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As soon as Kiryu hits 18, Kazama stops paying his rent.
It was their agreement as Kiryu settled into two-oh-one outside Kamurocho, that Kiryu would be able to acclimate and handle himself accordingly in the city. After all, he chose this. At the bottom rung of the Dojima family, Kiryu’s just one lap dog mutt in a sea of lap dog mutts. He sticks his fingers through the holes in the pockets of his pants as he does his own laundry, and only his laundry, and he sighs. He supposes he could be doing worse with what he has. He does more work than he earns, though it’s always been like that. Maybe it’s the change in power, who he responds to, who he bows to, it feels like there’s a million people he’s supposed to know and a million people he’s supposed to hate.
Nishikiyama’s always been better at it. For Kiryu, it just leaves a sour taste in his mouth.
The boys just as young and dumb as Kiryu haven't quite gotten a proper look at him, and he’s starting to worry they’re gonna realize it’s intentional.
Every sunset, a blinding orange light strikes every surface of the small room, golden bloom on every can left untrashed. Every sunset, and Kiryu’s reminded of the last serious conversation Kazama and him had before moving out of Sunflower, a memory best told in a recount rather than a retelling. It was the first night back for Kazama, with five people dead, and the sunset was just like it is in Tokyo. Kazama looked at him with an intensity he carried for work, and never for home, and Kiryu was quiet. It wasn’t a reprimanding, far from it, but Kazama still held Kiryu’s wrist in his hand. It struck Kiryu, because his hand felt just as big as it did when Kiryu was small. It was the sort of talk, the sort of tone, left for the scaring-straight speeches of the birds and the bees, but Kazama knew Kiryu wasn’t stupid, so it wasn’t about that. Kazama also knew that Kiryu still presented as a girl. With his hair short now, he could’ve passed in high school if he hadn’t been born and raised in Sunflower, but he was content with that. Kazama didn’t outwardly accept Kiryu, not at first, but he didn’t disapprove, either. Kiryu didn’t bring it up after the first time, and Kazama didn’t bring it up either, but the way he looked at Kiryu never changed, so Kiryu took it on the chin.
His father told him simply; ‘ You don’t go to the bathhouses ,’ With the shake of his head. It wasn’t anger, and it wasn’t shame in Kazama’s tone, but acknowledging it as fear was far too scary a reality for Kiryu to face. It wasn’t just bathhouses, but it was the easiest thing for Kiryu to understand. Kiryu was going to be around boys his age and men older than him, both more rowdy and more dangerous than Kiryu could ever know, and Kazama did, and still does not like either the men or the boys. Kazama had paused to light a cigarette, and after one puff out the corner of his mouth, he said; ‘ The most dangerous thing you can be is a known unknown, ’ And Kiryu agreed. He never was like Yumi, but he wasn’t like Nishikiyama, either, and that worried Kazama.
It was the last part that left Kiryu spinning the most, the closing end of the conversation when Kazama had finally poured a drink for himself. If Kiryu had been the type to question, maybe he could’ve understood it more, but he didn’t. Kazama took a good long look at Kiryu. ‘ You’re still young. Eventually, your face will fill out, and you’ll start attracting women. You best let it be, because they will talk. Word-of-mouth will be a death sentence for you. If…’ He paused, and Kiryu could see his brow ease, though the crease remained. ‘If you’re lucky, you’ll find and settle with a girl like you. Not a man. Not a man.’
There was deliberacy in his words, even if Kiryu didn’t see it. Kazama didn’t trust men, but he knew Tokyo. The language wasn’t there, and wouldn’t be for awhile, so Kazama couldn’t put it right, but of course there’d be girls like Kiryu. The kind who would trust Kiryu, and Kiryu could trust them. Just not a family man. Never a family man.
Kiryu didn’t get it, but Kiryu knew that Kazama knew that. Kazama’s hand went back to Kiryu’s wrist, and his eyes crinkled, so Kiryu assumed that eventually, eventually he’d figure it out.
But, the sun has set now, and the golden bloom has left the apartment. Kiryu prepares his futon for himself, and him alone, and settles for bed. The Tokyo type of silence just alienates Kiryu further. It’s only him breathing in this room.
“Are you listening?” Nishikiyama asks, knocking his knuckles against the table.
Kiryu jolts, brought back to the here and now. The bar is loud, filled with other men of the clan. It was Nishikiyama who pulled Kiryu here, because he knew they could sneak in without their ages being questioned, not with that many mean faces. Besides, Nishikiyama could talk his way through anything. That’s what Kiryu believes. Despite that, Kiryu keeps finding his gaze past Nishikiyama, and towards the crowd of people who know each other. His heart pounds in a way that makes it feel far too empty and far too heavy for it to be comfortable. Kazama’s gaze meets his every time he blinks. It would take just one man to strut over half drunk for Kiryu to scutter away, and there’s nothing quite like a tightly held secret that drives a man mad.
“Uh, no,” Kiryu answers honestly and flatly. Guilt pours into his gut along with the small sips of alcohol he spares himself. It’s not like the beer cans back at his place. Here, he’s seen.
“At least you’re honest,” Nishikiyama groans, rubbing his fingers over his eye, his cheek shifting with the stretch and pull. He shuffles his shoulders, and places both hands on the table, pat one, pat two, the sound of him hitting the table is drowned by a cacophonous laughter near the bathroom. “Whatever, whatever, I’m trying to talk about our futures, here. The whole world is our oyster now, we oughta be capitalizing!”
“You can do what you wanna do, but I’m not looking to bleed money, here, Nishiki. I’m barely chugging along as is.”
“You think I wanna hang with myself? Come on,” He whines, his neck craning. “Those jerks don’t wanna party with kids like us, we’re lucky to just tag along. We gotta make our own fun, and it’s more fun together, you can’t deny that.”
Kiryu laughs, more at his desperation than anything else. Certainly can’t say no to that, though.
“Alright, fine,” Kiryu replies. After a moment, with his glass up to his mouth, he smirks. “But you’re footing the bill for whatever you drag me into.”
“Whatever, man,” Nishikiyama shakes his head, and after a moment, he lights a cigarette. “How’s the place?”
Kiryu shrugs, picking at a hangnail on his thumb with his index finger. “It’s…”
“Different?” Nishikiyama suggests, and Kiryu nods. He rubs the back of his neck. After a moment, he hands his cigarette to Kiryu. “Yeah, I thought so. Dude, you should see my place. I can barely get any sleep! Didn’t think how good we had it back at Sunflower, it’s like all I can hear is the traffic.”
“Guess we’re a long way from school, now.” After a small inhale, small exhale.
“Quit that, I hate when you act all old,” Nishikiyama laughs as he speaks, his chest bouncing with his breath. “And all that scowling, too, are you, like, 50?”
“Shut up!” Kiryu kicks Nishikiyama under the table, and after that, it suddenly settles back into him just where they are. He settles back into his seat. There’s an involuntary stiffness in his spine keeping him upright, like his body’s afraid to slouch. He hands Nishikiyama’s cigarette back to him.
The auditory stimulation is almost too much for Kiryu to handle. He doesn’t know how Nishikiyama can settle into this scenery so easily. Kiryu’s watched enough films on the old television to know what goes on in bars when there’s a few too many goons, the kind of unnamed extras that would throw a punch, that would crack a glass. People are coming and going, but the noise is consistent. Kiryu tries to keep his eyes on Nishikiyama now, but it only feels like a certainty that eventually someone is going to look over, someone is going to notice the two kids in the back of the bar, and then they’re gonna notice– and they’re going to say,
“Hey, hey,” Heckler heckles, “Prettyboy, over here,”
One second, Kiryu’s looking down, and then the next, his eyes snap to Nishikiyama as he cranes his neck to the side, throwing his arm over the back of his seat. When Nishikiyama turns his head, he intentionally lets his long hair sway in his face, lets his jaw jut forward with his cigarette between his lips. It doesn’t matter who the heckler meant to beckon, because Nishikiyama knows how to flaunt. Kiryu remembers reading something about how to deal with mountain lions. Nishikiyama’s a deflector, a shield. Kiryu’s always wondered why he let his hair grow out, and now he doesn’t have to.
“Yo,” Nishikiyama stylishly answers, swinging his hand lazily in a two-fingered wave. “There an issue?”
Even then, Kiryu sees Nishikiyama’s throat bob.
“Nah, man,” Heckler says, a large hand settling on the back of Nishikiyama’s chair, “I remember you! You were at Sano’s party, weren’t ya?”
Nishikiyama’s eyes light up, and when he smiles, his cheeks crease. Kiryu stares, and for a moment, he feels like kicking him again.
“Is that what the guy’s name was?” Nishikiyama asks, then laughs around his cigarette. “I just followed the crowd, dude,”
Heckler laughs, too. Kiryu’s got a child’s eye on the scene, and a lump in his throat. Maybe he’s still just a kid. He looks down and swirls his glass around, and when he crosses his legs, he defaults to just the ankles. Another world, indeed.
When they leave the bar, Nishikiyama throws an arm over Kiryu’s shoulder.
“You think Yumi’ll come here once she’s done with school?” Nishikiyama asks, using one of Kiryu’s empty cans as an ashtray.
Kiryu shrugs. “She could. I’m not sure…But she’d have a home here, for sure,”
“Right, right.” Nishikiyama nods. “That’d be a funny looking trio, though, wouldn’t it?”
“It would.”
“I wonder what she’d do here, though, she liked fashion, didn’t she? Maybe one of those…Outfit coordinators.”
“Outfit coordinator?” Kiryu haws, tilting his head with his shoulders. He readjusts himself with one hand, hand on the cushion he’s sitting on. “She dressed the younger kids, sure, but I don’t know how well that translates to dressing adults,”
Nishikiyama laughs, his gums showing. “Imagine that, you’re some businessman and you go to get your suit styled, and the girl’s like ‘ Let’s get you buttoned up, sweetie! ’” He pitches his voice high as he says that, looking up at the ceiling before laughing harder. He motions like he’s buttoning a shirt with both hands.
“Maybe you oughta go to a dresser like that, you can barely button your own shirts,” Kiryu snorts, reaching across the table to slap Nishikiyama’s hands down, who promptly mean-mugs him.
“You’ve only been a man for a year and you’re already dissing me like that?” Nishikiyama huffs, his voice bouncing off the walls. He’s still got a smile on his face, and so does Kiryu. He points at Kiryu, his hand bouncing with his cigarette between his fingertips. “You–You couldn’t even dress yourself when you were a girl,”
Kiryu laughs enough that his stomach lurches, and he keels forward, the meat of his palm hitting the table. “That’s right,” Kiryu wheezes, “That’s right. Maybe we both need Yumi to come dress us,”
The room below them hits the ceiling once, twice, and the two of them glance down, glance up, and laugh at each other again, swiveling on their thighs with their legs crossed.
Nishikiyama stays over for the night. Kiryu listens to his even breathing before he’s able to fall asleep, too.
“You’re Kiryu, right?”
The boxing gym’s got the pungent smell of sweat drowning the whole place. It’s just the same kind of scent back in the school gyms. It’s a small building, and certainly not sanctioned as a real business, but it was one of the first places Kiryu found for himself after watching his anikis roam the streets. The kind of men with their noses bandaged and knuckles wrapped.
Anyways, Kiryu’s got gloves on, and his fists throb, but he’s still striking the sandbag as hard as he can. His posture’s wrong, and his face is mean. He spares a glance at the man coming around from the sandbag. And then he spares another glance.
His hair is well coiffed, with an intentional curl on his forehead. His shoulders are square, and he’s surely a bit older than Kiryu, with a scar across his nose and the unfinished outline of a tattoo on his bare arms. His jaw is defined like his cheeks, and there’s the hint of stubble on his face.
Kiryu grunts as an answer. The man nods.
“Yeah, you were part of Nozaki’s crew on that collections job. Y’know, for–” He snaps his fingers to his ear as he thinks. “Mister Oishi’s bar,”
It sounds familiar enough, though Kiryu’s been powering through enough collections jobs that they’re starting to blur together. Hold a bat, stand there, and wait while people smarter make demands.
“Sure,” Kiryu replies between strikes. “What do you want?”
“Your posture’s wrong.”
“Huh?”
“Your posture’s wrong.”
So, Kiryu pauses and looks back towards the man, who has now positioned himself to Kiryu’s side. He’s got an expensive looking button-up on. Kiryu squints.
“What family are you?” Kiryu asks. He can feel his throat aching with the vibrato he hasn’t eased into yet.
The man puts one hand in his pocket while the other strokes his face, index finger rubbing over his mouth. “Was Sasai, before the dissolution. Would’ve gone Shibata, but I swore up with Shimano once he got set up.”
Shimano’s a name Kiryu’s definitely heard before, though the specifics are past him. He hums in response, because he doesn’t know Sasai, and he doesn’t know Shibata.
“Anyways,” The man says, “Funatsu. I was on the job, too. I met your brother, too, Nishikiyama?”
“Right.” Kiryu says, and then hits the sandbag once more. He can feel Kazama in his chest. Known unknown.
“Not a guy with a lot to say, huh?” Funatsu jests, pivoting on his feet back and forth as he crosses his arms. “I’ve been with the clan for five years, you’d expect I’d get more respect with you fresh faces.”
So, Kiryu immediately snaps into shape, a grimace on his face. The bravado was easy for school, when everyone was just as equal and nothing as him. Here, there’s a hierarchy. He’ll do well to remember that. He lets his hands fall to his waist and he lowers his head. “Sorry.” He says. There’s faint conversations happening all over the small makeshift gym, but Funatsu just stares at him quietly. Kiryu swallows, and then Funatsu smiles again, chuckling.
He pulls a toothpick out from his pocket and bites it between his canines.
“Quit standing head-on,” He lifts his hand towards Kiryu’s chest, wagging his fingers to the right. “Makes you a bigger target. If you’re gonna be fighting with your fists, you can’t just tank that shit. Getting hit hurts.” Funatsu then shifts till he’s shoulder to shoulder with Kiryu, lowering his posture and tilting his chest, one fist in front of the other. “When your body’s turned, it’s easier to move back and forth, see?”
“Huh,” Kiryu notes. He can play along for the moment, because he’s certainly not an advice taker. He fights the way he wants to, and he’s good at it. He knows he’s good at fighting. Regardless, he changes his posture accordingly, one fist in front of the other, and strikes the bag.
Funatsu takes the toothpick out of his mouth for the moment, and there’s a bite indent in the wood. “Guess when you’re only used to school fights, you’ve got no idea how to get it right. Enough fist fights out here and you’ll either shapen up quick or end up in a ditch.”
“And you’ve seen that before?” Kiryu grunts.
“Seen it? Brother, I’ve cleaned it up. Get used to the idea that everything is temporary here. My brothers– your brothers and their brothers are dead meat walking.”
A troubled sneer crosses Kiryu’s face, and he’s suddenly very aware of the sweat on his brow. There’s a tense, pregnant pause between the two of them. And then Funatsu claps Kiryu on the shoulder and laughs.
“Just busting your balls, ease up,” He sighs, and Kiryu can feel his thumb digging into his shoulder blade. “You go
“Sure,” Kiryu shakes off his hand, and rubs his arm across his nose.
“Ah! You two are so cute!”
The gaggle of girls all squeal as Kiryu and Nishikiyama get settled into their booth. Right before entering, Kiryu eyed Nishikiyama suspiciously as his brother produced enough money to last them the night. He didn’t pry, and Nishikiyama didn’t explain, but that’s always been Nishikiyama’s ballpark. Regardless, Kiryu can’t ask now, as a girl with a low-cut pink blouse squishes Nishikiyama’s cheeks between her small palms.
“How old are you two? Are you old enough to be here?” Another one of the girls, this time with long nails, asks.”
“Twenty,” Nishikiyama strains, his lips puckered.
“Eighteen,” Kiryu says right at the same time, hitting the back of his hand against Nishikiyama’s chest, who quickly glares at Kiryu. “Just being honest.”
Another gasp between the girls circling them. They all have beautiful smiles.
“They make me feel old, Mimi-chan,” One of the girls says, leaning towards the girl with the pink blouse. “I must be wrinkling at this point!”
Mimi-chan puts both hands on her knees, her bracelets jingling. “I don’t think I’ve ever had customers as cute as you two.”
“Me either!” A third girl, with her hair put up, yelps.
“Hey, we’re not so innocent,” Nishikiyama swelters, then swaggers, squaring his shoulders. “We’re bad boys, isn’t that right, Kiryu?”
“I don’t think that’s gonna change their opinion of you, Nishiki,” Kiryu answers, quirking a brow, and there’s a circle of giggles.
“We’re Tojo Clan!” Nishikiyama announces, adjusting the lapels of his jacket that’s just a bit too big for him now. Without alcohol, Nishikiyama reluctantly settles on the water provided for free. As he takes a sip, his hair is caught in the glass, and sticks to his cheek.
“Of course you are,” Mimi-chan says, leaning to brush his hair out of his face. “This building’s owned by the Dojima Family, too, about half of our customers are from the clan.”
Then, the girls all pause. The silence is lost on the two of them, as the girls exchange glances. One coughs lightly into her curled fingers.
“Didn’t know they were taking kids so young, though!” The third girl pouts, her hand on her chin, fingers on her mouth.
“We’re a lucky case,” Nishikiyama says, rubbing his cheek post-squish.
The entire building is popping with business, there’s an overhead spotlight casting a range of colors, red, pink, orange, across the floor. There’s a performance stage not in use right now, and the curtains have an intricate design sewn into them. The music’s loud, too, and there’s the gentle scent of flowers and champagne. Glasses clink together, and men lean close to the women they’ve requested, and Kiryu feels small in his coat. A man in the booth next to them lights up a cigar, much stinkier and much more pungent than anything he’s used to. He picks at a scab on his knuckle from the gym. He wishes he had more to say, wishes he watched more movies to emulate. He looks at the natural sparkle in Nishikiyama’s eyes with envy. Then, when he looks at the girls, all he can feel is shame. Guilt. Like he’s lying. The girls, they expect him to be a certain way, the Tojo Clan, too. A certain way, and neither know he isn’t. It’s his, and Kazama’s, and Nishikiyama’s secret to keep. Could there have been a chance he would’ve been in these girls’ shoes? Kazama didn’t look at him differently when Kiryu told him the truth. Kiryu almost wishes he did, now. There’s only one thing Kiryu’s ever been sure of–
There’s a loud thud right at the entrance, as a heeled boot knocks the lectern used by the managers to the ground.
Kiryu and Nishikiyama both immediately pop their heads out from the sea of booths, while the girls immediately drop their smiles, nervously holding a hand to their chests. Each of them wear a furrow on their brows, a look that indicates familiarity with the situation. Concern, not fear.
“The hells going on up there?” Nishikiyama immediately asks, a hand on the top of the booth. Kiryu shushes him.
The scene goes like this;
A group of four men, only a few years older than Kiryu and Nishikiyama, stand right in the doorway, a fifth stands with his boot on the podium on the ground now, with the acting manager down on his ass, hands holding him up.
“Y-You lot were banned!” The acting manager quivers.
The fifth wears a houndstooth suit, a long white coat hanging off of his shoulders. He tongues a doctor’s office lollipop in his mouth, spinning it from one side of his mouth to the other. The crowd behind him holds lumber over their shoulders in place of bats.
“And while we were banned, you fuckers started poachin’ our girls, huh?” Houndstooth growls, stepping off the podium. Despite the music still playing, Kiryu’s sure he can hear his heels click against the checkerboard flooring. A crowd shuffles a step back as he prowls towards the acting manager, pressing his foot to the man’s thigh. Houndstooth has no weapon in hand, yet he still carries himself dangerously, and everyone around him acts accordingly.
“It–” The acting manager stumbles, his botched-shaved lip quivering. “It was their choice to come working here, w-we didn’t do anything!”
“Who are those guys?” Kiryu asks, turning his head towards the group of girls still locked on the entrance.
“Some gang that’s been picking fights with us,” Mimi-chan explains, her voice a hushed whisper. “It’s always something…”
“I think he runs it,” The second girl adds, gesturing towards the imposing Houndstooth. “They call themselves something like Devil’s Night ,”
“Devil’s Night?” Nishikiyama asks, his jaw crooked as he haws. With his head still over the booth, he crosses one arm over the other. “Shouldn’t the Tojo be stepping in if they own this place?”
“From what I’ve heard from the manager,” The third girl bites the skin off her painted bottom lip, “The clan don’t think it’s worth the fight. Something about profits.”
“Profits go down either way,” Kiryu sneers, “If they get involved or not, but at least you’d all feel protected.”
“Kiryu…” Nishikiyama lowers his head back down, his hair swaying as he closes in on Kiryu, a fierce look in his eye. “I know what Pops said…”
“ Don’t get involved in things bigger than you, ” Kiryu recalls.
“Right, but…”
A but doesn’t come. Houndstooth gestures with the tilt of his neck towards his boys, all jumping with drugged anticipation. Answering the acting manager’s excuse, he says; “Yeah, that ain’t what my boys said.” His jacket sways behind him as he pivots off the man’s thigh, who struggles out a yelp. “Wreck the place.” He commands, a thick hand wrapping around the wrist of one of the cabaret girls. As he pulls her forward with a yank, he says; “Leave the girls, though!”
She’s wearing a long yellow dress, billowing at the bottom like an unfurling flower. When she looks anywhere, everywhere, Kiryu is certain her gaze sets on him, just for a second. His knuckles turn white as he grips the booth, angry, angry at him, angry at every man big and large enough to grab someone like that. It was like that in school, and it’s the same here. Nothing changes until action. When he meets Nishikiyama’s gaze, he’s certain he feels the same way, too.
–There’s only one thing Kiryu’s ever been sure of, as he’s rubbing the blood off of his fists, he’ll never change.
“Why a guy?”
Nishikiyama sits outside apartment two-oh-one, dangling his legs through the bars outside the door. There’s a blue shadow barred across his face, while the rest of him is drowning in that same Tokyo sunset. His beer is dripping with condensation, and his hair sticks to his face.
Kiryu stands with his shoulder against the door frame, the light catching the smoke of his cigarette. At this angle, he only sees the shadowed blue of Nishikiyama’s outline, his back. Walking over, he rests his arms over the railing, putting his whole weight into the lean as he settles, and shrugs. But Nishikiyama doesn’t see that. Kiryu’s quiet, aside from the breathing. There’s the distant sound of traffic, a woman laughing, a dog barking. He hesitates then, a moment of apprehension. His mouth opens. “I don’t know,” He answers, an uncertain certainty in his throat. Known unknown.
Nishikiyama looks up at him, and he brushes his hair out of his face. He crawls backwards, freeing his legs from the bars of the railing, and after a solid grunt, he jumps up to his feet, palms against his knees to brush the dirt off his pants. He then mirrors Kiryu’s pose over the railing, hands together in shared thought.
Kiryu opens his palm. “I didn’t choose to be a man so I could avoid becoming a woman, if that’s what you’re wondering. It felt like the right thing to do.”
Wind hits their ears. Kiryu watches Nishikiyama shift his jaw left to right. “Right thing?” He asks.
“You ever feel a weight in your chest? It’s like…If I don’t do anything, if I sit still, then I’m… better off dead. When Kazama would come home, I’d feel so happy, yet so scared every time. I wanted him to be proud of me. I still do. I think this is the right path for me, I wouldn’t go back if I had the chance. I feel like I have an obligation now. Something to work for. To be side-by-side with Pops. I wasn’t a good girl. I knew that. I thought I wanted what the other boys had, what they wanted, but now I’m here. I don’t have any other option. I want to fight, and I want to do it on my terms. That weight’s still in my chest. It’s like a pool, and my feet feel too heavy to stay up above the surface. I want to be a good yakuza, more than I want to be a man. I want to prove to Kazama the kind of person I am. And I don’t think I could’ve done that as his daughter. I don’t think he would’ve…Would’ve seen .”
There’s a long, long pause between the two of them. Kiryu sways gently on the railing, watching a biker ride past.
“So, yeah. I think this is what’s right for me. Even if I’m scared. I would’ve always been seen as a problem child. I would’ve always been the girl Pops would look at and feel shame. You know?”
His chest pulses with that same heaviness, the same way his lungs feel in the water. Nishikiyama doesn’t answer. Nishikiyama won’t answer that for a long time.
“Well, I don’t think you changed.” Nishikiyama answers like it’s easier than breathing. He puts a hand on the top of Kiryu’s head, scraping through the close shave as he shakes his skull. “Not to me. Sister, brother, I don’t care. You’re just the dickhead stealing the spotlight anytime we get into scraps together.”
When Kiryu faces Nishikiyama again, he’s smiling. Kiryu wouldn’t mind what term Nishikiyama used for him, not really. Because Nishikiyama sees him for who he is .
“Stand up” Kazama says, voice rattling like stones in a tumbler. He looks taller than he is standing in Kiryu’s little apartment, hands behind his back. “How could you forget what I told you and your brother?”
Kiryu sits up from his kneeled bow, biting the inside of his lip, and then he’s scrambling to be back on his feet. He backs up, once, twice, until his back is to the furthermost wall, where the window is. Mirroring Kazama, his hands are behind his back, palms pressing to the wall itself. “I couldn’t just let them destroy the club. If it’s Tojo territory, then it needs to be protected, Pops.”
Kazama sighs, his eyes squeezing shut. His naturally downturned lips press tight as he opens them again. He looks to Kiryu’s countertop, his unwashed sink, then to the photograph in the shoddy frame. He steps towards it and takes it into his trained hand. “You may have thought you were doing the right thing, but you may have just caused unrest. Unrest that I will have to extinguish.” He meets Kiryu’s eye, his own expression softening for a brief moment.
The same look he’d give him when he’d step into the principal's office, once, twice, thirty times.
“I…” Kiryu stumbles, feeling his eyelashes sticking together when he blinks. “Wanted to help people. Why is that wrong? Doesn’t the Tojo Clan have something to uphold?”
“This doesn’t concern you!” Kazama warns, pressing the picture frame back down hard enough it echoes through the apartment. He steps over an unpacked box. Again, his eyes squeeze shut. He uses Kiryu’s name, says it gently. “Akira and you chose to follow me, but that requires restraint, requires rules. You’re both essentially at the bottom rung. How am I supposed to answer to Dojima when I appointed him two unruly mutts who cause trouble? It isn’t just you in this world. When you act, it ripples through everyone. You’re an adult now. You have a reputation to uphold.”
Kiryu grinds his teeth, and his brow furrows. He can’t see himself, but Kazama surely sees the light hitting his wide eyes.
“I want a reputation as someone who does the right thing. Even when it isn’t convenient. You taught me that! You– taught me that!” He repeats, squares his shoulders, and pushes himself off of the wall. “I know I’m not a kid anymore, and I’m ready to face the consequences for anything I do, but I’m not gonna sacrifice who I am! That’s what being a man is!”
So, he looks Kazama in the eye, and Kazama returns the gesture. The light stands over Kazama’s head, silhouetting him. Kiryu doesn’t see the fearful tremble in his father’s hand, index finger twitching.
“Bad talk?” Nishikiyama asks, cascaded over his shabby couch. He has an ice-pack over his cheek, the other side of his face squished against a pillow that doesn’t match the pattern of the couch.
Kiryu twists the tissues in his nose, the dry texture burning his nostrils. He pulls both out, looks at the blood, then throws it into Nishikiyama’s trash can. “Something like that,” He answers. “I think that was the consequence.”
“Oof, let’s hope that’s all there is,”
His first good pay day brings him to a secondhand shop. There’s a song by Pink Lady playing, echoing past the always-open front. There’s a nostalgic, mostly unpleasant smell to the shop, a strange, musty smell that reminds him of when the Orphanage would occasionally flood on particularly hard springs. A man sits at the front counter with an oversized ashtray, one leg thrown over the other as he pays no mind to the very few customers in his shop. He’s reading the newspaper, and every so often, he will grunt and nod as he goes.
Now, the shop has all sorts of tacky hand-me-downs, the sort of things people would feel embarrassed about keeping, but it’s a good option when you’re struggling. Kiryu cards through the hangers on the round racks. He occasionally holds shirts up to his chest, thinks, and then puts them back. He’s realizing the clothes aren’t the only hand-me-downs as he finds the clothes he’s drawn to are things he could see Nishikiyama wearing. It was in the beginning of their high school years that Kiryu started stealing his clothes, hiding them below his own dresses and sweaters. It’s not that he hated wearing skirts and dresses and headbands altogether, but there was something about feeling like he owned other clothes, even if they were stolen. It was Yuko who sniffed him out, because Yuko wanted Kiryu’s clothes, even if she was too small for them. Instead of the truth, the issue became about the money, which the kids never complained about, but the adults surely did, and that’s why it became about that even after Kiryu’s protests.
Yumi called him a tomboy. The look on her face whenever it came up said it all. Nishikiyama and Kiryu were the two only ones close to her age, and she surely couldn’t have connected with Nishikiyama like she could’ve, should’ve , with Kiryu. That was the expectation, at least, so it was her belief. It was Nishikiyama’s, too, the idea that he and Yumi could never really connect their biological divide. That also came from the adults. Maybe the movies, too. When you’re a kid, you just don’t question these things, unless you do . And that’s where Kiryu was. He had a gentle sensibility, careful with the kids, but he never could help dress or clean them like Yumi could. When he started being able to beat Nishikiyama at arm wrestling, that’s when he started inviting Kiryu down by the pond to smoke. When he started being able to beat Nishikiyama’s friends, he stopped.
He doesn’t blame Yumi for wanting a sister, and he wonders if she feels alone in the orphanage now. She never had issues like Nishikiyama and him did in school, but she did have them. He wanted to be able to fix them like he had for himself, but it never worked out. When he’d go after her bullies, she’d stand between them and stare him down. He never understood it. He’d ask her what she thought of the shirts if he could.
“Sorry,” He says, his body reacting first before his brain as he bumps against someone.
“You’re tall,”
“Huh?”
First Kiryu looks to his side, then looks down. The girl certainly is shorter than him, his head coming up to Kiryu’s shoulder. She’s got on a loose button-up, the kind that are meant to be worn partly unkempt. She wears round sunglasses that obscure everything behind them, and her hair is lightly curled and short.
“Sorry. Don’t normally see guys as tall as you.”
“Oh. Huh. Really?” Kiryu blinks, his lips slightly pursed in confusion. He’s holding a hanger in his hand, but he’s certainly not looking at it anymore.
The stranger turns her head down, a momentary smile crossing her face as she chuckles. Shuffling back and forth, she looks back up. “Nah, just an excuse. I just noticed you’ve been circling around since I got here. That hard finding clothes?”
Kiryu glares, and he puts the hanger back on the rack.
“Are you just looking for someone to heckle? I’m not the sort of person you want to mess with.” Kiryu tells her, shoving his hands into his pockets and turning on his heel.
“Tough guy, I’m trying to strike a conversation with you,” The stranger groans, voice pitching a bit higher. She walks faster than Kiryu, and steps in his way. “Black’s more your color, anyways,”
“Huh?” Befuddled even more, Kiryu stops before he shoulder-checks the stranger. He looks at the rack for a moment.
“You’re looking at the sort of junk you’d wear if you thought you were hot shit. And everyone thinks they’re hot shit, here.”
“What are you, a stylist?” Kiryu asks, half-sarcastic, but the other half is the littlest bit curious.
“Something like that. I work at a bar.” She replies. He turns to the rack in a strange, almost robotic manner, a sort of trained quirk, Kiryu guesses. It fits with the glasses. She shuffles through the clothes quickly. “Anyways, if you’re struggling, you should just try things on.” She gestures to the dingy corner of the small shop, where a door sits unused, a chair with old magazines boxed up next to it.
“I don’t try things on.” Kiryu bluntly commands, adjusting his own shirt, a baggy yellow tee. He realizes he may have answered too eagerly, and too quickly, because the stranger looks up at him through her glasses, the pair now hanging lower on her narrow nose. Kiryu coughs. “I don’t have a lot of time when I shop.”
“And you’ve got enough time to waffle around like a confused dog?” The stranger bites, still rummaging through. “You can do what you wanna do, but if you’re looking for professional, just try black on white. If you’re not…Don’t wear a tie.”
“Black on white?”
“Yep.” The stranger nods. “It’s monochromatic. I think it’d fit your face.”
“My face?”
Again, the stranger looks up at him.
“Are you new here?” She asks.
“Uh, yeah,” Kiryu scratches the side of his neck, his fingernails bitten too short to actually scratch him. “I moved here with my brother.”
“He the one with the fashion sense?”
“I…guess. Who are you?”
“Katsuki.”
“Kiryu.”
“You should come by my bar. I don’t own it, but I work there at nights after classes.”
Kiryu stares. He hadn’t gotten a good look at her, especially with the glasses, but she has a sharp jawline. He supposes she’s attractive. He shouldn’t tell her he’s eighteen. Is she interested in him? Before he can ruin the moment by asking that, she produces a business card between her index and middle finger.
“I gotta head out, so you’re on your own. Try things on, alright? You’ve got nothing to lose trying something different.”
So, Katsuki leaves. He hadn’t noticed the bag around her arm. He lingers on the always-open door after she’s gone from view, past the crowd of people strolling by on a constant rotation. When he looks down at the business card, it’s a deep, rich blue, with a golden font. It’s illustrated with the outline of two opposite-facing feet, arched with their toes pointing straight down. One wears a heel, while the other wears a dress shoe. He flips it once, then back as his eyes settle on the very corner of the right-hand side of the card. Devil’s Night greets him. It’s not a gang, Kiryu realizes, it’s a company .
Kiryu holds both the phone and its base as he looks out his window, the card on his rounded table.
“A girl gave you her card?” Nishikiyama howls on the other side, and Kiryu can hear him shuffle off of his couch with a thud. “Ow, ow, ow,” He whines, his voice quieter for a moment, and then it’s back. “Go for it, bro!”
“I don’t know, Nishiki. She was…strange.”
“And that’s an excuse to let a bird fly past you?” Nishikiyama pats his hand down on his own table loudly. After Kiryu doesn’t respond– “Strange how?”
“She was confrontational. She sort of dressed like a hitman, with these round shades. She just started talking to me, and even when I tried to leave, she stopped me.”
“Ma-a-aybe she was that into you?” Nishikiyama asks, half-hearted as Kiryu can hear him lifting up a magazine.
“I don’t know.” Kiryu mumbles. He makes a conscious choice not to mention the affiliation with the group that harassed the cabaret club they went to. “I just wanted to hear what you think I should do.”
“Go there! Tonight!” He immediately answers. Then he gives it a second thought. “Or wait. She’ll think you’re desperate if you just jump on it immediately.”
“Do I go tonight or do I wait?” Kiryu strains, annoyance going right through the receiver.
“Tonight! Tonight, shit. You’re only young when you’re young. Tell me how it goes.”
“Fine. Thanks, Nishiki,” Kiryu pulls the phone away, setting its base down on the table. As Nishikiyama gives him a goodbye, he ends the call, pressing the phone down with a click into place.
Once more, he looks at the business card. Then, the black suit jacket and white button-up in the off-white shopping bag half-hanging off of the table.
Shinjuku’s lit up almost in the same way Kamurocho is. Beckoners stand on the sidelines by their neon signs, waving their hands around, and couples stroll with their arms locked. It’s almost like it’s a condensed form of Kamurocho’s environment, condensed and saturated . Bars are crammed together like an overstuffed bookshelf, with groups coming and going with their arms over one another. The shifting songs coming from all the different establishments is just as overwhelming as it is in the rest of Tokyo, and Kiryu has no idea if he’s ever going to get used to it. He keeps his hands in his pockets, his strides wide-legged and confident. A man stumbles with his group of friends, nearly smashing right into Kiryu as he laughs, and laughs.
It’s almost comforting bleeding into the crowd like he is. He doesn’t feel like he’s being watched with a hypercritical eye. That’s the appeal of the city. He looks down at the business card for its location again, and watches the bars he walks past until he spots the blue and gold combo. It’s sandwiched in a singular side alongside two other bars, but Kiryu’s able to spot it immediately once it’s in view. The door is wooden, up a flight of stairs. A group of people stand underneath the staircase, squatting and smoking. Kiryu catches their eye, but they ignore him. He puts his hand on the railing as he steps up, up, up, his heels clicking against the metal steps. The railing itself is rusted, rough against his palm, and as he reaches the second floor, he’s greeted by lanterns dangling off the overhead roof, magenta in color. The gentle light reflects on the wall, and the wooden door has the same logo as the business card. He takes in a deep breath, wonders what he’s even doing here, and chooses to open the door.
“Welcome,” A sing-song voice greets.
As Kiryu enters, he’s struck by the warm atmosphere. The business card had an almost royal look to it, so he’s taken aback by the rustic quality of the wooden furniture and dark walls. The lights all cast an orangish yellow, though he notes a nondescript hallway half-blocked by a striped curtain behind the counter. There’s a miniscule amount of people, but first, he looks for the source of the voice.
She’s smiling when he looks at her. She’s not Katsuki, she’s much older, maybe Kazama’s age. The kimono she’s wearing is the same royal blue and gold, with a peacock designed into the fabric. She has dark eyeshadow on, but that’s as much makeup as she has on her face. She’s got the sort of face Kiryu’s certain he’s seen in the movies, with a chiseled jaw and intense brow. He’s taken aback, because it’s the hero her face reminds him of, not the heroine. It confuses him, because the hero never smiles as warmly as she is right now.
“I haven’t seen you before, sweetie,” Mama says, nodding towards the stools in front of her counter. “Why don’t you sit up here?”
So, he immediately listens. He isn’t paid much mind as he sits directly in front of the Mama, immediately going to put his hands together nervously. She takes a good long look at him, never losing that gentle smile. Her smile turns crooked as she raises a brow, cocking her head to the side as her voice lowers. “How old are you, kid?”
“Please don’t kick me out,” Kiryu immediately replies, an almost desperate look in his eyes, because he wants to know her.
And it’s the desperation that makes her lose her smile. Her brow furrows, and her lips part. It’s concern. She knows something Kiryu doesn’t get. She leans forward, her sleeves bunching up her arms to her elbows, dipping into her elbows. Her shoulders and back slouch as she’s now looking up at him.
“Okay, sweetie,” She whispers. “You can stay. But you’re not drinking while I’m working.”
Like a puppet cut from its strings, Kiryu slouches too. She pours him a glass of water.
“You know what kind of bar you’re at, honey?” She asks as Kiryu takes a long-needed sip. He shakes his head, and she chuckles. “How’d you find out about this place?”
“A girl told me she worked here,” Kiryu tells her, showing her the business card. He taps two fingers down on it. “Uh, Katsuki.”
A man also sitting at the bar a few seats down from Kiryu asks the Mama something, and she quickly pours him a drink. The man then catcalls Kiryu. His head snaps to the side immediately. He–she–Kiryu immediately recognizes the round shades.
“He was down by the secondhand in the Kamuro Shopping Area. I thought he was cute in a girly sort of way.”
Kiryu’s stomach flips in apprehension, like he’s standing on the edge of a skyscraper. That’s something he used to call the girls back in school in a half-joking sort of way, when they’d throw their arms over his shoulders. The sort of term never once reserved for him, especially now. All he can see is the mocking faces of his classmates. So, he responds. “Don’t call me that. I could say the same about you, considering I thought you were a woman when you were in that store.”
“I am.” Katsuki replies bluntly, using specifically a masculine identifier. There isn’t a hint of malice on his face, his arms folded over one another, but even then, the Mama puts a hand on the counter between the two of them, her sleeve obscuring them from each other.
She looks at Kiryu first. “He wasn’t making fun of you, sweetie. I think there’s been a misunderstanding. Katsuki, you just handed him a business card and left?”
He shrugs. But Kiryu doesn’t see that.
The Mama shuts her eyes and sighs, her neck craning down as she lets it out. She opens them again. “You don’t feel tricked, do you? Being brought to a gay’s bar?”
“Gay’s bar?” Kiryu asks.
“Oh, dear,” The Mama sighs, and then stands up straight. She stares daggers into Katsuki for a moment, and then she’s turning towards the corridor behind the counter. “Kobori-san!”
There’s a deep chuckle ringing through the small bar as a large man shuffles past the curtain, ducking his head underneath the doorframe. He has a coat over his shoulders, and a recognizable houndstooth pattern covering his suit. He’s got a black eye still healing. Without an idea of the tension between him and the boy sitting at the counter, several of the customers lift their glasses to him, and he nods at them back. He turns back towards Kiryu and the Mama. Kiryu watches him put a gentle finger underneath her chin as he presses a kiss to her cheek.
“I knew I recognized that voice,” Kobori says as he leans over the counter. Kiryu looks down to see all the rings on his fingers. “You’re the punk brat from Rose Star,”
So, Kiryu does what he does best, and he stares Kobori down.
And Kobori laughs. “I’m not lookin’ for a rematch. You beat my ass good, kid. I concede.” He lifts up his hands. “Anyone who can beat me and my boys that good is welcome at any of my bars.”
“So you own this place?” Kiryu asks.
“I own at least a quarter of Nicho, squirt. You got any idea what that means?” He scratches his chin, tilting his head against his fingertips. His jaw is naturally malaligned. He looks up at the rest of the small bar, the few customers, and he nods towards the door. “Listen, boys, I got business. Think you can all play nice and find somewhere else to get on?”
So, they leave, until it’s just Kiryu and the rest of the employees.
“You’re Tojo. Dojima?” Kobori asks as he bends down to the bottle selection. With practiced ease, he produces a few drinks, his pinkie lifted.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t give him alcohol, dear. Don’t know how old he is, but he’s definitely not twenty-one.” Mama whispers to him, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Damn,” He whistles, eyeing Kiryu. “Got my ass beat by a kid who can’t even drink. You smoke?”
“I’m not going to be kinder to you no matter how you try to butter me up.” Kiryu snips back, but he'd actually love a cigarette.
“If I wanted to butter you up, I’d do it in a hundred different ways,” Kobori replies, and it immediately makes Kiryu shift in his seat. Why, he can’t say, but he knows men don’t speak to him like that. “Masami, has Jun called back yet?”
Mama– Masami– shakes her head with a vocal ‘ Mmh ’. “Not today.”
“He should. I worry about these little shits. I’ll stop by his later.”
The man who attacked the club so fiercely… Kiryu stares at the relaxed stance, his unfurrowed brow. It’s hard to marry the two. But, then it clicks. Just your average gangster wouldn’t have trained hands like that.
“You’re yakuza, too,” Kiryu notes, hand across his glass of water like it isn’t a glass of water.
“Was.” Kobori appends, gesturing with a fingertip towards Kiryu. “I was Dojima, like you.”
“But you aren’t anymore.”
Kobori nods. He’s made himself a dirty martini, plopping a skewered olive inside. “But ain’t that the thing? Everyone starts from somewhere, everyone changes. I was Dojima Family, now I’m not.”
“But now you’re on our territory, you accused the manager of poaching your girls and tried to wreck the place. How can you act so nonchalant after a stunt like that?”
“That’s life, buddy,” Katsuki snaps, pressing his hand against the countertop. “I don’t expect a kid to get that, though, so where do you get off telling the boss off?” The outburst is sudden and impassioned, and Kiryu’s sights are immediately on him.
“Ease up,” Masami urges, enunciating with the tilt of her neck. The muscle in her neck is strained, tensed as she grimaces. “I’m sick of the fighting constantly going on with you all,”
Between the two of them, Kobori stands quietly holding his glass. He looks Kiryu in the eye, and then downs his shot. Kiryu can watch the fabric of his suit strain as he breathes in. His face twitches for a second as he swallows his medicine, and then he’s hitting the glass back down on the countertop. “I’ve met a lotta kids like you, squirt,” He says, all the while he’s spinning one of the rings on his hand. “Real feisty, real stupid. A real ticking time bomb, it’s like I can see you shakin’ with anticipation.”
Kiryu’s gaze flickers around in response, a subtle recoil to his voice. They’re fighting words to Kiryu, but even then, he’s glued to the stool. He could, should , fight back. It’s what he would’ve done in school. The lights continue to flicker in their warmth.
“I was one of them.” Kobori hums. His eyes are still on his own knuckles. “Safe bet to say we all were at one point. You either find something or someone to care about, or the world’ll eat you up. It don’t care about who you are, what you’ve been through, it’s a real cold machine like that. People get like that, too. I couldn’t care less about the buildings, the clubs. I’ll tear ‘em down no problem, as long as puppies continue gettin’ stomped, and my boys get drugged and fucked in the places the cops don’t care to look.”
“There’s a reason he’s adamant on standing against Dojima in particular. You have to know what that feels like, right?” Masami asks Kiryu, a sudden dread in her voice. She holds her hand up to her chest, tapping her fingertips to her heart. She grimaces again like she’s in pain. “The right thing to do doesn’t always seem so clear.”
“What do you have against Dojima?”
So, Kobori makes another drink. “You keep coming back, maybe I’ll tell you.”
“I’m not going to go in circles with you. You’re either going to answer me or not, so just be upfront!”
And Kobori laughs. Kiryu finds his face going red. It’s scratchy and well-worn, the kind of man who has lived a life requiring that laugh. Kiryu learned from Kazama, and Kazama learned from someone younger than him, that a yakuza only laughs when he’s in deep shit. Kobori only has to be in his late twenties, yet when he smiles, it’s worn down and dangerous.
“Bet you’re a real heart-thumper.” Kobori tells him, scratching the side of his face. He’s not looking at Kiryu when he says that, his eyes are cast lower than that, the look on his face is unrecognizable. Wistful is not a word Kiryu has learned yet.
Kiryu nearly stumbles out of his chair in the rush he’s in. Masami wears a weary look as Kiryu forces himself out of the door, letting out a sigh. Kobori looks down at his drink, and Katsuki says nothing at all.
Nagai, Iguchi, Hori and Ohara. Nagai’s been here the longest, so he’s the one in charge. He’s holding a briefcase in his hand, and his sandals don’t match each other, but they surely match the beach-like suit he’s got on. Nishikiyama and Kiryu stand together, though it doesn’t say much when all six of them are crammed in the same elevator. The song playing has a familiar tune to it, but Kiryu certainly can’t place it. Iguchi sure can, though, because he’s humming loud enough to bug everyone. When he starts patting his thigh in tune, Hori hits him hard enough to slam him forwards into Ohara, and Ohara’s slammed hard enough for him to recoil into Nishikiyama, who grabs Kiryu, who stands there fine and dandy. When Nagai turns around, everyone gets a briefcase to the head, and nobody is happy.
When the elevator opens up, Nagai leads as the head, and Iguchi drags as the tail. Kiryu doesn’t know any of them well, but he’s seen and worked with them.
“Kamuro Star Finance’s been good sports longer than I’ve been alive,” Says Nagai. “Y’know the drill. Stand there and look menacing, and that’ll be enough.”
Turning his head the moment he hears Nishikiyama grunt, Kiryu watches Iguchi thrust a hand into his shoulder blade, a gargled laugh escaping him. “Try lookin’ menacing with this pretty face around.”
Face contorting, then relaxing, Nishikiyama regains his posture without a sweat.
“Shut up, man,” Hori grunts, head circling his shoulders.
“C’mon, c’mon, what’s your secret?” Iguchi pushes again. Again, Nishikiyama keels, and recovers.
The pain registers first in Kiryu’s mind before he realizes he’s clenching his fist, fingers digging into his palms. His head is turned back to the front, but he feels the tension radiating off of Nishikiyama, too. It’s keeping everything in him not to turn around and break his nose. Break his teeth. Responsibility creeps up Kiryu’s lungs, threatens his throat, but he swallows it down enough to power through the walk through the corridor of offices. Sweat dollops across his back between the space of his skin and his dress shirt. He swallows it down.
The rest of the job blurs after that. Once Kiryu’s in his mind, there’s no getting out. There’s a transaction of briefcases, but Kiryu’s only got eyes on Iguchi.
When they walk out, Kiryu pushes Nishikiyama in front of him silently. This time, he sees Nishikiyama’s fists tighten just the same as his.
“Good work,” Nagai says as he holds a hand up to his face to yawn. “You’ll each get paid later. Now scram.”
The sun beats down on all of them as they step out into the main street. Instinctively, they all sync their footsteps down the stairs, with Nagai faster than all of them. With the briefcase still in his other hand, he throws it over his hand as he takes a single skip forward, shoving his free hand into his pocket as he makes his way towards the road for a taxi. Kiryu wipes his own brow, and waits for the rest of them.
“Nice work, ladies,” Iguchi provokes, immediately skipping the last step to put a hand on both Nishikiyama and Ohara’s heads, loudly patting them like they’re the clocks in the morning. “Whole lotta standin’ around for pennies.”
“Fuck off, Iguchi,” Ohara says with a tired sort of tone.
It’s not Ohara or Nishikiyama who throws his hand off first, it’s Kiryu. He storms up as he slams the meat of his palm against Iguchi’s arm, fingers threatening to grab in as he recoils backwards. “The fuck’s your problem?” He demands, sizing up Iguchi with an under-trained exaggeration.
“Knock it off, Kiryu,” Nishikiyama scoffs, clapping a hand against Kiryu’s shoulder, but Kiryu throws it off. “You’re taking shit too seriously.”
“Yeah, Kiryu,” Iguchi breathes out, and that’s when Kiryu gets a good waft of the alcohol on his breath. “Y’know, y’know, I saw this guy walk into Ni-chome on one of my jobs, ain’t that right? Fucking Ni-chome, you one of their call-boys? You got the sorta look they’d enjoy real good–”
There’s a child pulling on his father’s hand just a few feet away.
Blood flies past Kiryu’s face. It’s like the impact of the punch hit him, with the way the air escapes his lungs in shock. One second, he’s looking at Iguchi, and then he’s looking at Nishikiyama the next. He’s stumbling over his step with the speed at which he threw the punch, and his hair settles in his face over his eye, curling against the sweat covering him. Ohara looks on in shock, tripping over his voice. Kiryu only looks at Nishikiyama’s profile, the light haloing his face as he grimaces, pants over Iguchi’s unconscious frame. The anger Kiryu feels pulsing from Nishikiyama would be fear-inducing if he was any smarter.
“I think I cut my knuckle on his teeth,” Nishikiyama tells him as he bites his popsicle. Keeping it held between his teeth like he would a cigarette, he checks his hand.
“What got into you?” Kiryu unwraps his own, with the liquid not quite frozen spilling out onto his hand.
They’re standing underneath the soffit of the Poppo, backs against the glass.
“What got into me? What got into you? Sizing him up like that. He was obviously wasted.”
Kiryu turns his head completely, his back leaned and mouth agape. His brow twitches, and his popsicle’s melting. “He needed to be knocked into sense, but knocked the fuck out? That wasn’t a fight, you were cold.”
“He’s calling you–” Nishikiyama’s voice raises, then immediately halts. He steps off of the glass behind him and rubs his forehead. He trashes his popsicle half-eaten on the ground and steps closer to Kiryu, voice quieter and strained. “Ni-chome is for queers, and if guys like him start squawking, the fuck do you think’ll happen?”
“ What ?”
So, Nishikiyama lets out his voice in another strained, garbled curse, stepping backwards and pressing his hands to his forehead, fingers in his hair. “It doesn’t matter what people say to me, because I’ve got nothing to hide. What’re they gonna find under my futon? The same porno-shit they’ve got under theirs. I’ve got nothing to lose. I don’t need you coming in like you’re some kind of knight in shining armor, I didn’t ask you to do that!”
They look each other in the eye like two leashed dogs.
The night comes finally after Yuko’s been admitted into the hospital for the first time. Kazama’s inside talking to Sagara about moving her to a hospital in Tokyo. There’s crickets singing in the shrubbery past the sunflowers drifting in the wind, and it’s one of those nights that’s lighter than most. They slid the door behind them closed so they wouldn’t have to listen.
Nishikiyama sits like Kiryu, with his knees to his chest and his arms around his knees. His lips are parted, but his tears are exhausted. His expression’s unreadable. Yesterday, he got a haircut. Today, he’s here.
“I promised I’d protect her,” Nishikiyama says to no one. His voice is soft and young and it threatens to break.
And Kiryu wraps his skinny arms around Nishikiyama’s head slowly, until he’s fully embraced. He doesn’t have anything to say. He’s young, too.
They both look out at the mountains, darker than the night sky. There’s only the sound of the wind through the grass now.
“What if I can’t protect you, Ichiyo?”
Kiryu holds him tighter. There’s only one answer.
“It’s okay. You’ll keep me safe, Akira.”
Kiryu holds the boy trying to be a man. The man doesn’t let girls embrace him, but the boy clings to Kiryu’s shoulder and hates himself.
His dream starts in the cabaret club, picking up right when he and Nishikiyama jumped from their seats.
Kobori twirls, taking the girl he’s grabbed with him, choosing to push her towards the entrance as his men shuffle past her. One of them wearing green swings the lumber-in-place-of-bat around in a baseball arc around his hip, his foot between the legs of the floor manager. The manager quickly lifts his chest up, hands struggling to carry himself away, and that’s when Kiryu intervenes. Kiryu’s leg catches the low swinging bat, intentionally so, as both arms go to grab Green’s arm from the elbow and forearm, pushing in from opposing directions. Nishikiyama instead takes the approach of the humble potted plant, as he grabs the edge of a large fake bird-of-paradise and swings it until it collides right into Green’s backside. The momentum from that causes him to immediately stumble forwards, and for Kiryu to quickly readjust until his arms are twisted around Green’s bicep and wrist, Green quickly dropping the lumber, while Kiryu kicks the back of his knee to send him crashing.
Nishikiyama dips underneath an impressive swing by Grey, wrapping his arms around his midriff like a bull and thrusting forwards, while Kiryu retrieves Green’s discarded lumber and jabs it into the two left free of opposition, using it more like a pole than a bat. The two, Red and Teal, quickly recoil back until the two of them are fully out of the building, and Grey’s sent flying after one last helpful push by Nishikiyama. With enough adrenaline running through the two of them to last a lifetime, Kiryu shakes his head around like an unruly horse, and Nishikiyama cracks his knuckles.
But, it’s a dream. They don’t play out exactly from memory, do they?
So that’s when it’s decided Kiryu’s feet will stick to the ground below him, and the club behind him to change entirely, shift-shift-shift, where his brain recognizes it still, but his eyes only see an ever-changing pseudo-location. His brain’s stopped registering Nishikiyama as part of the scene, so he’s completely forgotten about him when he’s turning his head towards Kobori.
And he’s tall, too, much taller than Kiryu. Or maybe Kiryu’s shorter. There’s a different song playing, echoing from the club inside, and it’s night-dark-light, and nobody is outside. Kobori takes Kiryu’s chin in his hand, his rings cool against Kiryu’s skin, and then he’s just the right height to kiss Kiryu. But Kiryu’s never been kissed before. It ghosts on his lips as his little head comes up with the closest approximation, and it makes his face burn just as bad as when Kobori prodded him. Kiryu’s never been interested in men, at least, he doesn’t think so. The fear of that bubbles up in his stomach and it burns. Before he dropped out, he stuck exclusively to his skirts and dresses, even with his hair chopped off, and he stood with the girls in the skirts and dresses the boys wanted. The boys were immature and crude and didn’t like it when Kiryu talked back. And so he never considered what it’d be like to be at the receiving end. So, Kiryu lets himself be kissed, and then he’s forcing his fist into the side of Kobori’s ribcage. The dream tells him he likes that. There’s a bruise on his face he doesn’t remember getting from the fight. Kobori is larger, much larger than him, and Kiryu doesn’t close his eyes once. He just stares at the black eye he gave Kobori.
He’s not controlling any of this. Not in the truest sense of control . But again, that’s a dream, isn’t it?
When he wakes up, he’s in a foreign state of sweat . Not like the heat during the day. His chest pounds hard enough that he can hear it, and his legs are instinctively closed knee-to-knee. He can’t start questioning himself now, not now, but there’s a wetness and a pain between his legs, and there’s no way he can begin to think about this.
So, he goes to his bathroom, crouches to open his drawer, grabs a pad, and takes a shower. He’s more than relieved to say that the dream bleeds down the drain, too, until there’s little more than the ghost of a ghost of a dream.
Ice drops into the small glass, taking a moment to settle before whisky’s poured inside. Just as the ice crackles, Katsuki slides it to the customer across from him before rolling right back to Kiryu, a hand towel over his shoulder. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and he’s still wearing those glasses.
“It’s officially a ‘Switch Bar’ if you wanna call it something.” He says. “Does that make sense to you?”
“You’ll have to spell it out for me.” Kiryu replies, looking down at his sad glass of water.
So, Katsuki steps back and leans against the drink shelf behind him. “Girls that become men, and men that become women. They’re the employees here. You’ve been to clubs before. When we’re not making drinks, we’re talking to the customers.”
“It’s dress-up?”
“If you want to think about it like that, sure. But it’s not just for show. Masami– What is it that she says–”
Another employee sitting at the counter a few seats down chimes in. “She’s a woman performing a man performing a woman,”
Katsuki snaps his fingers and nods. He turns back to Kiryu. “The bar might be a drag show, but the show goes on, regardless if we’re here, or taking off our shoes at home. I don’t consider myself a man, at least I don’t right now. I did, I did for a couple years, bounced back and forth in my head over it. People, they look at you differently, and that was certainly hard.”
Kiryu just listens. He watches Katsuki’s hands move as he talks. When he bounces between customers with drink requests, Kiryu notes the bouncy way he moves first, then the robotic turns he takes.
“You can either go on hormones and try to pass, or you don’t. I wasn’t someone who thought about passing. Some of us do, though. I wanted to be Elvis.”
“Elvis?”
“Yep. But it’s really all arbitrary.”
“And why’s that?”
Katsuki lowers his glasses in the same way he did back in the secondhand shop. He’s about to speak when he turns to the shuffling curtain. “Oh,”
Mama Masami steps out, wearing a similarly cool-toned kimono. She’s adjusting her earrings when she catches Katsuki. “I see you’re pumping our young guest full of ideas,” A few customers greet her as she walks past him, gently taking back her place in the bar. “Why don’t you go back to karaoke?”
“Yeah, old woman, sure.” Katsuki throws the towel off his shoulder, but continues holding it as he drags it across the counter as he leaves Masami’s station. He takes one look back at Kiryu, though. “Try being Elvis,”
When Katsuki speaks, he has such a casual coolness that Kiryu’s seen dozens of men try to replicate with little success. It was easy to default to the idea that Katsuki was antagonizing him at first, but he can’t deny his genuineness . The sort of thing Kiryu needs to start considering in people. He’d never considered there were other people dancing the line he’d taken such stake in. It’s almost dizzying to think about.
Masami smiles watching Katsuki leave, and she keeps the smile when she turns to Kiryu. She leans across the bar table, arms locking together. “He’s right,” She whispers. “It is arbitrary. Only you can decide what feels right to you, and nobody else. If that’s surgery, then it’s surgery. And if it’s dressing up, then you dress up.”
Then, she reaches over the counter, and Kiryu swallows hard. She takes his dress shirt, the first four buttons, and fixes them before Kiryu can realize they’re even messed up. “There you go.”
“Oh.”
“In my day-job, I’m a project accountant.” She tells him, still quietly. “But that’s only one part of me. There’ll always be a piece of me here , in a kimono.”
“I…” Kiryu leans forward, fingers grazing the rim of his glass. He looks down at it, watching the condensation against the sides, the drops of water clinging to the surface. “I respect your dedication.” He meets her gaze again, steel in his eyes. “No– Devotion . I respect your devotion, Mama. I’ve never thought about it outloud, never thought I could. It’s almost scary seeing all of you be so happy.”
A laugh bubbles up through her warmly, but her eyes crinkle in a sad sort of way. “A lot of us aren’t, kid. A lot of us live with the saddest sad you could ever imagine, but we know that… That can’t be everything . A lot of the girls here struggle with the fear of growing older. Getting married, having kids. That’s the sort of thing you can’t just let go of. But that’s why places like this exist. I don’t know how long they’re going to last, but we’ll stick around.”
“I think of the yakuza like that, too.” Kiryu stupidly notes, scratching his jawline. “There’s a lot of bad seeds who take advantage of innocent people, the sort of people who can’t fight back. But there’s good people, too. People like my father. He’s devoted, like how I want to be. Even if we disagree. I wanna protect the dreams of the good ones. Hope is too good of a feeling to let it die.”
“That’s very wise,” Masami says, resting her head upon a hand. “Naive, but wise. It’ll do good for you in the future, I’m sure.”
Kiryu bows his head down for a moment, a silent thanks. “I grew up thinking I was wrong for wanting to fight for myself, without anyone’s approval. I wasn’t a girl who wanted to be kept safe. I liked getting into trouble. I liked being able to take that chance for myself, and nobody else. Maybe that was the only way I could’ve got on… It was either black or white, I see now. I didn’t want it that way. I don’t regret living as a man, because it’s the only correct path for me, but I wish I didn’t have to live up to others' expectations. That’s why I want to be stronger. I may not be able to convince people with what I have to say, I know I’m stupid,” He presses a hand to his head, enunciating his strain, “But I know people listen when I act. It’s the only way people listened when I was young, and it’s the only way people’ll listen now.”
She listens to him. Listens to him speak, and she does it with a smile. When he’s done, she brushes his cropped hairline, her fingertips touching the outline he’s taken such care in keeping short and tough. “You were good enough as a girl, and you’re good enough as a man.” She tells him, and he feels his stomach lurch.
He closes his eyes and lets her caress him.
“You can call me Kiryu Ichiyo. Until I come up with something better than that.”
The alley behind the bar’s got the same sort of musky sweat-smell as the gym, plus the dash of garbage for flavor. Kobori’s got a different suit on now, a deep and rich red contrasting the black and white from before. He’s positioned near the overfilled dumpster, a large cigar between his teeth. Kiryu sees him before he sees Kiryu.
“We gonna talk now?” Kiryu asks, one hand in his pocket. He’s got a wide stride, foot kicking a can across the box encasing the two of them.
“That was the promise, wasn’t it?” Kobori replies. He pushes himself off the wall, his shoulders following his feet with a strut. He plucks the cigar from his lips and flicks it to the ground. Stopping in the middle of the opening, Kiryu stops too, only a few steps away. Kiryu looks him in the eye, and that’s when it strikes that he’s level with him. They aren’t fighting, and Kiryu’s not sitting, and they’re eye-to-eye with each other. Kobori notices it, too. He lifts up his large palms to his chest and gives Kiryu a certain sort of look. “Humor me with a punch, squirt,”
Kiryu tchs, but relents. He takes a full-bodied stance, foot skidding against the damp concrete below, and he sends his fist into the meat of Kobori’s palm.
“There ya go,” Kobori hums. “Alright, what was it that ya asked?”
“I wanted to know your beef with the Dojima Family. You were in it, so you have to have a reason.” Kiryu grunts between his words, between his punches. There’s a rhythmic meat-hitting-meat sound that’s lost on Kiryu’s ears. Each impact, and Kobori throws Kiryu’s hand back to him.
“I joined when I was young. Younger than you.” He says. “I swore my oath to Dojima, since he was the largest name, but I ended up closer with one of his lieutenants. Before he got his own family. Shimano Futoshi. He’d been in a dick-measurin’ contest with Kazama Shintaro for years trying to suck up to the patriarch, but I liked his strength more than Kazama’s brains. I’d been palling around in Ni-chome, collecting businesses on the side, and everything went back to Dojima. A year ago I was perfectly fine with my position, and then Shimano started up his own family underneath Dojima, asked me to reconsider my place in the family. I think he wanted the cash to go through him first.”
“So you joined up with Shimano?”
“I had to. I was promised a higher position, more respect with him. Now, here’s the twist, squirt. I wasn’t close with Shimano, not one bit. I liked his boy. We went back a long while.”
“I don’t know Shimano that well. My father would mention him with the adults, but never us. I didn’t know he had a son.”
“Yeah. He was more a soldier than a son. But he liked it that way, he was a crazy son of a bitch. The same year he started his family– Last year, before you showed up, a hit was put out on a rival clan, and my boy and his friend were the ones put to it.”
“Did he die?” Kiryu asks. Kobori’s hands hesitate for a moment, his face unreadable.
“Dojima and Shimano backed out at the last moment, got cold feet, and my boy was still in the fire. He was real loyal, real stupid. You wanna know what happens to men like that?”
Kiryu’s fist hits Kobori’s palm again, and that’s when Kobori catches it fully. The sense of security’s suddenly ripped from Kiryu as he has no time to react as Kobori twists his wrist above his head. He turns Kiryu around with his hand as the leash, and sends him crashing down to the ground, down into the damp concrete below. It’s all he does, though, a small mercy. Kiryu quickly rolls over, elbows holding himself up as he looks up at Kobori with shock and confusion. Kobori steps backwards, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a lollipop. As he’s unraveling the paper, he regards Kiryu again.
“Insubordination. That’s what they called it when they dragged him into Shimano’s little project. Little more than a concrete box underground to keep him.”
Kiryu grunts as he pulls himself back up. He holds his wrist, a solid bruise left on his skin, and he squints his eyes at Kobori. “Did you try to stop it?” He asks quietly. Almost sheepishly.
“Brother, I was one of the ones dragging him in there.” He hollowly chuckles, popping the sucker into his mouth. “That’s what I got for being a good listener. I didn’t feel anything at first. Didn’t feel regret one bit. ‘Till I got another look at him. A week later, and I couldn’t recognize my boy. A week. He wasn’t angry when he looked at me. Wasn’t angry. He just looked alone. I broke my oath that day.”
A truck in the distance honks, a man gasps and laughs in the main street, and a song changes over to another.
There’s few times Kiryu truly feels out of his depth. Truly scared of things he’s told. He wasn’t scared when he swore up. He wasn’t scared when he stood against Kazama, adamant on his ambitions. Kobori looks lost, like a lone actor underneath a spotlight after the show’s ended. Kiryu has nothing to say to that. But Kobori isn’t looking for that. In Kobori’s eyes, he looks at Kiryu with an utter ‘I told you so,’ . The ultimate warning.
“I’d spent years before that soothing my girls and boys. I had to deal with the aftermath of every time they’d be taken advantage of. And I watched my boy suffer the ultimate violation, and I didn’t do anything. That’s the story. I worked for Dojima, a man who rapes any girl he can get his hands on, and Shimano, a man who’d destroy his kid for a better rep with the clan.”
“I didn’t know.” Kiryu tells him.
Kobori bites his lollipop, and Kiryu can hear the violent crunch. “Course you didn’t. I had two lives up until that moment. I chose this.”
And Kobori leaves it at that. Slicking back his hair, he shoves his hands into his pockets and shuffles past Kiryu.
Kiryu catches his arm.
“All you can do is do right by the people with you now. Happiness has to be fought for.” There’s nothing else Kiryu can say but that. He’s not wise. He hasn’t been through the pain Kobori has. “But I guess you already knew that.”
Kobori looks back at him, then. “You’re a good man. If you’re the type of person who’ll bite back against the hand that’s feedin’ you, the clan’ll be better for it.”
And they nod at each other. The first real time Kiryu’s felt like he has mattered in this profession. Seen a man eye-to-eye and come out of it understanding him. Even if he can’t patch that pain.
The light’s blaring through the window of his apartment again, but he leaves the curtain open. He’s come to enjoy the warmth it brings to the wooden table in its path. He sits with his bare back to the sun, letting it stretch across his skin until he’s sweating. He squeezes the dumbbell in his hand, up, down, up, down, his bicep straining against the stretch of muscle. It’s one of his first recreational purchases, and he doesn’t regret it. He’s made his own bento, and it’s half-eaten on the table, because he has that opportunity to leave food half-eaten. His small, one room apartment is beginning to smell like him, and he has laundry that needs to be done. There’s a knock at the door. So, he gets up, and finally sees himself in the mirror propped up against the wall haphazardly, crooked and angled, and he really looks. He looks at his twitching muscles in his arm trailing all the way to the dumbbell he’s still grasping, at the sweat trailing down his chest and navel, at the sun hitting his skin still. His brows are heavy, and his eyes are certain.
It’s been a couple months since Kiryu’s moved into apartment two-oh-one now. Between that time he has started hormone therapy through one of Kobori's friends’ friends, a doctor who got his medical license revoked a few years back, but Kiryu’s not complaining. He’s familiar in Ni-chome now, almost as familiar as he is in Kamurocho. He supposes that’s a good thing, much to Kazama’s chagrin. He’s not so much a known unknown now, though. He’s certainly tried to do what he can to educate himself on a scene with values so close to his own, different bars, clubs, even the occasional standing in the video store like a deer in the headlights. Feeling so voyeuristic for so long has worn on him, isolated him, staring at Nishikiyama’s conversations, haunting outside the groups formed after the oddjobs the Dojima Family sends everyone on– He’s realized how much he enjoys talking to people. Genuinely. The more he’s started talking to people, the more people seem keen on approaching him, and that’s something he never thought he’d get to experience.
He’s written his name a hundred times on napkins littering his apartment. He supposes there’s no salvaging Ichiyo, but he doesn’t mind. He feels he’s always been more Kiryu than simply Ichiyo, but he’s certainly not ashamed of ‘her’, she’s just not the right size of shirt right now. He’s gonna figure out the right name, and it’ll be after a few too many beers all alone with his back to the floor. He’s not in any rush. It’ll come.
Nishikiyama holds up a shirt to Kiryu, a contemplative look on his face. They’re in a store only Nishikiyama would’ve picked, with price tags Kiryu’s pretending not to see. Neither of them have gotten closure, not yet, maybe not ever. But that’s not what’s important, not right now. Right now, the shirt Nishikiyama’s holding up is gold and red and yellow and Kiryu’s scrunching his face up.
“Come on, bro, it’s slick! All you wear is the same two colors now– try some damn variety.” He whines, shaking the hanger around with each of his words.
But, Kiryu shakes his head.
“I appreciate it. But if I want to change how I dress, then it’ll be my choice.” He says, and means it. He doesn’t look at Nishikiyama with an eye of envy anymore. The thought hasn’t crossed him for awhile. He realizes there’s no other man he needs to be but his own. He’s not Nishikiyama, and he’s certainly not Kazama. Change isn't something to avoid. Happiness has to be fought for.
And when Nishikiyama shoves the hanger further into Kiryu’s chest, Kiryu makes the choice to smack Nishikiyama upside the head until he drops it.