Chapter Text
Five shots. That’s what it had taken to bring Shimano down. That’s at least what the boys who’d hauled his corpse back were telling everyone, through “solemn” crocodile tears. It made Majima sick to think that a couple of decades back, he could’ve just as easily been one of them, a snivelling pup mumbling empty threats to avenge the memory of the “beloved” patriarch, the same one who’d thrown his own kyoudai to the wolves and mutilated countless subordinates as a pastime.
Majima had already been on that rodeo once and the experience would definitely last him a lifetime. Now, he could at least take comfort in knowing the finishing shot had hit the fucker right in that lumpy cue ball he called a head, rendering his downfall quite final.
There would be no rising from the dead for this tyrant. Majima was free… and, what’s more, it wasn’t looking like anyone was still left to pick up his leash.
Yeah, you’re free now, you miserable old mutt… free to take the blood-stained crown and wear it yourself.
That’s what everyone expected of him anyway, right? One sadistic psychopath begets another and the cycle repeats...
Although, he’d never actually followed in Shimano’s footsteps. Sure, he’d danced to his tune, but he hadn’t adopted his instruments. Least of all the torture ones. Kicks and punches were one thing — those, he had to admit, he quite enjoyed dishing out. But in spite of his violent reputation, Majima hadn’t ever taken a single man’s finger. Not as a token of atonement, not even as a parting gift from the people he’d expelled.
The fuck kinda need did he have for a pinky collection? There were easier ways to punish someone than to mark them as a failure to both society and the only family many of them had ever known. Even if that family was built on blood, bruises and a boss who kept everyone at arm’s length...
That much was easy to do. Just pretend he didn't have a soft, yearning heart and play the buffoon. It was better for everyone that way. To get close was to get burned, either by Shimano yanking his chain for sport or by his own layers of trauma, that had over time sedimented to become his trademark fucked up personality.
Now that the first element was gone and all that remained to stare him in the face was the mask of madness, Majima felt, more than anything… trapped, this time in a cage of his own making.
If things were different, perhaps he'd now be out there trying to make amends. Giving his men a little more appreciation (especially Nishida, God knows he deserved it more than any of them), treating Kiryu and his little munchkin to a nice meal, no fists involved, and maybe even… finding the courage to tell you how much you mattered to him. How much his mind had been consumed with thoughts of you as of late...
How, despite his best efforts to prevent it, he’d let his heart get stolen again.
But he had to face the facts: after years of walking on eggshells, his men were too wary of his shifting moods, Kiryu-chan had a daughter to raise far away from men like him and... you, too, were surely going to leave. Seeing how the deal that had been keeping you up until now as Shimano's indentured servant had crumbled together with the ogre's skull, there was nothing left to tie you to the yakuza, or to him.
For what seemed like the hundredth time that night, Majima poured himself another whisky and reached for his now almost empty cigarette pack, hoping the alcohol and the rain outside would drown out the self-loathing. But the lump in his throat made it impossible to down the glass. Who would’ve guessed that being collared for so long makes freedom taste all the more suffocating?