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As the world slowly awoke, still sluggish and sedated that early morning, the rolling flocculent clouds in the vast, gray atmosphere insisted their presence atop the hazy white glow of the sun. The amalgamation came gradually as it cushioned the separation between land and sky, the last sightings of the morning sun only visible from its interspersed beams of light descending like solar flares bathing the coast and its thrumming waters with an ethereal luminescence.
The last stream of the jarring light settled between the slit of the tattered curtains of Kiryu’s stayplace and soaked into the blanket of the futon, rousing him awake. His body ached in protest as he tried to cling to the unconscious, squeezing his eyes shut, turning his head and shifting onto his hip from his back. The futile attempt did no favors, only making him consider in his half-asleep state what exercises he could do that day to relax his muscles.
Those musings fizzled in and out along with fuzzy visions of the last of his dream as the minutes crept on. His mind was already kickstarted and ready to begin planning for the day ahead, much to his chagrin.
Thankfully, the intrusive light soon dissipated, bathing Kiryu and Haruto in a soft, dreamy glow. Kiryu cracked open his eyes and peered over at the small, sleeping body only inches away, unable to withhold a smile from breaking across his face. Haruto slept like Haruka did. She never moved around much, making a number of nights where they accidentally fell asleep together on the sofa in one of Kiryu’s apartments years ago much easier. His long lashes fluttered over his plump cheeks, those adorable twitches visible from where he lay on his back right where Kiryu tucked him in hours ago.
As his smile faded, gut-churning make-believe images of Haruka flooded his susceptible, early-morning brain in waves: imagining her pale, unmoving frame, small and almost frail in that hospital bed where she lay comatose. Like she was just a child again; like Kiryu could just take her in his arms and bring her back home. Keep her on his chest and rub her back in those slow circles she liked to fall asleep to. Then, surely, she would wake up, and Kiryu would finally finish his search in bringing her family – her own family – back together.
But she wasn’t just a child anymore. She had gotten further in life than Kiryu ever had in fact, and yet that only spurred him on further to keep helping, keep searching, keep doing his part in all of this to ensure that at least she and Haruto could live in peace.
Now, if the father was some sort of deadbeat… Not that he would ever expect that from Haruka, getting involved with someone like that, but if he was, then Kiryu eagerly looked forward to rearranging the guy’s face with both his fists and perhaps some nice, blunt objects. But as long as he could find him first, that was the priority. Whatever happened afterwards – well. Maybe the face-rearranging would happen regardless.
A warm presence behind Kiryu shifted suddenly, rustling the blanket, extracting him from his fantasies of all the different ways he could make shoving a traffic cone down someone’s gullet work. A hand rested carefully on his hip, finger by finger meeting with his skin until it encapsulated the slightly protruding bone.
He startled, twisting back to identify the source of the contact, only to meet with a single, sleepy eye and a lazy smile.
Majima’s dark pupil shone amidst the dull glow inside the stayplace, his head propped up in his other hand. He watched as Kiryu absorbed the sight before him, allowing him to look, persuading him closer with that gentle hand. When Kiryu fully turned onto his other side to face him, it dawned on him as to why his body may have been so sore that morning. Perhaps it was because he had, in fact, shared a single-person futon with none other than Majima Goro during the night. That realization came hand-in-hand with the fact that the insistent, careful contact of his hand on Kiryu’s body, now resting in the dip above his other hipbone, had drawn all of those unsavoury thoughts out from his mind until Majima was all he could think about.
“Yo,” Majima whispered, his smile growing marginally.
Kiryu took a few more moments to collect himself before he opened his mouth, disengaging with the reality that he definitely slept off the memories of Majima finding him only the night before. Like he somehow received a tip on exactly where Kiryu was living now. How he strolled up to the door, his shirt – his shirt – and jacket and actual dress pants and bag that was slung over his shoulder already smelling of sea salt. How he spoke quietly as if to pre-emptively pacify any possible tension that would upset Haruto. How he explained that he heard what happened and he couldn’t just sit back and let Kiryu do everything on his own – and how he didn’t take no for an answer in response to that, instead settling further into Kiryu’s space and offering to grab groceries for dinner.
Majima’s persistence was always both his own downfall and salvation, not one without the other.
Kiryu reached out, in turn, and stroked the ink on his bicep.
For once, he would accept the help and whatever it would entail. He couldn’t deny that he was already past his prime, and someone who knew Haruka on a somewhat personal level could be detrimental. Although Kiryu was already intertwined with Onomichi’s local yakuza and his cause was not going unsupported, at that point, he couldn’t say no to an extra pair of hands especially if they were willing. And not to mention warm, and bare, like Majima’s.
“Hi,” Kiryu whispered back.
Majima shuffled a bit closer and gazed down at him through the lashes of his good eye. The other half of his face, which appeared more scruffy than it had just the night before due to the shadows and uneven lighting, was still shielded by his signature eyepatch. The familiar sight coaxed a bit more alertness out of Kiryu, bringing his mind back to how utterly sore his body was from the stiff sleep.
“I think I’m gonna take a bath.”
Despite immediately wanting to crawl back into the comfort and warmth of bed, he forced himself up and stretched, astutely unaware of the fact that he was very much being observed, and intently, at that.
However, with Kiryu now out of his direct line of vision, Majima trailed his gaze from that very-easy-on-the-eyes body with only those briefs on, over to Haruto’s tiny, swaddled frame a little further than an arm’s length away. Sufficiently limbered up with an offer on the tip of his tongue, Kiryu then gave pause, observing the small smile that prevailed on Majima’s face. Kiryu followed where his attention was focused, and suddenly felt a nice, hard lump in his throat.
When Majima made his appearance in Onomichi, seemingly out of thin air, it was as if his entire personality had been flipped upside down and inside out, so much so that Kiryu admitted it was slightly worrying at first. Not that he didn’t automatically feel some kind of worry whenever he saw Majima, whether that be because he didn’t want to fight or because he didn’t want to hear about yet another sort of disaster within the Tojo – but that was beside the point in this instance. He was so soft-spoken around Haruto, as if thinking that everything he was doing, Haruto was going to mimic. His laugh, once crazed and shrill, was now warm and smooth. No sudden movements; no cigarettes or drinking around him. It was strange and it took longer than necessary for Kiryu to climb that hill.
He couldn’t help but wonder if Majima ever thought about having kids.
But that would be a conversation for another day.
Instead, the bath was calling his name, and some soft-spoken, warm, smooth, calm company was exactly what he needed.
“Majima,” Kiryu said quietly, redirecting his attention. He nodded towards the washroom, flicking his finger beckoningly for good measure, and padded off.
The sigh he released from the depths of his chest was the loudest thing the flat had heard all morning as the hot stream of water from the showerhead pelted down onto him like rogue droplets of lava. Kiryu’s skin turned a rosy pink from the temperature as it began to steam him from the outside in, and he was convinced that there was no better feeling. That notion, however, was quickly overturned as washing his hair and scrubbing himself down under the scalding torrent took the number one spot for best-feelings-ever. Then maybe drinking whisky after a long day came second, actually, and – well, he would have to tally it all up properly later.
“Hey.” Majima’s soft voice came, just barely audible above the running water of both the showerhead and the bath tap.
Kiryu blinked up at him from where he sat on the stool, hoping that he hadn’t been there the entire time, being so enveloped in the ecstasy of the shower that he didn’t realize his presence. But that thought was wiped clear at the uneasy way his face twisted up from where he leant in the doorway.
Shutting the shower tap off, Kiryu asked, “Is everything okay?”
Majima huffed, rolling the words around in his mouth until he sighed out, “Kiddo’s gonna be alright if we’re both in here?”
What Kiryu didn’t expect was the way his heart jumped and pulse fluttered in response like a nervous little schoolgirl who just saw their crush. Not that he relished in Majima being uncomfortable, but the reason was sweet enough that he did savour it. Just a little bit.
As naked as the day he was born, Kiryu stood and started sliding into the bath.
“Keep the door open. We’ll be quiet so we can hear him.”
Leaning back out of the doorway one more time, Majima grumbled and glanced once more at Kiryu as if asking, “are you really, really sure?”.
He shut off the tap to the bath with finality as he submerged himself, looking him dead in the eye. Thus, the fruits of his stony face had once again bore in abundance as, not only did Majima surrender, but Kiryu got a wonderful show of his body that looked like it hadn’t aged once in twenty years. The magnificent and vibrant petals against the swirling dark clouds, framing the brooding, beautiful hannya, that covered the length of his slender back and then some was a vision and a half; Majima’s normally pale skin then went on par with Kiryu’s peachier tone from the temperature of the shower.
And, just…
Wow.
He was truly a beautiful man.
Kiryu started to wrack his brain for any reason why he didn’t offer him a place in his bath sooner. Years sooner.
Like clockwork, Majima rinsed himself off, slid into the tub, hissing a little at the apparently even higher temperature, and pressed his back fully against Kiryu’s chest. Kiryu felt Majima’s muscles melt until he was a pliant, sated, warm mass.
“Relaxed now?” He murmured.
Taking a long, slow inhale first, Majima exhaled, “yeah,” and tipped his head back until it thunked against Kiryu’s collarbone.
“Mm.”
In just moments, the only sound in the entire flat was the tiny drip-drops of excess water falling from the showerhead onto the tile. Like clockwork: drip, drip, drip. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Kiryu tried to grasp for straws if he and Majima had ever done something like this before. Something so intimate, something more than the rough, adrenaline-fuelled sex in every dark corner of the city they had gotten so accustomed to that that became the definition of their relationship. All for the convenience; ready for the inevitable whirlwind of conflicting emotions that neither of them were able to express. There wasn’t any time for that back then, anyhow. Not then, not in Okinawa, and certainly not during Kiryu’s whole disappearance stint in Nagasugai.
But… now?
While it wasn’t ideal timing to any degree, Kiryu couldn’t pass off Majima’s appearance as simply cordial or customary. The machinations that established who they were compared to who they were supposed to be ultimately had to come to a head at some point, and during those long, lonely years, Kiryu had wracked his brain of which side he, let alone Majima, was ultimately going to choose.
For just how long could they keep up the charade of pretending until one of them cracked irreversibly?
After ‘05, they never had the same opportunities again. Now with Haruka and Haruto – was it even possible? Did Kiryu even want to spare any more energy, pouring the rest of his life into the hands of someone more deserving than his own fucked up story?
His mind trudged along like it was knee-deep in molasses, and despite the beautiful heat radiating both from Majima and the bath, he was starting to get uncomfortable with his rampant thoughts.
“Yer all scruffy now, Kiryu-chan,” Majima mused.
With that, Kiryu was plucked from the hole he was digging himself into and allowed his jaw to be rubbed on – nuzzled at – by the crooked length of Majima’s nose. The prominent hook let the tip of it catch on Kiryu’s stubble and drag until he thought amusedly that he might get something akin to rug burn. Kiryu leant into it all the same, relishing in the contact that kept lifting him further and further away from the ugliness that was their reality, of what they were. Of what they might be.
“So are you.”
Endless rivulets of steaming droplets cascaded down from Kiryu’s hand as he lifted it out of the water and cupped the opposite side of Majima’s face, thumbing over his goatee.
Regardless of what this all meant, or rather what either of them wanted it to mean, Kiryu couldn’t deny that the feelings he had never disappeared. At a certain point, he surmised that it was impossible for them to and, while a somewhat terrifying thought, he obviously felt those things for a reason. His subconscious wouldn’t have been overflowing with those kinds of unbridled thoughts otherwise. At first, he tried to pass it off as a kind of homesickness; Majima was a constant within his life in Kamurocho, after all. However, the events that had been chronicled in blood and heat and that burning appetite for one another couldn’t ever be mistaken as something else. So, at first, he was a fool.
And maybe he still was.
Majima tilted his head up a little further and raised his arm from the water. His warm, firm palm pet over Kiryu’s cheek and toyed with his sideburn while his eye made its focus apparent – flicking from those soft, crinkled, honey-brown eyes to his mouth.
Kiryu leant in first, and Majima let him.
The dew circulating in the washroom clung to their skin and softened the noises that arose from them, in such stark contrast to what Kiryu was ever accustomed to.
Rather than the unsettling introspection, in that moment, Kiryu consciously chose to embrace whatever this may be, for as long as he may have it; embrace Majima for as long as he could, to share the same breaths and soak in his warmth, his presence, like he would with the sun. It left his heart pounding despite the unhurried ministrations, his hand now threading through Majima’s damp hair that had since marginally grown out.
Such things like that – like change – only presented itself as further suggestion that time, and with time, certain decisions, tore them apart. Kiryu had changed, too. They were both equally new souls in the same old bodies. And yet: here they were. Sought out as Kiryu may have been, that alone proved that, even if time could rip them apart, it could bring them together again. Now, Majima choosing to stay would be a different story altogether. Doubt was something that came naturally to Kiryu in almost any situation – yet, he didn’t know if he could bring himself to necessarily doubt Majima. He unkindly reminded himself that Majima had sacrificed parts of his life under Kiryu’s wishes or pleas or whether he was even involved in the decision or not – he still did it. And maybe that meant more now than it ever did before. Time was a cold-hearted bitch, but she always did the job.
“Have we ever even done this before?”
Kiryu smiled as Majima leaned away just enough to murmur against his parted lips, itching for more contact.
“I don’t know. Kissing you would be hard to forget.”
The corner of his mouth turned up in response. “Sure, casanova,” he whispered, and closed the gap once more, but only briefly. “Do ya have a razor around here? Yer stubble is seriously gonna poke right through my hand.”
Lifting his other hand out of the water, Kiryu rubbed over the cheek that wasn’t already occupied by Majima’s stubborn, wandering fingers.
“I do, somewhere. Is it really that bad?”
“Uh, yeah. Here –” He dragged his arm on the same side that Kiryu did out of the water and placed his hand over his, rubbing diagonally at his skin. “Feel it this way. No way ya can deny that.”
Kiryu rolled his eyes at him. “I know how to touch my own face. I just didn’t realize it had started growing out so much.”
Majima hummed in response, and with a lack of something to retort to, Kiryu instead allowed his focus to shift to Majima’s warm fingers on top of his own, cradling the side of his face. Without their eye contact wavering much, Kiryu tried to wrack his brain as much as he could to consider when or if they had done something like this last, too. Something not followed by a dislocated jaw or bruised ribs, in an attempt to create distance – to not get as close as they suddenly were now. Like all of that time spent trying to push away the reality of what settled in their guts at the end of day was utterly fruitless.
Kiryu leaned into it when Majima slowly stroked the sparse area of cheekbone that wasn’t blocked by Kiryu’s own hand. Case in point.
“Well, even though yer a grandpa now ya still gotta keep up with appearances.”
“Oh yeah?” Kiryu chuckled. “I have to?”
Majima nodded. “‘Course! Can’t have Haruka-chan go around showin’ ya off lookin’ all scraggly. I’d be embarrassed for her.”
He received a nice nip to the finger for that, promptly followed by only Majima getting caught in the splash zone: his hair dampened all over again, water slinging over the edge from the force of the half-hearted struggle to escape Kiryu’s vengeful clutches.
They moved in a slow, practiced tandem following the calm after the storm. Haruto continued to sleep through everything, unbothered by their subsequent hovering over him and clamoring as they fished around in the washroom.
When Kiryu took to settling down on his knees and digging through the cupboards beneath the sink, Majima pressed against his back and slowly dragged his fingers along the length of his dragon, still vibrant and proud. He offered a bratty glare when Kiryu stood and instructed him to settle atop the counter first, preventing any further mapping. Any revisiting.
Compared to their days in the streets, on rooftops, surrounded by hundreds of onlookers betting on either one of them, Kiryu’s hands were awfully benevolent. With care, he leant between Majima’s legs with warm, wet hands, smoothing over his jaw and cheekbones like he was trying to mould clay and not prep another grown man to be shaved.
It was ironic that the care he put into things like this, so minimal and inconsequential in the grand scheme of his current path, was just as meticulous as it would have been should he instead have chosen to speak with his fists. Kiryu wondered if that version of him, the one he consciously tried to leave behind whenever he could, was the one that Majima had left home for; if his expectations going into whatever this all was went as far to compare the past and present and ultimately decide which Kiryu he preferred. Even if he was told the truth straightforwardly, he didn’t know if he would ever be able to believe or understand it. Majima knew him, obviously, but did Kiryu know him? Had they gotten to the point – rather, would they ever reach the point – of agreeing on nuances and accepting one another as they were? Could Kiryu continue to struggle to read him for however long, just for the sake of what may or may not be love, for the desire for their future together?
“Stop daydreamin’, Kiryu-chan,” Majima chided, jabbing him in the back of the thigh with his heel.
Kiryu stopped his stubble-burnt fingers from stroking his skin and paused. Majima had gone this far already, hadn’t he? So, he should be content with just being in his presence.
Without much of a response, Majima rolled his eye and started grabbing blindly around the counter for the blade-like razor, mumbling something about how he’ll have to do it himself.
Kiryu then dropped his hands and found Majima’s wrists, the proximity lulling him into the intoxicated state of those feelings that had a stranglehold on him since the 90’s. The same ones that never dissipated over the years as much as he tried to prove to himself that Majima was better off without him.
Funny, he thought, I guess he was right all those years ago. Maybe I’m going soft.
“I’ve missed you, Majima,” slipped out of his mouth like water down a drain. Before his own reaction kicked in, it was too late anyway – Majima’s mouth perked up into a smirk. Kiryu’s heart thumped messily, and the urge to kiss him quickly outweighed reason.
“Oh, Kiryu-chan,” he sighed, leaning in until their noses bumped and they were nothing but an amalgamated, blurry image to each other. “You have no idea.”
Shaving was apparently the last thing they were concerned about in comparison to getting re-familiarized with one another after the torturously long span of time since their bath. Following his self-serving thoughts, Kiryu made several mental notes along the way to remember what Majima’s mouth felt like against his own, how his legs felt wrapped around his waist, their chests pressed together until it was hard to breathe. The path he chose was anything but predictable. He had to make moments like these matter. However, that, in turn, resulted in more action than that countertop had likely seen in its entire life.
Eventually, once they had chosen air over attempting to become one symbiotic being, which was hard enough with Majima’s grabby hands under his shirt and running through his hair, the razor made its way into Kiryu’s hand and carefully sliced through the cream lathered on Majima’s cheeks and chin.
Meanwhile, his attention trailed off elsewhere, hands becoming idle at Kiryu’s sides.
“Haruto-kun still out, huh?”
Kiryu hummed, taking care in navigating the sharp angle of his cheek bone. “It’s still pretty early. He can sleep like a rock.”
“Seems so. He always like that?”
“Mostly,” he murmured. “It's hard to get him to nap during the day sometimes. Guess he has to get it all out of his system at night.”
Gentle fingers cupped Majima’s chin, tilting his head down.
“Just like Haruka-chan, then. All those nights we drank at yers – she’d be knocked out the whole time, no matter the noise.”
“Heh. Yeah. That’s what I thought about, too.”
“He’s, what, a year old now?”
“Stop moving your face so much, I literally have a razor to your skin,” Kiryu tutted quietly. “But, no. Not yet. It’s not February.”
Majima hummed in response, ignoring the previous quip. “They tell ya his birthday at the hospital or somethin’?” There was a brief, noticeable pause interspersing his nod back, but neither of them decided to address it. Majima continued with, “They must’ve known he’d be in good hands.”
Like he expected it, like he knew Kiryu better than he knew himself, he met his gaze halfway as if to pointedly say, I’m right. Don’t argue with me.
Kiryu eventually grunted and turned Majima’s face the opposite way. He sat with a strange amount of patience that, once again, was somewhat foreign as he entrusted the state of his half-clean shaven face to Kiryu totally. Remnants of the cream on the one side of his face sagged under its own weight and, with nothing to cling onto, slowly slid down to his bare jaw. Despite everything – despite their history and how comical Kiryu realized this all was, shaving the face of his supposed “ex” rival, partner, friend, fling, whatever – he looked as handsome as the day Kiryu met him. As handsome as the day he pronounced himself mad.
After the empty lot. After the repentance from within the clan. After the Tachibanas.
“… She’s gonna be alright, Kiryu-chan.”
The suddenness of that statement startled him into straightening up, pushing his shoulders back and away from where they previously sat hunched by his ears in focus. Eyes blown wide in surprise, the familiar barrage of unkind half-formed, anxiety-induced images and realizations wrapped around his brain stem in a chokehold, preventing anything else from coming or leaving.
But Majima was always good at changing the subject.
He wound his legs around Kiryu’s waist and glanced down at the razor at a standstill by his cheek.
“What, like that’s shockin’?” He cajoled, eyebrows raised. “When we see her again, it’ll be like nothin’ even happened. She’ll have you and the little squirt back, and maybe if her boy toy ain’t a total fuckin’ loser, she’ll have him, too. So –” he tapped Kiryu’s jaw, “– chin up.
In response, his mouth could barely form an actual shape that would translate out anything other than huh?
But those words, rebounding around Kiryu’s skull, driving into his cerebellum, certainly came from a place that was beyond the extent of solely coming to Onomichi to rekindle whatever they had and solve a mystery while he was at it – that much had instantly become clear to Kiryu.
Majima cared about Haruka.
He cared enough to talk about her, keep her fresh in their minds whilst the rest of the world chugged along.
He… cared.
“We?” Kiryu repeated.
Majima blinked, then rolled his eye. “God – yeah, I said what I said.”
Then emerging from his momentary stupor, he said quietly, “Does that mean you’re going to stay with me?”
“Well… yeah. That was the plan. Unless ya don’t want me to.”
At that point, now that he had Majima back, he wasn’t sure if he could give him back to that time and space rift that helped rip them apart in the first place. Regardless of if they chose to simply stick together now or if whatever their relationship was should develop into something more, Kiryu was ready to take that risk. Majima was capable of not only handling himself but Kiryu’s situations, and he knew that – they both knew that. So, with a pulse that picked up until he could feel it in his throat, he gave Majima the answer that he was looking for all along.
“Of course I want you to stay, Majima. Things won’t be easy for… I don’t know how long, and they won’t be like anything before, either. But…” He tried but immediately failed at pushing down a smirk. “Life would be a bit easier with eyes on you, anyway.”
Amusement splashed across Majima’s face and try as he might, he could barely withhold a grin from lifting against the edge of the blade.
“‘Course,” he drawled, voice oozing with sarcasm. “How could I forget? I need my caretaker around to, y’know, make sure I don’t fall down some stairs when no one’s lookin’ or some shit. I’m old now!”
Kiryu chuckled, taking care in adjusting his strokes around the lifted apple of Majima’s cheek, letting himself be pulled in further and further by his gangly limbs, that absurd smile that he came to love, his water-warm and touchable skin.
Sure. There would likely be a handful of explaining to do with the Hirose Family, dragging Majima along with him. But they were unstoppable together, and that was exactly what the hunt needed: a force strong and stable enough to dig through the mud and unravel the maze of Haruka’s path and what led her to finding the person she had a child with.
For once, Kiryu was ready to embrace help. The Hirose Family was a different story entirely, but with Majima, he knew he could count on him.
“Now c’mon and finish the job so I can show ya just how good I am… with a blade…”
As his voice teetered off, Kiryu glanced over to complete the eye contact that wasn’t there in the first place; Majima instead had his attention focused on the gap the ajar washroom door left between them and the rest of the living space.
Just as Kiryu was about to prompt him, Haruto’s soft coos and whimpers replaced Majima’s space in his mind. Slowly, he lowered the razor and finally found that eye contact he was looking for.
Majima smiled as he kicked at Kiryu’s glute.
“Time to start the day now, huh? I’ll do ya later, baby. He needs ya more than I do right now.”
The small, cramped office of the Hirose Family bumbled with life, audible from all the way down the street where Kiryu and Majima strolled, Haruto clinging to Kiryu’s open collar. They kept their gaze ahead to the end of the alley that ended with the aforementioned office, barely able to make out visions of shadows as the men inside through the frosting on the windows. On the other hand, what were likely Nagumo’s rolling syllables came through clear as day. Kiryu thought amusedly with his newfound aniki status that he was likely cussing out Yuta for something or other as it seemed that he enjoyed doing.
Introducing them to Majima would be fun. A blast.
And the closer they approached the office, the more Haruto’s attention had shifted over to the side, as well. To Majima.
While the yelling was echoing and bouncing provocatively off the buildings surrounding them, landing right in their eardrums, Haruto didn’t even seem to notice. His eyes were wide in wonder, his little fingers soaked in saliva as he gnawed on them as if to bite down all his questions.
Majima jammed his fingers under his collar, a dark grey turtleneck overlaid with a sleek black jacket. While undoubtedly handsome as hell, he seemed to be suffocating from the outside in, if the slight flush of his cheeks was anything to go by. Not to mention his lack of awareness of pretty much anything, instead absently soaking in the view of the buildings around them.
However, Kiryu had certainly noticed Haruto’s fascination.
Unable to withhold a chuckle, finally attracting Majima’s attention, he nodded down at Haruto and looked expectantly over at Majima.
“What?” He said, making an effort to speak over the raucous yelling and clamouring.
“I think he likes you.”
Majima’s eye drifted down to Haruto.
“Me?”
Kiryu nodded. “Yeah.”
Looking back up at Kiryu, his mouth contorted into an awkward, shy-looking grin. The hand previously stuck in his collar then shifted to the back of his neck.
“God, he really is like Haruka-chan, huh? No fear.”
“Do you want to hold him?”
The abruptness of that might as well have held Majima down and put a needle to his good eye with how seriously he staggered back, halting his steps only a few feet away from the Hirose office.
“W-What? Me?” He repeated, pointing obviously at his own face like Kiryu easily could have mistaken him for someone else. Anyone else.
Kiryu simply shrugged and began handling Haruto in such a way that made Majima stand ramrod-stiff straight, and scramble to stick his arms out like a pair of matchsticks side by side. He really didn’t want to let Majima get out of this one, apparently.
Those little chunky, spit-shiny hands framed by that soft blue shirt clung to the excess fabric of Majima’s turtleneck as they made the awkward transition, Kiryu laughing all the way. Until Haruto was seated comfortably in the crook of Majima’s arms, swaddling him like a newborn, he looked like he was going to go into cardiac arrest at any moment.
“See?” Kiryu said. “That wasn’t so bad. He does like you.”
To punctuate the awkwardness like a punch to the gut, Haruto began giggling and babbling to himself, lapping at his wet lips and exploring every part of Majima’s shirt and jacket that he could reach.
The warmth of Haruto’s little body nestled against his chest as he held him there, firmly, eventually eased his nervous system back into a manageable state, and as he looked down, Haruto met him in the middle.
Although it was nothing but nonsense, it was as if Majima could understand those incoherent babblings, his responding smile turning into a grin.
“See?” Kiryu prompted, softer this time, and caressed Majima’s forearm.
It was like a mirror image. He could see his own insecurities – his own nervousness in Majima’s stature as they stood there in a place other than home, surrounded by buildings they weren’t familiar with, the echoes of some kind of verbal lashings rebounding off every nearby surface and driving into their eardrums. Kiryu himself quickly became exhausted at the beginning of all this, trying to figure out ways to do nothing but the best for Haruto; in the way that Majima was still all stuffy holding him, he could recognize that in him, too.
But it was so easy to see that he would be just fine.
Slowly, as Majima balanced Haruto in his arms, they made the rest of the way to the Hirose office door.
Kiryu slid it open, revealing himself first.
Mid-yell and mid-hounding Yuta for something or other (as expected), Nagumo paused, a nasty glare fresh on his face. Though realizing it was Kiryu, he stopped, and began making his way over to greet him.
“Aniki!” He hollered.
Both Matsunaga and Tagashira, huddled together to the side as if to avoid Nagumo’s wrath, beamed at him and repeated the sentiment like they were thanking an ancient god for reviving their dried up crops. Tagashira used the magazine in his hand to try and shield himself when Yuta came tumbling towards him to scramble out of the line of fire.
As the door shuddered to its full open extent, Kiryu purposefully stepped aside and allowed Majima to enter in front of him.
The once noisy office went dead silent.
Nagumo’s face dropped and he froze, thoroughly raking in the sight of Haruto cuddling against Majima’s chest.
“Ho – quaint space here, ain’t it?” He pondered aloud, either oblivious or uncaring about the blatant stares that his presence brought him as he stepped foot inside.
Kiryu, right behind him, followed suit and shut the door.
“A-Aniki…?” Matsunaga grumbled, his hunch increasing, lids casting halfway over his eyes in a dark, brooding glare aimed at Majima. His glower was followed quickly by Tagashira, then Yuta, who both promptly stood with fists by their sides.
Closest to Kiryu and Majima, Nagumo’s hands closed so tightly until they white-knuckled. A sneer and straight-back stance kept a divide between his boys and the two – more specifically, what he clearly analyzed was an intruder or enemy, with Haruto in his arms. He stood like a panther on the high ground, still and unwavering.
“Who the fuck is this?” He spat in Majima’s direction, looking him up and down.
Just as Kiryu was about to open his mouth, a mini-speech prepared to explain everything as it felt like he was supposed to do, Majima cleared his throat.
“Little ol’ me?” He said, his tone dripping with an artificial sweetness. Customer service-like. “Well, let’s just say… Kiryu-chan and I go back. Way back.”
With finality, he rubbed his thumb along the tiny length of Haruto’s leg and savoured the way that everyone’s jaws were subsequently on the floor and they didn’t know who to look at most incredulously.
Yeah, Kiryu thought, unable to control a smirk, we’ll be fine.