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"Kiryu-san. Hey, Kiryu-san!"
Date caught Kiryu's arm a few steps from the shack that served as their last safe hideout. Kiryu stopped short, squeezing his eyes shut.
"Hey," Date continued. "Listen. You've had a rough couple of days." An understatement. Date winced, rubbing the back of his neck. "There's nothing you can do about it now. I'll keep an eye on Haruka, all right? Go—go relax somewhere. Unwind. Get your mind off of…"
Kiryu slowly half-turned to stare Date down, his expression more forbidding than usual.
"…everything," Date finished with a short, soft sigh, letting his hands come to rest on his hips.
Kiryu took a slow, deep breath, passing a hand over his face. "You're... right. Thank you, Date-san. I think I will. …sorry."
Date waved him off. "No, no. Listen, it's understandable. You need a break. We'll be right here."
Kiryu dipped his head, his lips twitching into a tiny smile, there and gone, and lifted his hand as he walked off.
Date had a point. Kiryu had been out of prison for, what, a week? Maybe? He had barely a moment to rest during that time, with little to nothing to come back to. Yumi gone, Kazama shot, Nishiki—Kiryu’s breath caught. Okay, no thinking about Nishiki.
Kiryu stuck his hands in his pockets as he ducked out of the bathroom back into Kamurocho proper. Relax and unwind. The Champion District was nearby, tons of little bars all on top of each other. Good booze in a quiet, dark place. That's what he needed.
Despite the crisp air and the relatively calm night, Kiryu couldn’t relax. The more he walked, the more tense he got. He flinched at cars he passed, eyed manhole covers suspiciously, and scanned the crowds down each street, craning his head up to see as far as he could.
It gnawed at him, what he was so goddamn tense for. It wasn't until one guy in a group of youths he passed let out a high-pitched, cackling laugh that made Kiryu's adrenaline spike that he realized—oh, god. Yeah. Fuck.
He was on the lookout for Majima.
It wasn't like he didn't benefit from the dozens (and dozens) of fights Majima pulled him into - they honestly had helped. And, all right, when pushed he'd even admit he was touched at the lengths Majima would go to to get a rise out of him. The strip club, the whole taxi thing, even, uh, that time he dressed up like a hostess—it let Kiryu have a surprisingly deep conversation with him, one that was so enjoyable he was kinda sad when it was over.
The constant vigilance had began to wear on Kiryu, though, and especially on a night like tonight Kiryu had vanishingly little patience for surprise! Let’s fight! His irritation only increased as he stepped into the tight alleys of the Champion District and his 'Kiryu-chaaaaaaan Imminent' alarms began to go off.
The claustrophobic streets were empty of civilian passers-by—all he saw were small clusters of gaudy, very conspicuous thugs trying really hard to behave inconspicuously. They, of course, let Kiryu pass. He didn't even need to get a good eye on the pins glittering on their lapels—he knew what family they were from.
What cemented it for sure was him spotting a harried-looking little man in a dark blue shirt hovering around the outside of a bar—Earth Angel, of course, the one Kiryu had been aiming for, the one with the nice, calming Mama-san who could make him laugh. Nishida's serene features were pulled into a tight, nervous frown as he looked up and down from his phone, no doubt in the middle of composing an email to draw Kiryu to this very spot.
For fuck's sake. He wanted to go to ONE bar and have ONE quiet night, and his pride didn't allow him to turn and pick another one in a different district.
Kiryu approached the door to Earth Angel like an oncoming storm, gaze intent and trained straight ahead. Nishida did a full triple-take and went a sickly pale, his eyes opening wide. He stumbled forward and froze on the spot when Kiryu turned his head a fraction and pinned Nishida with his gaze. Nishida’s trembling lips opened, closed, opened, closed again, eyes darting all across Kiryu’s face, and after a long moment he swallowed hard and just backed up.
Good call. Kiryu didn’t need to hear whatever ridiculous story Nishida had to recite—though he couldn’t recall Nishida ever being that afraid before. Another zombie scenario, maybe? Perhaps the bar was haunted this time, and Kiryu had to beat up some Majima-flavored ghosts?
Kiryu pushed open the door, sending the bell overhead chiming cheerfully. Earth Angel was empty—even Mama-san missing from behind the bar—save for one person. Said person immediately moved to his feet at the bell, then froze in a half-crouch, his expression caught in a weird limbo between excitement and deep, utter confusion.
Kiryu stared back at Majima, face impassive. The door swung shut behind him over an eternal moment. Silence.
Majima, surprisingly, had cleaned up. Majima, even more surprisingly, was wearing a full set of clothes. His hair looked nice and clean, the leather of his pants and gloves fresh and crisp, and his chains gleamed against the black of the turtleneck he wore.
It took Kiryu a couple of beats to add everything together, but he clocked it by the time Majima finished straightening up, his hands spread out low.
“What are you doing here, Kiryu-chan?” Majima asked, his voice caught between his usual lilt and a nervy note that pulled at the edges of his lips, his eye darting from Kiryu to the door.
“You know exactly why I’m here, Majima onii-san,” Kiryu said, fists clenching, Majima’s name sounding more like a curse.
“I—” Majima’s voice rose, then cracked when he furrowed his brow over his wide eye in what could only be mock-desperation and confusion. “Haw?"
“Let me save you the trouble,” Kiryu said as he paced a slow half-circle around Majima, “because I can guess. I was set to receive an email about how Nishida noticed a sad, lonely figure who had been stood up by their date. Who better to gallantly come to the rescue but me? I walk in, completely unsuspecting, and who is this sad, lonely figure but Majima onii-san.”
Majima’s expression remained a rictus of shock and disbelief, his eye darting from Kiryu to the door to his watch and back.
“If I refuse to sit down and have a ‘date’ with you,” Kiryu continued, “you fight me because I impugn your honor. If I do sit down and have a date with you, we fight at the end anyway, somehow.”
“Kiryu-chan,” Majima rasped, taking a step toward him, “you have the wrong idea. I’m not here to fight you—”
“And you think trying reverse psychology on me is any less predictable?” Kiryu snapped, sucking his teeth and tilting his head back, a move he hadn’t pulled on anyone since he was a young man. “You’re better than that, onii-san.”
Anger flashed across Majima’s expression, his eye narrowing sharply. “‘Predictable’? You’re not listenin’ to me,” he hissed, a frantic edge to his voice. “Get the fuck out of here!”
“I’m not going to,” Kiryu said, cracking his knuckles.
Actually, he changed his mind. Maybe he really was in a fighting mood.
“You’re going to have to make me.”
Majima dragged a hand down his face, swallowing an aggravated groan. He checked his watch one more time, shaking his head hard.
“The one time I don’t have to beg ya for a fight—” he hissed before ducking forward, closing the distance between the two of them fast.
Kiryu twisted and deflected Majima’s fist, swinging his own to catch Majima’s jaw in a backhand. He reached out to seize Majima by the lapel to keep him from stumbling back and landing on the table. Before he could yank Majima back into a right hook, Majima kicked him hard in the gut, breaking the two apart. Kiryu caught himself on the bar, the bottles behind it rattling ominously.
Majima’s hand moved to slip inside his jacket and Kiryu shoved himself off the bar to catch him, knocking his hand away. Majima reared his head back and then whipped it forward to headbutt Kiryu in the nose with an unpleasant crunch.
They traded blows, Kiryu’s nose bleeding freely, until Kiryu chanced a lucky strike to Majima’s good eye. Majima barked out a strangled curse, hitting the wall with enough force to make the pictures jump and shake. Kiryu seized him by the throat and pinned him there as the door opened slightly behind them. A beat, as Majima went to take a shot at Kiryu’s side and Kiryu deflected him with his free hand. The door opened slightly wider, then drifted closed.
“There! Is that what you wanted?” Kiryu said, panting, as a pair of hands carefully picked up one of the stools from the bar.
“That’s all ya got?” Majima shot back despite himself, his one eye well on its way to a magnificent shiner. “I would’ve thought a fight you picked yourself would’ve gone on longer!”
Kiryu grit his teeth and drew back his fist—
“Let go of him right now!"
—and the stool was brought down hard on his back, not enough to shatter it but enough to hurt like hell and for him to release his grip on Majima, letting him slide down the wall to the floor.
He reared around to swing at this new assailant and found a short woman recovering from the recoil of sneak-attack-by-stool, righting herself and brandishing it again. Her wide eyes were intent and fearless, her short brown hair still in a pretty bob after all these years. She was older, wiser, more sure and certain.
Their eyes locked and Kiryu dropped his fists, staggered just as much from the realization as he was from the stool.
“Eh—?” The woman flinched and one hand flew to her mouth, eyes wide. “You—it’s—Kiryu-san?”
“Makoto…san…?” Kiryu mumbled, all adrenaline, all irritation gone.
They stared at each other for a long moment, until laughter began to bubble up from the floor—quiet at first and then building to something loud and true, with only the barest of hints of the hysterical edge Kiryu was used to.
Kiryu swivelled to look down at Majima, one hand pressed over his face as he laughed, shaking his head.
Makoto patted Kiryu’s arm as she stepped around him, kneeling next to Majima. “Are you okay?” she asked with far less sharp surprise than she used to, just understanding concern as she gently took his chin between her forefinger and thumb to tilt his head and check his eye.
Huh, Kiryu thought vaguely, that’s really a kind of familiar way she’s touching him.
“Majima-san!” A bright, cheery voice called from the back as Mama appeared, her heels clacking, a bottle held aloft in each hand, catching the light. “I hunted down the whiskeys you—request… ed…”
Mama’s grin faded as she took in Makoto and Majima huddled together on the floor, looking pretty worse for wear, and Kiryu looming over them, his lips, chin, and shirtfront stained with blood. One stool lay on its side, forgotten, but the bar was otherwise, miraculously, untouched.
Mama looked between Makoto, Majima, and Kiryu. Her lips parted.
“What in the—”
———
Majima hissed sharply in pain and flinched his hand back before he grit his teeth and pressed the ice pack hard against his swollen eye. Completely blind, he draped himself across the bar, groaning. “Of all the lucky shots, Kiryu-chan, you had to land this one? Now? Robbin’ me of seein’ Makoto’s beautiful face after all this time?”
“It’s been a month,” Makoto said, sitting next to him, trying not to smile and failing.
“A month! Too long!”
Kiryu sat on her other side, dabbing blood off his shirt with a wad of paper towels, one twisted and shoved up his nose. He sighed deeply, shoulders curled in, looking suitably embarrassed.
“I really don’t—” he began haltingly, glancing at Makoto and then away, “I’m really not usually one to pick fights, honestly. I was just—”
Makoto lifted her hand, laughing, and she patted his arm. “No, I know. It’s all right, Kiryu-san. I’ve been getting updates on your progress.”
“You—you have?”
“She has!” Majima said, grinning past the bag of ice. “Who d’ya think remembered I had that ol’ flashy disco suit?”
Kiryu winced his eyes nearly shut, grimacing. He wished she would’ve just let Majima forget.
“So, you two have kept in contact for all this time?” Kiryu said, balling up the bloody paper towels and shooting them into the trash can Mama obligingly held up for him.
“We have,” Makoto said, her shoulders lifting up near her ears as she puffed out her chest. “It took a little bit of time and effort, but I tracked him down—”
“Hunted, more like,” Majima said, his grin evident even though his face was hidden by his hand and his shoulder.
“—and made sure I thanked him properly for all he had done, face to face. We’ve been seeing each other ever since.”
“Huh,” Kiryu said, nodding a little, blinking. Makoto’s arm slipped around Majima’s and she gave him a squeeze, pulling him in a little closer to her as he gave a quiet laugh. Kiryu’s brow slowly began to furrow as he kept nodding.
Majima all dressed up, renting out the whole bar. Makoto taking his chin in her hand so gently. Makoto leaning into him, comfortable and sure.
Bing!
“Oh,” Kiryu said, voice deep and grave, his spine straightening and eyes going wide. “Oh. I—wow. Really?”
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean? Is that really so hard to imagine?” Majima complained, sitting up and dropping the ice pack from off his eye so he could glare in Kiryu’s approximate direction.
“No!” Kiryu said quickly, lifting his hands. “Not at all, Majima onii-san. I’m… happy for you. And very embarrassed I interrupted your date.”
“You should be! I plan these things very meticulously. It’s a whole production for the whole family, though most of ‘em don’t know what for. Clearin’ out a joint, runnin’ interference, makin’ everything just so.” Majima paused, then his voice grew darker. “In fact, only one other person’s got the full scoop… and it’s on his head for everythin’ goin’ wrong.”
There was a sharp, desperate, muffled squeak from outside the bar.
Makoto frowned and unlinked their arms to pinch the soft flesh under Majima’s bicep at the precise spot to make him jump and swallow a yelp. “Don’t push Nishida-kun around so much,” she said firmly, “he’s doing his best.”
Kiryu drowned his sputtering laugh in a long pull of his drink.
“I’m not, I’m not!” Majima complained, twisting to try and pull out of her grip. “Really, I’m not!”
“Good,” Makoto said as sweetly as ever, letting him go. Majima flopped back across the bar with a louder, even more beleaguered moan than before. Makoto met Kiryu’s gaze and they exchanged smiles, and Kiryu realized the tension had disappeared from his shoulders, his heart steady and calm.
Huh. Maybe it was a good thing he didn’t just hole up and drink somewhere after all.
“Well,” he said, pushing back from the bar and standing. “I’ve taken up enough of your evening. You two should enjoy your date.”
“Hey, it wasn’t half bad,” Majima said, pushing himself up and twisting around in his stool so he leaned back against the bar, dropping his ice pack onto his lap. “I’m shocked I never thought of it before—fighting Kiryu-chan with Makoto? It’s amazing! Two great tastes tasting great together—I’M KIDDING,” Majima ended with a yelp as Makoto’s fingers pinched another tender piece of flesh under his arm.
“It was really nice seeing you again, Kiryu-san,” Makoto said. “I do agree that I’d love to get together again sometime to really catch up.”
“Yeah,” Kiryu said, nodding, a half-smile softening his face. “Me, too. Have a good night, Makoto-san, Majima onii-san.”
“See ya!” Majima crowed, waving his hand, swivelling back and forth on the stool. He was already leaning into Makoto, his voice bright.
“I can’t believe you just hauled off and hit him with a stool! That was outta sight! You didn’t even hesitate, did ya? You just—mmpf—”
Majima got cut off right as Kiryu pushed the door open. Kiryu didn’t pause and didn’t look back, but he did smile to himself, leaving them with just the chiming of the bell. Good for him.
Kiryu let the door swing shut behind him. Nishida had paced a clean streak on the grimy street in front of the bar. He gave a strangled cry when Kiryu stepped out, then immediately bent in half like a jackknife, arms straight at his sides.
He got a couple of sentences in to his flustered apology in the couple of seconds it took Kiryu to approach him and clasp his shoulder. Nishida rose slowly to look up at Kiryu.
“Come on,” Kiryu said gently. “They’ll be fine. You deserve a drink.”
He patted Nishida’s shoulder again and pulled him along—Shellac would be a fine choice.
Well within shouting distance, too, just in case.