Chapter Text
Kiryu could never quite figure out how he got into the situations he frequently found himself in. Even the smallest decisions would somehow blow up in his face in some way beyond his control. It never mattered where it began either, it could start out with something as mundane as helping an elderly person who couldn't reach something on a higher shelf at the grocery store, and somehow it would inevitably end up with him trying to outrun a lion that just so happened to break out of the Tokyo zoo that day.
Just last week, he was stopped by an attractive young woman as he was walking down Tenkaichi Street and was asked to try a bowl of some new restaurant’s soup. He had some time to kill before having to pick Haruka up from school, and he hadn’t eaten yet so he accepted. Making polite conversation with the woman while he ate, he was unaware of the extremely large man behind the door to the kitchen, watching them talk with narrowed eyes dripping with jealousy. Just as Kiryu was about to load his mouth with delicious udon noodles, he was drenched with warm soup over his head. As it dripped from his hair all the way down his suit into his shoes, he saw the horrified look on the woman’s face right before she started yelling at the big guy behind him holding a now empty soup pot.
Apparently he thought Kiryu was hitting on his girlfriend even though he never heard a word of their conversation. In the end he had profusely apologized, admitting to Kiryu that he was just envious of his “blindingly handsome face and great body” to which Kiryu did not know what the proper response was. So, he just awkwardly shrugged and mumbled a quick goodbye and got the hell out of there as fast as he could. He could hear the woman still sincerely apologizing as he practically ran out the door, leaving a trail of udon noodles in his wake. Haruka fell into a fit of giggles when Kiryu told her what happened - showing up outside of her school dripping wet with soup and noodles still clinging to him made it impossible for him not to. But he left out the weird part, mostly because he was self-conscious and didn’t like to talk about himself like that.
Kiryu wasn’t nearly as oblivious as he knew people made him out to be sometimes; he was well aware of the fact that he was very attractive but it always came with the feeling that it was all people saw when they looked at him. Most of them either thought he looked tough and intimidating and wanted to fight or run away from him, or they’d stare at him with a lusty gaze like they were undressing him with their eyes...which he realized they most likely were. It always made him extremely uncomfortable. He knew he was more than just a fighter or a sex object, and always wished someone else would recognize that too. While there was a small part of him that was always flattered, Kiryu wanted someone to actually know him - the real him. He had slept with his fair share of women over the years - at least before he was incarcerated for a decade - and always thought it was amusing whenever he would hear rumors that he was a virgin. It didn’t really bother him, he knew he wasn’t and couldn’t care less if people thought he was. Whenever he had sex back in the day it was usually good - with the exception of one time that he tried to immediately block out before the memory could fully resurface which involved a hostess and a bowling pin. Kiryu couldn’t deny being aroused because someone wanted him...but that only happened when being intimate and in the moment. When it was over, that emptiness he usually felt would return so quickly it made him feel sick sometimes.
Kiryu had come to the realization a while back that there actually was a person who knew there was much more to him than what was just on the surface. Someone he finally admitted to himself that he had feelings for. There were just two small issues though. The first being Kiryu had no idea whether the feelings were actually mutual, despite there being multiple instances when he thought it might be.
The second was that the person happened to be Majima Goro.
It really had nothing to do with him being a man either - Kiryu had slowly realized over the years he was attracted to both genders. It had taken a long time, but spending ten years behind bars gave you the sort of quality time you needed with yourself in order for honest reflection. He was pretty comfortable with it now, in spite of never actually being intimate with a man before - not for lack of trying though. It was just that the opportunity never presented itself. Prison wasn’t exactly the place he wanted to find long lasting romance. While Kiryu often wondered how it would feel being on the receiving end, he never felt comfortable enough with any of the women he had been with to ask if they’d be willing to try it out. ‘Hey would mind pegging me because I really want to know how it feels to have a dick in my ass’ was not a question he saw himself uttering aloud to any of them, especially since at that point he was still in denial about his attraction to men. He daydreamed about how it would feel for years, although there was never anyone specifically attached to the idea until he realized his feelings for Majima. After his epiphany, the fantasies he would concoct while laying in bed trying to sleep were always about him, and every single time Kiryu would touch himself he’d imagine it was Majima’s hand or his mouth, or other…parts. It was getting to the point where Kiryu was almost avoiding him altogether because the urge to blurt out his feelings or just push him up against a wall and kiss him - or both - had been growing steadily every single day for the last two and a half years. He felt like a tea kettle about thirty seconds away from going off and those seconds were starting to count down much quicker than he wanted them to.
Kiryu knew that he only had himself to blame in the end for the decisions he made because a good seventy-five percent of the time the outcome was disastrous - especially when Majima was involved. So, when he found himself running down Nakamichi Street chasing a punk kid who swiped a poor elderly woman’s handbag, he should have assumed something - most likely bad - would happen as he chased the thief into an alleyway and saw Majima appear suddenly at the other end of it as he was closing in on him. Kiryu heard a giddy laugh spill out of Majima as he watched him wind his baseball bat up and swing it as hard as he could against the punk’s shins. The thief immediately went down like a sack of potatoes, smashing his forehead against the cold, dirty asphalt and scraping a layer of skin off of it as he lay crumpled in the fetal position, clutching his head and groaning in pain.
“Kiryu-chan! Ya having fun without yer ol' pal Goro?” Majima looked over at Kiryu who, by that point, had made it over to them. “Ya know I get jealous when I see ya throwing these assholes around without me.” Giving Kiryu his approximation of a wink, he leaned over, elbowing Kiryu in the side playfully before telling the guy on the ground to quit his whining by kicking him in the kneecap with his steel-toed shoe, rolling his eye at the howl of pain it caused.
Kiryu couldn’t help the tiny smile that subtly lifted the corners of his lips at Majima’s words. There was something about the way they were around each other lately that made it even harder to keep himself in check. It was little things Kiryu started picking up on over time, things like Majima’s body language. He noticed when they were around each other Majima was less in fight mode - unless they were actually sparring of course - it was in the way he carried himself, like he was more relaxed and comfortable enough around Kiryu to finally start letting his guard down permanently. At least, that’s what he hoped it meant, Kiryu knew he wasn’t exactly the most intuitive person sometimes but if he was right, he was honored that Majima trusted him enough to start removing all the masks he had put on over the years to hide the real Majima Goro. Kiryu wanted so badly to know all of him; he knew the whole Mad Dog persona wasn’t really him. Deep down, Kiryu knew there was an admirable but also extremely lonely man hidden underneath that desperately wanted to be seen for who he really was.
The thing Majima didn’t yet realize though was that Kiryu already did; he could see the real Goro in there and sooner or later he was going to have to tell him the truth about his feelings...
But not today.
Kiryu shrugged, casting a sympathetic look towards Majima. “Well, it was only this one guy, he wasn’t exactly much of a challenge.”
“Think again, shitheads!” Kiryu and Majima looked down at the guy on the ground pointing behind them to ten of his buddies who showed up for backup.
Majima looked at the bunch and turned back to the guy on the ground before snickering smugly. “Tch, ya think all those clowns of yers have any chance of beating the two of us ?”
Majima motioned between him and Kiryu with his gloved hand, looking at Kiryu with a devious glint in his eye. In the past, that look had made him feel weirdly uncomfortable and stressed out, but now somehow it oddly comforted him and boosted his confidence. It was almost mind-boggling how much his feelings had shifted over time for the one-eyed ex-patriarch. He had never developed romantic feelings for anyone other than Yumi, and even that was when he was much younger and naive and before life’s circumstances led them down very different paths.
“Kiryu-chan, let’s show this loser’s shitty little posse here a lesson...shall we?”
After cracking his neck and knuckles and enjoying making the punk on the ground cringe at the loud popping sounds, Kiryu’s lips curled upwards a little as he looked at Majima with one eyebrow cocked upwards in amusement as he nodded. “I think we shall, nii-san.”
Majima loved the times when he would look at Kiryu and notice that small smile he'd only see when they were around each other. He always told himself not to read too much into it though. When it came to Kiryu Kazuma, Majima Goro was a greedy man. He wanted everything - the whole shebang. He loved every single teeny tiny thing about him - even the shit he'd make fun of him for he secretly adored. If he’d seen any other grown man still enjoying Pocket Circuit Racing he would've rolled his eyes and thought he was a fucking loser, but watching Kiryu’s face light up while zooming those silly little cars around a track a couple years back made the butterflies he had flying around in his stomach since the late 80's for him to flutter even harder. Seeing the scowl disappear and his face so relaxed made Majima wish he could be the one to cause that sort of reaction in him one day. Recently those smiles of Kiryu’s had been making him lay awake at night wondering if he really was reading too much into it or not. Thinking about that possibility wasn't a path Majima usually allowed himself to go down because of the soul crushing depression that tends to happen when you know the person you love more than anything else in the world probably doesn't share the same feelings. Lately though…
Majima shook the thoughts out of his head for the time being; he had several asses to kick and it was always a magical thing when the two of them worked together as a team so he wanted a clear mind and no distractions.
******
“Tch, we barely broke a sweat with those shitbags, Kamurocho’s gotta start cranking out some better criminals.” Majima lamented to Kiryu as they stepped over the semi-conscious bodies of the thief’s little gang, pausing momentarily to pick up his baseball bat, which he purposely let bonk one of the thieves on their head. As they walked past, they snickered when they heard weeping from another for his mother. Kiryu located the handbag and snatched it out of the leader’s unconscious grasp, shrugging his broad shoulders as they made their way back onto Nakamichi Street and crossed the road, passing by the Poppo and continuing on towards where the older woman had her bag stolen.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Kiryu glanced over at Majima, who seemed unconvinced. “I didn’t think we necessarily needed anyone else to fight since, well...you know.”
When Kiryu saw Majima’s quizzical expression, with his head tilted to the side, he realized he needed to clarify in addition to stifling a laugh. Hoping he wasn’t about to come off sounding too possessive and weird, he continued. “What I mean is, we already have each other to fight...unless you’re finally bored of me.” Kiryu was finding it increasingly amusing to try and tease Majima to get a rise out of him, and so far he took the bait every single time.
Stopping abruptly and turning towards him, almost insulted, Majima huffed as he poked Kiryu in the chest with his gloved index finger. “Ya think after all these years I’d suddenly get ov- I- I mean, get bored of ya Kiryu-chan?” He looked away from Kiryu while trying his best to hide his word fumble.
Did Majima just almost say what I think he was going to say?
Trying to act as if he didn’t hear Majima’s slip of the tongue, while also pretending it didn’t send his heart racing in a way no one else had ever managed to do before, Kiryu just chuckled softly and kept walking, knowing Majima would follow. “Well I’m glad to hear that, nii-san. For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s possible for me to ever get bored of you either.”
Sneaking a side glance over at Majima, he was surprised to see the faintest hint of pink dusting the apples of his cheeks, accompanied by an uncharacteristically soft expression. Kiryu wanted very badly to believe he just made Majima Goro blush, but reluctantly pushed the thought aside for the moment. He paused when Majima stopped suddenly to pick up an empty plastic soda bottle that someone had left on the sidewalk, and had to bite his lip to keep from snickering at the expletive-laced mutterings being uttered under his breath about people being pigs and killing the planet as he watched him chuck the bottle into the blue garbage can with the smaller hole on top meant for recycling. As much as he teased him about it sometimes, Kiryu did truly admire Majima’s dedication to helping the environment. As they continued down the street, eventually he saw the older woman sitting down at a table in front of a new cafe that opened up a month or so earlier. Her kind eyes lit up when she realized Kiryu was holding her handbag and she stood up to thank him.
“Oh my goodness, you actually got it back for me! I hope that bad man didn’t give you too much trouble.” The gray-haired woman took her bag back from Kiryu as he handed it over to her and then looked over at Majima when he spoke up.
“Nah, that guy didn’t but his ten friends sure weren’t happy.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh my...how did you boys manage to escape them?”
Majima raised an eyebrow as he looked at Kiryu, amused that she would call men in their early forties, ‘boys’ . Throwing his arm around Kiryu’s shoulders and giving him a squeeze, he laughed at the idea of them running away in fear. “Escaped? Naw, me and Kiryu-chan took care of em’, they’re sleeping it off in an alley a few blocks back, don’t worry.”
Her eyes grew even larger as she looked from Kiryu to Majima and then back again. “You mean just the two of you…”
Kiryu gave Majima a pensive look before turning back to the woman, but made the conscious decision not to shrug his arm off. “My friend here likes to exaggera-”
“Kiryu-chan is just being real modest.” Majima grinned as he reached over and pinched one of his cheeks, trying to ignore the small twitch in his pants when he saw his glaring expression coupled with a tinge of pink blush being focused on him. “He tends to get embarrassed if ya compliment him.”
The older woman chuckled warmly looking at them before focusing on Kiryu. “Modesty from such a handsome, kind young man makes me wish I was about forty years younger!”
Majima nodded at her, a sly grin appearing on his face. “She’s got good taste, Kiryu-chan!”
The subtle pink that had slowly crept up Kiryu’s cheeks was now turning a deep cherry red. Here he was again, present for another discussion on his looks, except this time Majima was involved which activated his panic switch. Kiryu wished he had a superpower where he could just wink out of existence to escape the embarrassment he was currently feeling. Digging the toe of his shoe into the dirty, cigarette butt laden sidewalk nervously, while trying to ignore Majima’s comment, Kiryu looked at the elderly lady and managed to produce a tiny smile, much to his chagrin. He had absolutely no idea what to say in response.
“Uh, thank you, that’s very...kind of you to say.” Kiryu shyly glanced away in the opposite direction of Majima, not wanting to make eye contact at the moment, especially when he heard him starting to giggle.
“Well, I hate to leave so quickly but I was on my way to my sister’s house for lunch when that awful man grabbed my handbag.” She opened the clasp on the red purse and rummaged through her belongings until finding two small coins that neither of them could make out the details of. Taking them out and closing her handbag again, she motioned for Kiryu and Majima to open up one of their hands. Placing one coin each on the palm of their hands, she gently closed their fingers over it. “I’m sorry I have nothing of real worth to reward you both with, but I want you to have these coins. I know they don’t seem like much but they are very special. It is said whoever is in possession of these coins will be guided to their soulmate, and I think you boys deserve some happiness.” She looked from Kiryu to Majima and back again, a knowing smile teasing her lips that surprisingly somehow went over Majima’s head - but shockingly not Kiryu’s for once - in its meaning.
Kiryu and Majima unknowingly looked away from each other as she explained her gift to them. Kiryu stood rigid, his back so stiff it looked as if a tree trunk had been shoved up his ass as he held the coin in his clenched fist, trying his best not to let it seem like anything was wrong. He felt himself automatically nodding like a bobble head statue even though he was barely paying attention to what she was saying. He just wanted to get out of there as soon as humanly possible.
She knew.
She could see right through him. He didn’t know how, but she did. Her eyes spoke volumes as her kind gaze ticked from him and then over to Majima. Usually Kiryu was oblivious when it came to things like this but for some reason he could intuitively read this woman and just knew she was aware that he was in love with Majima. Kiryu could feel a bead of sweat start to form along his hairline as his anxiety began spiking despite it being early winter and the weather windy and brisk. As Kiryu stood there trying his best to refocus on the conversation being had in front of him, he snapped out of it when he heard Majima talking again.
“Well, that’s real nice of ya ma’am, ain’t it Kiryu-chan?” Majima snuck a glance over at Kiryu and raised a concerned eyebrow at the sight of him sweating with a panicked look in his eyes. He looked down at Kiryu’s balled up fist and saw him grasping the coin so tightly it was almost shaking before eventually shoving it into his pants pocket.
“If you boys ever need anything, my husband and I run a little antique shop off of Taihei Boulevard, right near the Poppo. We get all sorts of different things coming in all the time if you’re ever in need of something in particular.” She motioned for them to bend down before giving each of them a grandmotherly kiss on the cheek and waving as she began walking away. “Thank you again, sweethearts!”
As Kiryu watched the older woman walk away down the street, something felt...off but he couldn’t convey exactly what it was at the moment. Realizing he was suddenly going to be late picking Haruka up for school, Kiryu began running down the road after quickly mumbling an almost incoherent explanation and a ghost of a goodbye to Majima without making eye contact. As he tore down the street, Majima stood there bewildered, wondering what the hell had happened before pocketing the coin in his jacket without really giving it a second glance. His eye narrowed in suspicious curiosity as he watched Kiryu zoom around the corner and out of sight.
Kiryu was acting even weirder than usual and Majima was determined to figure out the reason why.