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They were both undressing for the night, for sleep— their bodies aching with familiarity from the injuries they had inflicted on each other only hours before.
Kiryu felt guilt — but only for a second. He had done his best to patch up Majima and himself as best he could. Though Majima's hannya was looking a little patchy, with the bandages that covered him.
Kiryu wondered if they could ever just talk things out with things other than their fists.
But some things, as he knew, could only be understood in battle. Kiryu had no idea how it had come to this, with Majima sitting on the edge of his bed, sharing it for the night— but it was a nice change of pace.
"Patch me up, ya motherfucker, why don't ya?" is what Majima had said, and Kiryu had obliged. Obliged out of Majima's words but also because of something deeper that stirred in his heart.
He had no idea what Majima was thinking. He never did, but Majima was strong, respected, and had survived this long in this goddamn yakuza world. And that was enough for Kiryu.
Majima began untying his eyepatch — and it struck Kiryu that he had never seen Majima without his eyepatch before.
Kiryu's quick movements caught Majima by surprise, and he stiffened — only to relax when he saw Kiryu's inquisitive look.
"Ya didn't think I keep it on while I sleep, did ya? C'mon it's not that comf—" but Majima is cut off by Kiryu's gentle clasp of his face.
Kiryu's hand was rough to the touch, but his touch was inexplicably gentle. Majima was stunned and uncharacteristically wordless, as he looked up at Kiryu with his good eye.
Kiryu had always assumed that the eyepatch was for show — as part of Majima's act, as the Mad Dog of Shimano, but now he was seeing it for himself.
There wasn't even a scar.
He could see how the eyelid sunk in just a hair too much — where the eye had been — and noticed the tiny freckle that Majima had beneath his bad eye — one that no one ever — perhaps only he, Kiryu — ever saw, because it was always hidden beneath the eyepatch.
Kiryu ever so gently caresses the tiny freckle, just beneath Majima's eye, and he can feel Majima soften beneath his touch. There wasn't even a scar. Kiryu grimaces at the thought of how it must have happened when Majima's eye had been stabbed from insubordination — he knew the stories, of how things went. The torture. The torment. The nightmares—
Majima's quiet voice cuts through — so uncharacteristically different from his Mad Dog persona — "It's okay Kiryu. It happened a long time ago."
Kiryu half-expects for the -chan to come back, but it doesn't.
Kiryu kisses Majima's freckle, Majima's bad eye, ever so gently, and he can feel Majima relax into him, his body, his warmth.
They touch foreheads, nose to nose, unlike the way they usually do — the way yakuza do — when they're egging each other on to fight.
Kiryu puts his hands on Majima's thin waist, careful of Majima's ribs where he'd punched them mere hours earlier — he hears Majima's breath hitch in pain, and Kiryu changes position and feels Majima relent and lean into him. Majima puts his hands around the back of Kiryu's neck, as if to hold him closer.
There's a softness between them that Kiryu didn't know could exist.
But he gets it now. There are things that can only be understood in battle. But there are also things can only be understood through touch and gentleness.
They are no longer the Dragon of Dojima and the Mad Dog of Shimano. Those personas melt away into the night, leaving only two hearts leaning on each other in ways that not even words can convey.
Hands, not fists, Kiryu thinks.
Hands, not fists.