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Kiryu hears things about Majima.
First from Nishiki, who tells him about the eyepatched son of a bitch who threw down with him in Serena and beat the brakes off him, who was crazy in a desperate sort of way and desperate in sort of a crazy way.
Then from word on the street, about the Mad Dog of Shimano who’d disappeared for a year and resurfaced with a vengeance to claw his way back into the ranks of the Shimano family with a manic grin and twirling bat.
And before any of that, a year ago, in the love hotel they’d been lying low in, Makoto Makimura had recounted to him the story of a nameless man in Sotenbori who had protected her even though he was supposed to kill her, who was kind to her and had bought her takoyaki and had one eye, the one thing he had told her about him to comfort her as she wept in the darkness her mind had cloaked her in.
And while Kiryu may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, he can at least put two and two together and piece together a decent portrait of the man named Goro Majima.
But the first time Kiryu encounters Majima, Majima somehow ends up being all of these things and none of these things at the same time.
It’s exactly a year after the Empty Lot incident. Kiryu spends the night drinking, draining glasses of whiskey that burn on the way down as much as remembering Tachibana’s death does.
And when drinking isn’t enough to drown his sorrows, he jams his hands in his pockets and wanders through Kamurocho, letting his legs take him wherever his mind roams.
He thinks about Makoto - how her voice had cracked as she cradled Tachibana’s corpse, how limp her body was, a comatose shell in a wheelchair aboard Shibaura.
Since then, Sera-san - Chairman Sera, he should say - had personally visited him to tell him that Makoto had made a full recovery, including regaining her sight.
Good. It’s the one promise to Tachibana he was able to keep. He hopes Makoto can continue to heal from everything - as much as she possibly can, anyways.
By the time his train of thought comes to a stop, Kiryu finds himself where it all began and ended.
The stairway to the Empty Lot is cordoned off but he ducks under the ropes to scale the stairs and slip into the alley.
He stops short at what he sees.
Of all things, he hadn’t expected to see someone already there, crouched on the ground with their back facing him. They’re wearing a golden jacket that glints even under the glow of the dim lights overhead.
The person stands up, their frame unfurling in one eerily fluid motion. And yet the set of their shoulders is stiff with tension as they bow their head, their gloved hands curling into fists.
The nape of their neck looks strangely vulnerable from here.
Kiryu bites his tongue. He’s already intruded on far too intimate of a moment. It’s not right for him to linger yet he can’t bring himself to leave.
The person turns around -
And freezes at the sight of him.
“You - what the hell are you doing here?”
Well, there’s no going back now.
“Majima-san, right?” Kiryu asks, even though he knows the answer.
Majima’s one bloodshot eye is wide. Kiryu has the sense that the man is rarely caught off guard like he is now.
“Yeah,” Majima says finally. “And you’re Kiryu, the man supposed to fall on the sword for all the bullshit that happened here. This is the last place you’re supposed to be.”
“Maybe. But I survived when a lot of other people paid the price. The least I could do is pay my respects.”
Majima studies him, inscrutable. Then he exhales, breath whistling through his teeth. “You ain’t wrong about that. And we ain’t the only sorry bastards feelin’ some type of way about it.” He steps aside to reveal a bouquet of flowers nestled on the ground, tied neatly with a ribbon.
Kiryu can feel a fist close around his heart and squeeze. He breathes in, out, then kneels down to examine the flowers. White lilies, still fresh. Their petals are soft and downy when he brushes a finger against them.
When he rises to his feet, he sees Majima leaning against the alley wall, tapping out a cigarette.
Ah, right. He’d heard Majima was supposed to be on track to becoming a captain of the Shimano Family.
Kiryu moves to light Majima’s cigarette for him, hand cupping around the flame to keep it steady.
He raises his head to find Majima’s eye watching him, gaze hard and unflinching.
Then the side of Majima’s mouth twitches up into the ghost of a smile. “Thanks.”
Kiryu swallows. It occurs to him that Majima is beautiful like this, sleek sharp features lit by the tongue of flame of his lighter and the shadows it casts that swirl around the abyss of his pupil, caress his cheekbones, trace the razor-edge seam of his lips.
It makes Kiryu’s blood run hot and cold both at once.
Kiryu lights his own cigarette, both to keep himself busy and to buy time to fill the silence growing between them. He thinks about a leap of faith, that he’s drunk and less alone than he thought he was, with a beautiful, dangerous man who had come here for the same reasons he had.
“Makoto-san told me about a man in Sotenbori who helped her who had one eye. That was you, wasn’t it?”
Emotion ripples across Majima’s face. Agony and yearning and grief bleeding into each other, vivid feeling muddying already bloodied waters.
Majima looks away, face in shadow. “It’s better that she doesn’t know my name.”
Kiryu feels a pang. He hadn’t realized there was a knife lodged in Majima that he’d just twisted in deeper.
And he’s realizing now that he doesn’t want to hurt him.
The stories make Majima out to be a demon from hell who can’t be beat, who goes on rampages and leaves a path of destruction in his wake; and the stories might be true.
But none of the stories talk about what he’s seeing on Majima’s face now -hell and hell and hell and nothing else.
He’s sorry. He just wanted to name this tender tenuous connection between them, downy flower petals and a brave, blind girl who hadn’t backed down and the quiet, unshakable conclusion both of them had reached that they should put their lives on the line to protect her, even if it meant taking on the rest of the world.
He’s sorry. But he knows too that if he were to say it, Majima would hate nothing more.
But when Majima looks back at Kiryu, his eye is steely with resolve. “If you even think about telling her who I am, I’ll bury you so deep the only sunlight you’ll ever see is in your dreams.”
Kiryu’s never been so relieved to be threatened. “I wouldn’t,” he answers. “Even if you hadn’t said that, I wouldn’t. It’s best for her to move on and leave this all behind.”
“So long as we’re on the same page, Kiryu-han.” Majima’s hand drops to his side, smoke trailing from the cigarette tucked between his fingers. He drops his cigarette to the ground, crushes it beneath his heel.
Kiryu matches him, stubbing out his own cigarette.
The silence growing between them is restless, building like a coiled spring.
A muscle ticks in Majima’s jaw.
“...What did she say about me?”
Kiryu stares at Majima, warmth suffusing through his chest. It’s surprise and wonder, gratitude that Majima has given him the gift of an answer, of closure.
“Makoto-san?” At Majima’s curt nod, Kiryu thinks about it. “She said you bought her takoyaki.”
Silence - then a laugh tumbles out of Majima, unbidden as if it were an accident. “Yeah?” he says, his eye creasing with smile lines.
“Yeah.” Kiryu’s heartbeat stutters. He wants to hear Majima laugh again, wants to slip his small, quiet laugh into his pocket and keep it there, cradled in his palm. And he wants to keep making Majima smile; he’s done it twice already and Majima’s so beautiful it hurts, but in a nice, different way than how tonight has otherwise made him feel.
“Can I buy you a drink?” falls out of Kiryu’s mouth.
Majima stares at him incredulously. “What?”
Kiryu shrugs, his shoulders sloping. He hopes it’s enough to cover up how fast his heart is pounding. “Might as well. It’s just us here. It’d be a waste if we just went our own ways after meeting once in a back-alley.”
Majima throws back his head and cackles. It’s different than before, laughter like a wolf howling to the moon - but it’s not bad. “You might be even crazier than I am, Kiryu-chan. Let’s do it!”
Kiryu smiles back at him.
They walk to Vincent to grab drinks.
There’s an immediate shift in Majima when they first step out of the Empty Lot together, in the lift of his chin and the slash of his teeth in the dark.
His gait becomes looser, a ship atop the rolling waves of the sea.
Under the neon signs of Kamurocho’s bars and clubs, the Mad Dog of Shimano is back in play - and for good reason. It’s a ten minute walk to Vincent but Majima is stopped no less than four times, greeted by Tojo Clan men passing by in varying tones of fear and reverence. When Majima sends them away with a wave of his gloved hand, they shoot Kiryu curious looks; but no one dares to ask any further questions.
Kiryu’s sure the rumor mill will be abuzz with the news that the Mad Dog of Shimano’s keeping the company of the Dragon of Dojima.
The title embarrasses him a little, though he knows what it cost him to earn in, in blood, sweat, and the tears he shed over Tachibana’s death.
Kiryu has to wonder what Majima makes of his own title.
He doesn’t mind seeing Majima’s transformation. Maybe it’s because he can see the snakeskin Majima inhabits now stretched over the wounded animal he had encountered in the Empty Lot.
When they do arrive at Vincent, Majima striding in with the door swinging behind him, the barkeep immediately bows. “Welcome back, Majima-san. It’s been a long time.”
“No need to be so formal, Takada-chan. It’s good to see ya too.” He slings an arm around Kiryu’s neck and tugs him down. “My friend here says tonight’s drinks are his treat. Lucky me, eh?”
Kiryu’s neck heats up a little. Takada the barkeep seems amused as he fumbles through ordering two glasses of Yamazaki 18 for them.
Majima tips his glass to his mouth, hissing with satisfaction at the burn. “Good stuff, Kiryu-chan. You any good at darts?”
“Only one way to find out,” Kiryu replies, pulled into Majima’s rhythm and not to be outdone. He takes a sip of his own whiskey and sets his glass down harder than he means to.
Majima grins at him from underneath his lashes, canines flashing, and Kiryu’s airway closes.
He coughs.
It doesn’t escape Majima’s notice. Majima smirks at him, traces a gloved finger around the rim of his glass in one slow, sensual motion. “You’re an easy mark, Kiryu-chan.”
Majima’s going to kill him at this rate. Fortunately, Majima spares him from a slow death by striding up to the dartboards to chat up the bar employee and start their game.
In the end, Majima ends up destroying him at darts. Kiryu gets him back at pool.
“I see you’re good at handling a big stick, huh, Kiryu-chan?”
“Majima-san.”
Majima laughs at him, harsh and high-pitched. But Kiryu could swear there’s something softer beneath it. Or maybe it’s the multiple glasses of liquor they’ve finished since then that’s talking.
Kiryu realizes he doesn’t want the night to end. Majima is breathtaking in all the shapes he’s taken form in tonight; the grim, haunted man in the Empty Lot and the crowing, cackling Mad Dog in Vincent. There’s connective tissue in between, the caution tape Majima’s wrapped himself in, warnings to KEEP OUT that only draw Kiryu in closer.
Majima has been kind to him, he thinks. Majima might have threatened to bury him but then smiled at him over the memory of takoyaki. And Majima might have taunted and teased him but not in a malicious way; there might even be an undercurrent of fondness if Kiryu squints enough, though the drinking and the feelings are making it all hard to figure it out.
He wonders why Majima has been kind to him. Maybe because he’s lonely too, and doesn’t want to be alone tonight with the ghosts hanging above both of their heads.
When Kiryu finishes his last drink and closes their tab, he reaches a conclusion: it’s heavy, bearing the weight of the lives they have to keep living, but Majima’s alive and electric next to him; and it makes him want to look forward to what’s next in store for them both.
So when they walk out of Vincent together, Kiryu musters the resolve to ask Majima to stay a little longer.
The night air is frigid when they step out. But in spite of the cold, Kiryu’s palms are slippery with sweat. He’s literally fought three Dojima lieutenants and a boatload of their subordinates but somehow this feels even harder.
This is one of those times he laments his inexperience. He hates to admit it, but Nishiki might’ve been right, that he’s hopeless when it comes to things like this.
Next to him, Majima is quiet. He’d transformed yet again by the time Vincent’s glass doors swung shut behind them, sloughing off snakeskin to reveal a silent, brooding shadow underneath.
Like the waxing moon, only the left side of his face is visible, eyepatch cutting across his profile in one severe slash.
Kiryu jams his hands in his pockets, hands curling into fists. He has the feeling that if he doesn’t say something now, Majima might vanish into the darkness in the next moment and never return.
So Kiryu opens his mouth and says, “Do you. Uh. Do you want to come home? With me?”
Majima turns to stare at him.
Internally, Kiryu withers away. Just the complete opposite of smooth; all he is is a big clumsy meathead that can’t even manage asking someone out without tripping over his words.
And because the silence swelling between them is agonizing, he tacks on, “I have beer in my fridge.”
Majima’s eye bores into him. Fuck, he’s only made it worse.
Kiryu expects Majima to mock him mercilessly, almost wants him to, so he can put him out of his misery.
But then Majima offers him the smallest of smiles, a close-mouthed sliver of a thing that twists in Kiryu’s chest. “You’re cute, you know that, Kiryu-chan?”
Kiryu can feel his face turning red. No one’s ever called him cute before.
Majima reaches out a gloved hand to snag Kiryu by his belt loops, tugs him in until their faces are centimeters apart.
Up close, Kiryu can see the light catch in Majima’s gleaming iris.
Then Majima leans in, mouth brushing against Kiryu’s ear, and whispers, “Yes, you can take me home.”
Kiryu feels like he’s going to explode. When Majima pulls away, Kiryu watches the cupid’s bow of Majima’s mouth, thinks of how soft and warm it must be and how much he wants to press his own mouth to it and taste it.
But they can’t, not outside on the street like this.
So they walk to Kiryu’s place instead. It’s not far from Vincent, the new apartment he had to relocate to after Kuze’s men burned down his original home a year ago.
And yet, the walk over seems to span eons when they walk side by side, time stretching like taffy while the space between them shrinks precipitously. Maybe because Majima feels like a live wire next to him, crackling with an incandescent energy that seems to warp everything around him.
At some point, their hands are close enough to touch.
When they pass beneath a broken streetlight, Kiryu finds the courage to take Majima’s gloved hand under the cover of fleeting darkness.
Majima looks at him. Like a cat, Kiryu thinks, Majima’s pupil glossy in the absence of light.
Kiryu hesitantly squeezes Majima’s hand.
Majima’s wrist flexes. And then he’s moving, not to pull his hand away, but to lace their fingers together.
Oh. This is nice.
He’s held girls’ hands before but the feeling of Majima’s hand in his, long knobbly fingers and iron grip beneath a layer of buttered leather, sends a frisson of heat through him that he’s never felt before.
Ironically, their walk ends too soon when they reach Kiryu’s apartment building. Kiryu reluctantly lets go of Majima’s hand; with how brightly lit the storefront on the first floor is and the smattering of passerby walking past, he doesn’t want to expose either of them to being seen like this.
It’s a thought that sets his teeth on edge, a thought he’s determined to quash as he leads the way up three flights of stairs and unlocks his apartment door to let Majima in.
He flicks on the light, only to feel immediate regret as the dim lightbulb overhead illuminates what’s sure to be a disappointing scene to Majima: tawny peeling walls, empty cups of ramen stacked atop his table, sake bottles littering the apartment, and his futon shoved in the farthest corner.
It occurs to Kiryu, far too belatedly, that he’s never brought anyone home until now.
Fuck. He should’ve thought this through more, maybe even offered to take Majima to a love hotel, though he knows he would’ve never had the wherewithal to pull that one off.
“Sorry, it’s not much,” Kiryu mumbles, slipping off his loafers at the genkan.
Majima seems unbothered as he toes off his own steel-tipped shoes. “My digs look about the same as yours.”
“Really?” Kiryu eyes Majima, gilded snakeskin jacket, tight leather pants, golden chain and all, and tries to imagine him living anywhere resembling the disheveled state of his apartment.
“Really,” Majima answers wryly.
They both sit down at Kiryu’s low table, Majima lowering himself down with the same feline, almost alien grace Kiryu had seen back at the Empty Lot. In an abandoned Kamurocho back alley lost to time, Majima had seemed unearthly, like he’d just stepped off death’s doorstep. It’s surreal to see him now against the mundane backdrop of Kiryu’s dingy apartment, seated cross-legged on the tatami mats as his guest.
He supposes Majima is human too.
Kiryu reaches into the mini fridge behind him to toss Majima an Asahi Super Dry beer.
Majima catches it effortlessly, cracks it open and takes a sip with an appreciative hum.
He licks the foam off his stubbled top lip and Kiryu’s mouth dries.
Even Majima at his most human is enough to whisk the air out of his lungs. Kiryu hastily opens his beer and gulps down a mouthful so he just doesn’t sit there gaping like a fish out of water.
“You don’t have to be so nervous,” Majima says. “Is what I’d like to say but it’s fun watchin’ a big, strong guy like you squirm.”
“Sadist.”
Majima laughs at that, a short staccato bark that lands halfway between the hyena cackle and low chuckle Kiryu’s heard tonight. Warmth unfurls in Kiryu’s chest. He made Majima laugh again.
“It’s true. You can’t deny the power trip of havin’ the Dragon of Dojima tie himself in knots ‘cause of little old me.”
Kiryu flushes at that. “I’m not much. You’re a legend yourself, Majima-san. All the stories say so.”
“Oh?” Majima leans in. “And what kinds of stories have you heard about me?”
Kiryu mulls it over. He’s sure Majima’s heard all the rumors about himself. He also can’t bring himself to say any of them because they’re not nice. He’s sure Majima would roll his eye at that, that Majima’s handled a hell lot more than not nice things said about him, but he doesn’t want to feed into it.
“Nishiki says you beat the shit out of him.”
Majima blinks. “Hm? Your kyoudai?” Kiryu nods. “He wasn’t half-bad when I fought him. He gets points for tryin’ to cover for you. Loyalty to an oath brother’s one of the most important traits a man can have.”
Majima sounds serious. Kiryu opens his mouth to ask more - then closes it. There must be a wound there too, his voice laden with unspoken weight. Kiryu had already inadvertently pried open the healing scab that was the memory of Makoto. He doesn’t want to subject Majima to any more.
So all he says is, “I’d trust Nishiki with my life.”
Majima studies Kiryu. “It’s a heavy thing, putting your faith in someone,” he says finally, voice low. “Both for you, and the person you’re putting your faith in. If you’re both in it for the long run, you’ll have to see it through until the end.”
The shadows beneath Majima’s eye are cavernous. Kiryu wants to press his thumb to Majima’s cheek, brush away the accumulated deposits of grief he can see building up.
But before Kiryu can do anything, Majima’s face shifts, flickers through a series of expressions like fleeting frames of a motion picture, until it settles on unconcerned.
“Well, a lot’s changed since your kyoudai last saw me. For one, I had long hair back then.”
“It’s hard to imagine you with long hair. You look good now.”
It’s a clumsy compliment, a transparent effort to go along with Majima’s obvious change of conversation, but Majima smiles at him anyway, a smile that almost nearly reaches his eye.
“I cut it myself. Wanna feel it?”
He takes Kiryu’s hand to brush against the nape of his neck.
Kiryu pets his undercut. It does feel nice, soft and shorn. His fingers sink into silky strands of hair.
And then he realizes how close their faces are, even closer than they were outside of Vincent; close enough that when he inhales, he’s breathing the same air as Majima.
His blood simmers beneath his skin. He curls his hand around Majima’s neck, pulls Majima in until their foreheads are pressed together.
Majima shivers and something in Kiryu unravels.
Kiryu kisses him.
Majima’s mouth is as soft and warm as he’d expected, even though his lips are thin and chapped and he tastes of smoke and alcohol.
Majima kisses him back and it’s like being devoured, Majima’s mouth hungrily sliding against his, hot and unrelenting. It’s everything he could’ve wanted and more.
Majima climbs into his lap and Kiryu fits his hands around Majima’s waist, thumbs sinking into the divots of his hips. He fits perfectly.
Heat blossoms in his sternum at the thought.
They keep kissing, even as Majima pulls Kiryu’s blazer off, nips at his bottom lip as his nimble fingers unbutton his silk shirt.
And then Majima’s hands are sliding up his bare chest.
Kiryu resurfaces for air. “You too,” he says, breathlessly, and peels Majima’s snakeskin jacket off of him.
Majima goes to remove his gloves but Kiryu catches his wrist. He sinks his teeth into the leather and slowly tugs the glove off Majima’s right hand, then the left, watching a reverent expression dawn on Majima’s face.
“You’re a good boy, aren’t you, Kiryu-chan?” Majima croons and it hits Kiryu like a train.
With an ungloved thumb, Majima caresses the seam of Kiryu’s lips. Kiryu’s mouth falls open. He closes his eyes, laps at the pads of Majima’s fingers.
When he opens his eyes, it’s to Majima slowly trailing his hand down his abs, leaving a glistening streak of saliva.
It’s unbearably hot.
A surge of breathtaking want crashes down on him. Kiryu presses Majima down into the tatami floor, smears kisses against his jaw and scrapes his teeth against his throat. Majima writhes beneath him and Kiryu revels in the sensation. He keeps going, tonguing the metallic links of Majima’s chain, then mouthing at the swirls of ink cascading down Majima’s shoulders, black clouds and red petals.
Moving down Majima’s chest, he slows at the sprawling terrain of scars, contusions, and burns he finds.
He’s sure many must be from fighting tooth and nail to come out the other side in the dog-eat-dog world they inhabit. But a number of Majima’s injuries are too precisely inflicted for comfort. Symmetrical puncture wounds underneath his clavicle. Round burn marks pitting his areolae. The uneven jut of his ribs, fractures healed wrong from where bone shattered beneath calculated blows.
It fills him with a sudden, towering rage, the realization that this is how Majima must have been disappeared for a year. With effort, Kiryu beats down his rage, lowers his head to gently press his lips against the ridged scars bookending Majima’s collarbone, flesh split apart and knit back together.
Majima’s palm cups Kiryu’s cheek, tilting his face up.
“It’s all right,” Majima tells him, voice rough, the sound of glass and grit crunching underfoot.
Kiryu moves up to kiss Majima again and Majima exhales into his mouth, digs his nails into Kiryu’s back. Kiryu holds him, resolves then and there that he wants to make Majima feel as good as he can.
He returns his attention back to Majima’s chest and licks at his nipples, swirling his tongue around the peaked buds. Majima’s back arches, a small noise spilling out of him.
Kiryu noses down the trail of hair leading to Majima’s cock, his lips ghosting over the bulge in his leather pants.
He lifts his head to meet Majima’s eye. “I’ve never done this before. I might not be good at it.”
Majima curls a hand in Kiryu’s hair. “You’ve never been with a man before, Kiryu-han?”
There’s something strange in Majima’s voice. It belongs to neither the wraith in the alley nor the mad dog in Kamurocho’s streets but some other thing unfurling in the space between them, raw and bare.
“No, you’re my first,” Kiryu says, in a voice he doesn’t recognize either.
He unbuckles Majima’s belt, the clinking metal loud even against the rushing of blood in his ears, then tugs down Majima’s pants and black briefs.
And then he stops short at the sight of more burn marks littering Majima’s thighs and groin, seared deep enough to crater the skin.
Bile collects in Kiryu’s throat.
Majima bares his teeth at him with a snarl. “Don’t need you throwin’ a pity party on my account,” he hisses. “My dick works just fine.”
Sorry sits on the tip of Kiryu’s tongue but Kiryu knows better than that. So he bites back the instinctive apology, wraps a hand around Majima’s cock, runs a thumb against its head.
“Tell me what feels good and what doesn’t,” he says instead, only because there’s no way he can make any of it right, but he can at least soften the edges of tonight for Majima.
Then he takes Majima into his mouth. He starts off slow, wrapping his lips around the tip and sucking, then slides down gradually, his jaw stretching as Majima’s cock fills his mouth.
Majima’s thumb strokes his jaw. “You’re doin’ so good, Kiryu-han.”
Heat flares in Kiryu’s belly and he reaches into his own slacks to squeeze his own erection. There’s saliva pooling in his mouth, dripping from the corners of his lips, and he goes deeper, tongue gliding against Majima’s shaft until he can feel Majima’s cock graze against the back of his throat.
Kiryu’s eyes water but he’s rewarded by a spasm rippling through Majima, his grip in Kiryu’s hair tightening. “Fuckin’ hell, I thought this was your first time. Don’t push yourself -”
Kiryu nuzzles against Majima’s torso, nose brushing against the trimmed patch of wiry hair above Majima’s cock, and Majima’s voice cracks. “Fuck, Kiryu, hold on -”
Kiryu stops, pulls back only for Majima to lean in to press their foreheads together.
“If you keep going like this, I’m not gonna last,” Majima says lowly. “Will you fuck me?”
“Yes,” Kiryu says hoarsely, alight with want. He wants, and it’s unbearable. Good things don’t happen to him nor should they; but for once, he wants to hold on as tight as he can before this - Majima; the space they share; the finite time they have together - slips out of his reach again.
He clears his throat. “I want to do this right. Can you lay down on the futon for me?”
He turns his back, both to root for the lube and condoms shoved in his bedside drawers and to buy time to pull himself together.
Whatever composure Kiryu might’ve mustered immediately crumbles when he looks back to find Majima languidly stretched out on his futon, leaning back on his elbows, completely naked apart from the chain around his neck and the ink splashing down from his shoulders.
He’s all sharp, graceful angles and long legs, resplendent in Kiryu’s dingy apartment; Kiryu drinks him in.
Majima’s mouth curls into a sly, crooked smile. “C’mere, big boy.”
Majima might as well have had a collar around his neck and a leash to reel him in, the way he draws Kiryu to his side.
Kiryu presses his face to Majima’s neck, breathes in the scent of his skin mingling with cologne, and closes his eyes to savor the sensation of Majima’s nails scratching against his scalp.
He manages to pull away to strip down, slipping off his trousers and boxers, and reaches for the bottle of lube he’d retrieved to pop the cap open, drizzling some on his fingers.
He then promptly drops the lube at the sight of Majima spreading his legs, not unlike a peacock fanning its feathers except it’s Majima’s supple thighs parting to reveal his pink, puckered hole.
Kiryu inhales sharply; it’s obscene, sends a rush of liquid heat cascading through him.
He brushes his thumb against Majima’s hole and Majima shudders.
Kiryu pauses. This too, he hasn’t ever done with a man. All he knows is that he wants it to be good for Majima.
He slides a slick finger in past Majima’s rim, experimentally flexes and curls it against warm, velvety walls. A choked noise spills out of Majima.
Kiryu bites down on a smile, adds another finger into the mix and keeps at it, stroking up until he presses against a soft, spongy spot. Majima jerks at that, his mouth falling open with a moan.
Lightning-fast, his hand clamps onto Kiryu’s wrist from where his fingers are still buried inside him. “Fuck,” he pants. “You tryin’ to kill me, Kiryu? Just fuck me already. Please.”
Kiryu slowly withdraws his fingers, only for Majima to squeeze his wrist harder in warning. He almost likes how it feels, Majima’s grip like iron and sure to bruise the next day.
Majima grabs a condom packet and tears it with his teeth, almost feral. He pinches the tip of the condom and rolls it onto Kiryu’s cock with an almost brutal efficiency, lubes it up with brusque, impatient movements. It’s punishingly hot, Majima’s hand terse and relentless around his cock.
Majima lets him go. His cock throbs in the absence of Majima’s touch.
He presses Majima down onto the futon, hands gripping his legs. He wants to ask if Majima’s really ready for this but either Majima or having to wait any longer would kill him. So he takes his cock in hand, lines it up, and carefully, painstakingly sinks into Majima.
Majima is hot and tight and molten around him, lean, lithe body sucking him in. Fuck, he feels so good. Sweat beads on his temples and Kiryu trembles from the strain of having to hold back from sheathing himself in Majima then and there. But he does hold back, if nothing else because he can’t, won’t let himself fuck this up.
So he slowly eases into Majima, watches for the minute changes of Majima’s body loosening up, the taut lines of his torso falling slack, to push further in, until he bottoms out.
“Is this -” Kiryu’s breath stutters. “Is this good?”
“Yeah. Yeah, this is real good, Kiryu,” Majima murmurs.
Laid out beneath him, Kiryu’s cock sheathed in him, Majima is beautiful like this, face flushed, lips parted, eye lidded. He’s so beautiful and tonight, Kiryu can have him, make him feel good and make them both hurt a little less.
Kiryu cups his face to kiss him. Majima kisses him back, sucking on his tongue, hands gripping Kiryu’s shoulders.
Kiryu starts to move, slowly rocking into Majima at first, then building up speed as he pistons his hips, thrusts forward to pull pretty sounds out of Majima that twist in his chest. He presses Majima down and it’s the closest he thinks he’ll ever get to him, their bodies entwined like this, his body buried in Majima’s, Majima’s nails digging into his shoulder blades and his legs hooking around the small of his back, their mouths crushed against each other as they breathe each other in, heat and electricity building between them, crackling white-hot.
Kiryu wraps a hand around Majima’s cock and Majima keens, back arching.
Both of them come. He’s not sure which one of them is first other than the wave of pleasure that crests, crashes down, washes over him.
When Kiryu comes to, Majima’s face is nestled in Kiryu’s shoulder, bangs plastered to his forehead.
Kiryu eases out of him, sliding off the condom and tying it off to toss into the wastebasket by his futon.
He rolls off on Majima. “ ‘bout time,” Majima mumbles from beside him. “Could’ve been crushed to death underneath ya if you kept lying there like some sorta lump on a log.”
Any hint of reprimand in his voice is belied by his slurred speech, syllables smoothed over with satisfaction.
Kiryu cards a hand through Majima’s soft hair. “But you liked it,” he says. “The -” In spite of himself, he stumbles. “The sex.”
Majima shoots him a look, so fond it makes Kiryu’s heart seize. “Yeah I liked it, ya big lug. Little too late to be shy about it, ain’t it?”
It’s at that very moment Kiryu fucks it all up. Maybe because he thought Majima would allow it, would indulge this strange new closeness between them, a newborn fawn rising to its feet on shaky new legs. Maybe because he wants so much he forgets himself and his place.
So he asks, “Will you stay the night?”
Majima’s expression shutters. “No,” he says, face a blank mask. “No, we can’t do that.”
And then he’s sitting up, fast like sand sifting through fingers, moving as if he’s abou to leave. It feels like being doused in cold water.
Kiryu grabs Majima’s wrist.
Majima’s eye flashes, sparks with fury. “Kiryu, let me go before I break your fuckin’ arm,” he snarls.
“Please,” Kiryu finds himself saying. “Just for tonight. I -” The words catch in his throat. I don’t want to be alone. I want you to stay. You’re the only one who knows what it’s like.
Because he’s a goddamn coward, the words don’t come out.
Majima’s face twists into a sneer, mask warping with contempt. He yanks hard, pulling Kiryu down in time to smash a knee into his face.
Kiryu can feel his nose crack from the impact but it’s not enough to break his grip on Majima’s wrist. Instead, he throws all his weight against Majima, sending them both toppling to the ground.
They grapple, rolling on the floor. Majima jams his thumb into Kiryu’s eye and Kiryu rears back, blinded, lunges forward to smash his forehead into Majima’s.
Majima spits at him, blood bubbling from his lips. Faintly, Kiryu registers it’s his own blood, streaming from his nose onto Majima’s face. He can feel a roaring in his ears, a thrumming pulse overtaking any coherent thought in his mind.
So when Majima writhes and bucks beneath him, Kiryu’s body responds without thinking, clamping a hand around Majima’s throat to slam his head into the floor, hard.
Only when his brain catches up, processes Majima wheezing beneath him does Kiryu realize with a slow, dawning horror that he’s used violence to keep a man who’d been tortured in the hole for a year trapped beneath him.
Kiryu immediately lets go of him, rocks back on his heels, sick to his stomach. He’s no better than Majima’s torturers, the ones who carved up Majima’s body; no better than the men who tortured and murdered Tachibana-san, either.
“Sorry,” Kiryu says, the single word scraping out of him. Nothing good ever came out of anybody associating with him. People around him end up hurt, dead. He just didn’t think he’d be the one hurting them. Selfish; he’s so goddamn selfish, for wanting more than what he deserves, to be alone and shouldering the weight of having failed to save Tachibana-san even though he’d promised Makoto he would.
And now Majima’s paying the price.
His chest squeezes. It’s hard to breathe, his vision darkening around the edges. Kiryu tries to force out more words, manages, “I’m - sorry” before his throat closes.
Dumbass. There’s a voice talking to him. Majima? Look, I’m fine. More fine than you. You gotta breathe.
He feels a hand push his head down, stares at the ground, unseeing. Deep breaths for me. In - hold - then out.
Blindly, he follows the instructions. His body resists at first but he pushes through, latching onto the cadence of Majima’s voice. It burns, the rhythm of inhaling, holding his breath, and exhaling, but it’s a burn that pierces through the chilling numbness paralyzing his body.
Good, you’re doing so good for me.
Huh, Kiryu thinks. The lilting nasal inflection of Majima’s Kansai dialect is gone, replaced by a low, steady tenor in Tokyo-ben.
It’s strangely comforting. Come to think of it, Majima had dropped his Kansai dialect once before, when they talked about Makoto. Huh.
Gradually, the world comes back to Kiryu. The tatami mat beneath his knees. The ache of his broken nose, air whistling through his nostrils crusted with blood.
A firm hand on his head
And shame coursing through him, that Majima had to take care of him even after Kiryu had just brutalized him.
“Ya back with me?” Majima’s Kansai-ben, back again.
Kiryu nods. He feels a tug on his right earlobe, brings himself to look up at Majima.
Majima watches him, single eye bright and clear. To Kiryu’s relief, Majima doesn’t look much worse for wear. Except for the darkening handprint around his throat.
Majima clicks his tongue when he catches Kiryu’s guilty gaze drifting.
“Quit lookin’ like the world just ended. Look, I started it. You gave as good as you got and that’s exactly what I wanted. Only reason you won is ‘cause this is your home turf and it’s close quarters. The next time we fight, I’m handin’ your ass to you. Got it?”
He snags a tissue from the tissue box on Kiryu’s bedside drawer to offer to Kiryu.
“ ‘sides, I broke your nose. We’re even, alright? So don’t be sorry.”
Kiryu accepts the tissue numbly, balling it up to wipe away the remnants of blood from his nostrils. His nose stings, swollen and crooked, but he barely feels it. On autopilot, he reaches up to press his hands to his nose, bends hard and hears a crunch as his nose sets.
He can breathe a little more easily but his conscience still isn’t clear. “I should be sorry,” Kiryu says. “I don’t want to hurt people I -” He almost says like but catches himself in the nick of time; he doesn’t want to set off another incident. “I don’t want to hurt people I take home.”
Majima snorts. “People? Ain’t I the only one you’ve taken home before?”
“Uh.”
“There ya go. Listen, I liked our fight. It’s hard to find someone I can really throw down with. The best kind of fight’s when you’re evenly matched and no one’s holdin’ back. The rush of cutting loose? ” Majima runs his tongue over his teeth, grins at him. “There’s nothin’ like it. Yeah, I was pissed off at first. But you gave me a run for my money and the time of my life. Both the sex and the fight after. So I’m staying. You earned it.”
Kiryu stares at Majima, head swimming. Majima, who is still here in his apartment in spite of everything. Who just said he liked their fight, that he wanted to stay over for the night.
It’s not over. He hasn’t fucked it all up. He won’t be alone. Not tonight, at least.
“Well?” Majima says. “You got any clothes I can sleep in?”
Right, they’re both still naked. The thought is as mortifying as it is absurd, that after sex, he’d done everything from fighting to undergoing a panic attack to having a whole conversation processing all of the above, all while in the nude.
At least Majima had been naked for all of it too.
Kiryu staggers up, pins and needles in his legs from having sat for so long, and digs through his bedside drawers to find something that’d fit Majima. He pulls out a old, worn shirt and shorts that shrank in the wash and offers both to Majima, who’s slipped on his briefs while Kiryu’s back was turned.
Without much further ado, Majima starts changing in front of Kiryu. Kiryu still finds himself averting his eyes out of some instinct to preserve Majima’s modesty as he retrieves his own boxers to put on.
The shorts manage but his shirt ends up being too big on Majima, one sleeve slipping down Majima’s shoulder. Kiryu hones in on the exposed bare skin of his shoulder, lush with inked flowers and clouds, and quashes the urge to press his mouth to it.
Instead, he shows Majima the bathroom, crouches down to open the cabinet underneath the sink and rummage for the spare pack of toothbrushes he’d shoved there.
It had been a pack of four, Nishiki having claimed one long ago for all the times he’d crashed at Kiryu’s place; now, Kiryu supposes, Majima will have one.
He’s about to step away to give Majima some space but Majima’s hand shoots out to grab his bicep. “If you wanted to stay, stay.”
So they end up brushing their teeth side by side, a scene so surreal Kiryu can’t tear his eyes from their reflections in the mirror.
They’re both tall enough they have to hunch over slightly to avoid hitting their heads against the ceiling; buildings in Japan aren’t built to accommodate people of Kiryu’s height and Majima’s no different.
And their reflections are banged up, Majima’s throat bruised and Kiryu’s nose swelling. Neither of them seem to have gotten much sleep, dark circles
But tonight, he’s not drowning in the memories of Tachibana or the Empty Lot. Tonight, he’s not looking at the mirror and wrestling with the urge to punch straight through and shatter the glass and leave smears of red, penance for all the blood that’s already been shed.
Instead, Kiryu watches Majima brush his teeth, slapdash in how he scrubs his gums and spits into the sink basin, and sees tension seep out of his own reflection. It’s harder to be haunted when there’s a real, living, breathing person next to him, and the one person who understands, more than anyone else, why Kiryu sees ghosts a year later that he can’t bring himself to exorcise.
And instead of spending the night pacing his apartment and knocking over empty bottles of sake to avoid sleep and the inevitable nightmares awaiting him, he slides into his futon tonight with Majima burrowing beneath the duvet next to him.
Majima immediately rolls over, back turned to him. He’s still sharp angles, knobs of spine jutting from his back and the sweep of his shoulders pointed, but in bed, in Kiryu’s clothes, he looks a little softer in a washed out watercolor sort of way, yet another side to Majima he’s discovered. He has the sense that not even Majima’s seen himself like this.
He’s grateful, greedy even, wants to take in Majima to fill the void that’s hollowed him out since the Empty Lot.
Kiryu wraps an arm around Majima and noses at the shell of his ear. He gives into the urge to press a kiss to Majima’s tattooed shoulder where his shirt sleeve slides down.
“What, you just wanted me in bed so you could feel me up?” drifts Majima’s voice from in front of him.
“No. I just wanted to hold you.”
At that, Majima turns around to face him, eye narrowed. “You’re gonna kill someone with that sincerity of yours, you know that?”
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No, I’m not,” Kiryu concedes.
Majima laughs at that - a small, quiet thing, the same kind of laugh that had spilled out of him at the mention of takoyaki back in the Empty Lot.
Kiryu kisses him. He wants to drink in the laugh, the taste of Majima beneath it. Majima the man, lurking in the shadows of the Mad Dog, an echo of the silhouette of the demon from hell, who brought white lilies to an abandoned backlot because he refused to forget its price paid in blood. Majima, who would give up his name to protect the peace of the blind girl they were both ready to kill for. Majima, whose eye creased when he smiled and whose voice dipped into quiet, crisp Tokyo-ben when he was dead serious.
He kisses Majima and Majima kisses him back.
He rolls on top of Majima and presses him down into the futon and they kiss for a while. Majima loops his arms around Kiryu’s neck, his mouth soft and warm against Kiryu’s.
When they pull away, a strand of saliva connects them. Kiryu thumbs at the corner of Majima’s lip to break the strand. Majima’s chest is heaving.
Kiryu cradles Majima’s face. He can think of nothing to say except, “I’m glad I’m not alone tonight.”
Majima doesn’t respond out loud. But he closes his eye, presses his cheek to Kiryu’s palm, and it’s enough.
When Kiryu drifts off to sleep, he sleeps deeply for the first time in months, undisturbed by nightmares.
When he wakes up the next morning, Majima’s gone, his absence marked by the cooling negative space beneath the duvet. But when Kiryu rises to his feet to pad through his apartment, traces of Majima remain - the bloodstains on the futon from their fight from last night; the pale yellow toothbrush in Kiryu's cup that wasn't there yesterday; an ache building in Kiryu's chest, gratitude and grief that last night alone had belonged to him and Majima.
He stands in the middle of his apartment, sunlight streaming in through the cracked windows, and hopes with everything he has it won't be the last he sees of Majima.
(It won't be.)