricted with stabs of ice.
With a few more heavy steps they crested over a snow drift that marked the edge of the awning. Silver light bloomed the wood of the porch and the solid front door. He looked up at the small lamp. This was it, huh? This was the last moment he had before he’d changed the current answer? For better or for worse.
A thick calloused hand landed on his shoulder and Daigo nearly bit off his tongue before looking at the source of the hand. It was Saejima, fish hook scars dotting along his fingers like odd freckles. They locked eyes and Saejima nodded, communicating his entire and full support no matter what. On his left, the porch creaked and Daigo turned to see Majima standing with a similar confidence and the same look in his eye. He gave a slow half nod.
Daigo turned back to the door. If things turned out terribly, then that was it. He had to keep moving. Besides—he took a deep breath—he had Majima and Saejima with him. They’ve been through hell together. Hard to not be after two years of sharing dinners, drinks, clothes, sewn patches into old garments, fixing old keepsakes with pliers, working extra hard when one of them was sick, and sleeping in the same shitty futon together when it was too cold to sleep alone. Then, of course, the countless years before his life fell apart. Men he could rely on without a second thought were hard to come by. No matter what, Daigo’s friends were with him.
He took a step forward and gave a firm three knocks to the door.
And waited.
His throat felt tight. He could use some water. When did he last have some water? If the door wasn’t answered, maybe he could scoop up some snow and eat it. That might’ve been unsanitary. It would’ve at the fishing village at least. Either way, he could use something cold to drink. His neck was hot, but he held back the urge to tug on his collar like a teenager. He was closer to fifty than forty now, these regressive nerves were annoying. There have been greater challenges. Just—nothing quite like—
The door opened by a crack and gold light pierced the blue air. Instinctually, Daigo let his breath go and watched the door open fully, clinging to the light as if it were the very water he craved.
In front of him, nearly as tall as him, stood his aunt. Upon first recognition, he could barely recognize her. She had the same face as himself and his mom though, so even if her hair was down and greying, he could look at her coal-brown eyes and know without a doubt it was her. “…Aunt Keiko—oomph.”
Daigo’s chest fluttered from the impact of his aunt throwing herself forward to hug him. Her arms locked behind his back, pearly nails clawing at his black coat. The moment he caught the smell of jade and almonds, Daigo was thrown back to his visit here as a kid. He wrapped his arms around her and closed his eyes, relishing in the forgotten memory of her silky hair against his face and the feel of her phthalo green wool kimono.
It had been a lifetime since he last talked to her. His mom gave updates about her sometimes when they called over the years, but for whatever reason she never passed her phone to her.
“Daigo, Daigo, oh it’s so good to see you,” Keiko said, muffled into his shoulder. Her voice was softer than Yayoi’s, always an edge more delicate than her sister’s. Naïve, as his dad would say.
Daigo rubbed his hand down her back. “It’s good to see you too. Uh…”
“Right,” she muttered, tinged with surprise and stepped back, but kept her hands on his arms. She looked up at him and gave him a blooming smile that pinched the corners of her eyes. Ah, she had crows feet too. “Let’s get you inside. Your mother’s been worried sick. What happened to you? She said that you disappeared.”
Fuck.
Majima clapped his shoulder and he flinched, enough of a reaction that both Keiko and Majima could feel it. He stepped in close and stood just outside of Keiko’s arm. She looked at him with surprise and a lingering glance at his eye patch, but said nothing. “Yo,” Majima said, punching a hole into Daigo’s iron tension with his casual tone. “‘Disappeared’ is such a dramatic way of callin’ it. It’s a long story and if ya don’t mind stayin’ up late we can tell it all. And Yayoi-san’s here, yeah?”
“Yes, she is,” Keiko replied, but slow, uncertain. Majima kept giving a flat smile and Keiko was clearly trying to figure out who he was.
Daigo snapped back to reality, feeling the warmth of her hands on him, but he reached up to take them off. He held them gently in his worn, calloused, scarred hands. “These are my friends, Majima-san,” Daigo nodded towards Majima then Saejima stepped up beside him and her eyes jumped to him. “And Saejima-san. Why don’t we go inside?”
Looking back at Daigo seemed to clear her up from her stalled curiosity. She brightened up and responded to his hold before tugging him inside. Majima and Saejima followed and closed the door behind them. The moment the blue was finally cut out, they rapidly blinked, not used to the brightness and took uneven breaths, struggling with the warm air in their lungs. No sharp prickling—this was a luxury none of them had felt in years now. Independently and collectively, they idled in the genkan and took a moment to sit with the feeling. Daigo didn’t know he could miss the simple warmth of a good home.
Next came the more pressing concern. They were invited in, but should they dismantle their winter gear or keep it on? In case Yayoi wanted them out. Perhaps it was just a single fear. Majima unzipped his coat, revealing his bare chest and Saejima took off his hat. Meanwhile, Keiko slipped into some slippers as she hurriedly told them to wait a moment before padding down the dark oak floorboards of the hallway.
Daigo brought his hands together in front of his chest and realized that they were trembling a bit. And cold. He squeezed them together, to work some warmth into them. A pressure was building at the back of his throat and he got the itch to swallow it down.
He looked back up at the mouth of the hallway the moment he heard footsteps padding towards them. Turning around a corner was his aunt, then, just behind her, was his mother wrapped up in a matching pine green kimono. Their eyes met and the world narrowed to just the two of them. The pressure in his throat rose.
Reading her moods was difficult. She was a yakuza’s wife before she was ever a mother and that meant keeping a strong face came first before concern. As much as jokes floated about her being an ‘ice queen’, Daigo knew when she got twisted up when it came to him. Pity was unmistakable to miss. However, when they locked eyes, what Daigo recognized was not pity. No, this was an exposed nerve of Yayoi’s boxy emotions. Relief.
“Daigo…” she whispered and drew up a hand to hover just under her chin. There was the pity.
She stopped at the edge of the genkan and both read the emotion on their faces that bled and dripped onto their clothes, soaking in shock. Too much idle time was spent preparing for this conversation, imagining it, wondering about every contingency, the right words to say to make her understand if not accept. All that time spun itself around and slipped down the drain, leaving him speechless in front of her.
Her hair was in its usual bun, but there were big grey streaks in it now. He… he couldn’t remember if those had been there last he saw her. Age sagged her face and he had known that for a while now, but—now he had to face it. Daigo could feel cold air enter his lungs when he took a shaky breath. Despite the sharpness, his chest felt hot and the tension in his throat spread down his neck and into his chest and arms. He recognized the taste right away. Anger. There was no way in hell was he yelling at her though. Not that he wanted to, really.
“Hey,” Saejima spoke, a deep rumble that entered the atmosphere with gale force. Majima focused on him immediately, then Keiko. Mother and son remained locked. He stepped forward to the edge of the genkan and moved to take off his thick green coat. He continued talking over the shifting of fabric. “How ‘bout we introduce ourselves better in another room, Keiko-san?”
The signal was clear and Daigo broke the look to watch Majima and Saejima start taking off their shoes. Keiko shuffled awkwardly standing next to her stiff sister before nodding and walking back into the hallway. She looked back at Majima still wearing his coat and Saejima looking at her with enough patience and kindness to fill a cup with it. She smiled at them and waved them in. “I’ve always wanted to meet Daigo’s friends. Come with me, I’ll make you some tea.”
Majima cut in front of Saejima and stepped up to stand next to Yayoi. They looked at each other for a small moment before he gave a short but lingering nod and he walked on after Keiko. Saejima followed in step, giving a respectful short bow to Yayoi. From down the hall, Daigo heard Majima say, “Yer nephew gave me an’ Saejima a job. Hated office work but he made it worthwhile. He’s a good kid.”
Then, distantly, before a door slid shut, Saejima’s earnest tone tumbled down the hall as well. “He gave me a new life. He’s a good man to a lot of people.”
Damnit.
Daigo knew they were going to skirt around the yakuza life, but they didn’t have to get all sappy when talking about him. No need for that at all.
Yayoi moved away from the genkan as well and his eyes snapped to watch her turn, just barely missing her face. “Meet me in the room to your left. I’ll bring us some tea.”
With that statement, she walked down the hallway with her back perpetually straight and her head held high.
Daigo grabbed the zipper of his jacket with shaking fingers and pulled it down.