Chapter Text
When Majima had first laid out his latest scheme to Nishida, his initial impression had been how self-defeating in nature it seemed to be. Surely, he’d thought as he nervously scribbled the barked command into his trusted notebook, surely the point of a therapeutic dream diary was… well, therapy. Introspection, self-reflection. All the good -tion words. And isn’t that what he’d promised Naomi and Moana before flying back out to Tokyo? The eldest Rich sibling had put her well-heeled foot down: they were as keen as anyone for Majima to be a part of the kid’s life, but not a chance he was taking Noah on any more impromptu open-sea adventures until he’d been checked out for. Well. Delicately, Moana had suggested that the process of losing and regaining one’s memories was cause for therapy in and of itself. More to the point, Naomi had reminded him that most people didn’t respond “which time?” when asked about their experience of torture. Nishida and Minami had kept their mouths shut rather than pull at a seemingly endless thread. Majima had bitched and moaned all the way back to Japan, but it was clear from Saejima’s disinterested nods and shrugs that he knew full well that his kyodai wouldn’t break his word. Stacks of money were exchanged and appointments promptly sought after touching down in Tokyo, and Majima had begun the process of unpacking and organising a life lived without abandon.
Or at least, that’s what anyone who wasn’t paying attention would have thought. Nishida, on the other hand, knew better. He’d have known his boss far too well even if he hadn’t been dragged into this… well, this new errand. Yes, he’d keep his promise, and yes, he’d do his damnedest to come good on it. He was a man of his word and the strategically batted eyelashes of the doe-eyed sisters were Majima Goro’s kryptonite (this, Nishida suspected, may have been an astute suggestion in their ears by Saejima). But whilst you could lead oyaji to water, you couldn’t make him drink, and within the month his attention was beginning to wane. Driving Majima back from his latest session, Nishida had almost suspected what was coming from the impatient way that his boss kicked at the back of his seat and sighed emphatically, over and over.
A dream journal. A dream journal for the Mad Dog of Shimano. What would his late patriarch have made of such a thing? Majima’s reticence didn’t lie in any sense of shame or embarrassment: “I’m a modern guy, Nishida! I’m a changed man! I’m all about sharin’ emotions an’ shit. I had a grapefruit for breakfast!” But… he was still distractible. The first morning, he’d sat and chewed his pen and paced and tutted before screwing up the sheets and calling it a day, announcing that he couldn’t remember dick all anyway. The next day was another wash out, and the next after that. And so, with the steady finality of a runaway freight train, it had come to this. “I’ve always talked in my sleep, Nishida. People’re always bitchin’ about it. Had to have a second room for Mire- guests, back in the day” So, why not make use of it? A tape recorder (why a tape recorder? In 2025? “Fucking finesse, Nishida!”) was set up wherever and whenever Majima decided it was time to bed in, and just out of reach of any restless, waving arms in his sleep. And then…
Well, and then this. Nishida was seated in an empty office wearing his headphones, fingers trembling over the keyboard of his Dell. In his ears now and for the last hour, he’d listened anxiously to the assorted whimpers, wails, and pleas of his boss against some unknown assailant. Each… noise, each cry for help, or for Saejima, or for Shimano (and those were the worst), was copied down in a perfect transcription, later to be summarised into a neat report that was sure to win big brownie points from the councillor. Majima was very keen about that. And: “S’gotta be a full transcription, Nishida. Wanna read the juicy bits, but hate the sound of my own voice on tape. Yanno?” “The… juicy bits, sir?” “Fuckin’ A. I’m always wakin’ up feelin’ like I’ve been through a carwash in my sleep, all achy n’ whatever. Gotta be somethin’ good goin’ on up here for alla that, huh?”
The first three nights had been devoid of what Nishida would call ‘juice’. Each morning, he sat and listened to the previous night’s latest chorus of horrors. Each evening, he went to his own bed and heard them again in his own sleep, if he even made it that far. He jumped at every sudden movement, every loud noise. Majima was yet to notice any obvious change in his temperament. “Got anythin’ good for me, yet? Anythin’ with my kyodai? He’s been askin’ too! Figured we could act it out, try a little role-play next time we see one another.” Nishida had shaken his head, no. He didn’t yet dare explain the things he’d heard over that first week, the moments that his boss apparently relived each night when he was alone under the covers and with his own subconscious for company.
Sighing, he finally pushed the ‘play’ button back down on his recorder and nervously adjusted his headphones. It was only after he’d neatly transcribed a mumbled series of apologies for some historic transgression or other that the thought finally began to dawn on him: oyaji wasn’t actually planning on listening to any of these tapes. In fact, each one had been recorded over by the subsequent slumber’s offerings. In that case, the boss would never actually have to know… no, it was too far. Unethical, even. Majima was supposed to be reflecting on the thoughts that his subconscious deemed fit to unpack overnight, and by doing so he might even have a chance at overcoming these terrors. At the same time, the thought of presenting this nightmarish dossier to his horny oyaji and his brother as a lubricant to their sexual proclivities was… No. Hovering over the keys, Nishida gulped and hit backspace. He held it down, watching the letters and words erase the moans and cries as though they had never happened, extinguished one by one until only a welcoming, blank page remained.
And then, he began to write.
He kept it straightforward at first. A simple way of testing the waters: something that would make the boss happy (he hoped) without raising too many questions. Nothing overtly explicit, but with just enough of that aforementioned ‘juice’ that Nishida could roughly gauge the response.
“Woah woah woah, Nishida! This is the shit! It’s got me rocketing into space!” Majima tossed the printout down onto the desk with an excited grin. “That’s what I’ve been up to, huh? Hey, I’m real chatty in my sleep when I get going, ain’t I? I like this bit here…”
Nishida squinted down at where Majima was pointing. ‘Say the word, and I’ll even get down on my knees and lick yer shoes clean if that’s what floats your boat. Boss.’
“Oh, yes, very g-good, sir. Oyaji is always very sensual in his sleep. Very eloquent. The Sixth Chairman being involved wasn’t… wasn’t a surprise, though?”
Majima waved him off, breezily. “Nah, nah. Daigo-chan could get it. And he does wear some pretty spiffy shoes, can’t argue that. Yo, call my bro over and fix him up with another copy of this but in larger print. And…”
“Boss?”
“Keep up the good work, yeah?”
He had taken an age to arrive, but Majima’s huffed protests were soon quashed as Saejima stepped through the office door fully suited and booted. He let out a loud whistle as he looked over his kyodai’s smart double-breasted outfit and tasteful loafers.
“Fuck me! Never knew you had it in ya, bro. Or, should I say rokudaime?” he growled into Saejima’s ear as he dangled over his broad shoulders. Nishida fidgeted with the accounts paperwork he’d earlier been handed as the two men began pawing at one another before the new arrival had even fully entered the room.
“Seems kinda wrong to have ya all covered up, but… I love it when ya wear this ol’ thing,” Saejima rumbled, affectionately tugging at Majima’s tasteful charcoal lapel and straightening the matching tie. “Hey… check it out… this is what took me so long…” Stepping back, he pulled at his trouser leg, lifting the hem just enough to reveal a flash of tanned calf and earning himself an elated whistle.
“Sock garters! Daigo-chan loves wearin’ that doofy shit!”
They resumed their heated nuzzling; Saejima pressing Majima into the door and beginning to kiss deeper until they were both distracted by a terrified cough behind them. Reluctantly turning, they finally, begrudgingly acknowledged Nishida’s presence.
“Oyaji… Saejima-no-ojiki… this office… it’s very sm-small…”
Majima sighed.
“Kid’s right,” (“b-boss, I’m f-forty-one”) “Yeah, the kid’s right. This is all wrong. We’re both kitted up n’ lookin’ the part, but this dump is hardly crankin’ my engine. Hey, how’s about we get a car an’ head down to the ol’ headquarters, do this shit in the meeting room? Real authentic, like. Been years since we fucked over one of those shitty ol’ chairs.”
Saejima shook his head. “Nah. Burnt down, kyodai.”
“Haw?”
“It burnt down. Remember, that Ebina guy? Torched the place.”
“Bro, the shit are you talkin’ about? Ebina?? What the fuck?”
“I’m tellin’ ya, kyodai! Look!” Pulling out his phone, Saejima brought it up to his face and tapped away for a minute before handing it over to Majima as it played what sounded to Nishida like a news report on the final demise of Tojo HQ.
“Huh. Well ain’t that a kick in the dick?” Majima handed the phone back and scratched his chin in contemplation for a moment, before spinning and excitedly snapping his fingers. “Got it! Right! Forget that ol’ shitpile. Let’s just head to Daigo-chan’s apartment n’ do it there, he’s prolly got it set up all borin’ n’ classy anyway.”
Nishida watched as the serious expression on Saejima’s face vanished, replaced by a smile that stretched from ear to ear. Grabbing Majima’s wrists, he dragged him into a winding bear hug.
“Now you’re talkin’! Whilst we’re there, reckon he can gimme some pointers on talkin’ like him, too? I read Nishida’s little dream diary thing on the ride over and I don’t think yer subconscious got his voice quite right.” He cleared his throat. “‘What you say and what you do are two very very different things, Majima-san.’ No, no, that ain’t it. ‘Majima-san. Two very different things. Different. Different things.’”“You sound so fuckin’ hot like that, kyodai. Shit, I can’t wait any longer. Nishida! Bring the car around! Me an’ my big mouth have got a serious date with ‘Mr Chairman’!”
It wasn’t so much that it had worked that surprised Nishida, but rather that it had worked quite as well as it did. Not only were the boss and his kyodai happier than they had been in recent memory, but Majima was completely reinvigorated in his enthusiasm toward bettering both his physical and mental health. A couple of days after he and Saejima had rushed, uninvited, over to Daigo’s apartment, Majima had put himself on a complete juice cleanse. Right now, he was reeling off the ingredients of his latest protein-rich concoction to an enraptured Minami.
“My skin’s fuckin’ glowin’, Minami! I’m… what’s the word… incandescent? That one.”
“Fuck yeah you are, oyaji! Toldja that turmeric was a gamechanger, huh?”
“And I've been shittin’ like, two, three times a day since I started goin’ ham on kiwi fruit! Real logs on the fire, too!”
“Nice, oyaji! Congrats! Hey, you should try leaving the skin on, get all those antioxidants in ya.”
“You should try feeling the back of my hand across your pointy head, you weird little prick, Minami. I still love ya though, kid.”
Across the office, Nishida was drumming vacantly at his laptop. He was still required to painstakingly trawl through the galling audio recordings, and he sat hunched over now with his headphones and cassette recorder at hand. But this time, the intermittent, gasping wails had all faded into the background as he looked at the blank page before him. Okay, so Majima-oyaji had got it into his head that he was somehow narrating entire sexual conquests out loud in his sleep – both his own dialogue and his partners’. And… the narrator’s voice, too. That was… reasonable. By the boss’s usual standards, anyway. And sure! He wanted to use those transcriptions and their summaries as fuel to revitalise his physical relations with Saejima as they entered their seventh decade together! No harm there, right? The voice of reason that might once have persuaded Nishida of his actions’ ethical failings would have been apt at this juncture. The genuine joie de vivre his boss had been experiencing of late was, however, setting its own compelling argument.
What Nishida needed now was a follow up. He’d stuck his toe in the shallow end, so to speak, with his first report back. It was short and, technically, sexless (although the call he’d received off Daigo-san demanding that he come and retrieve Saejima and Majima from his walk-in closet suggested that they’d added their own impromptu embellishments). This time around, he was tempted to try something a little racier; see just how far that he could push the needle. Would it have even better results? But he also needed to keep the boss from cottoning on to just exactly what he was up to, and… he had a solid gold plan.