Work Text:
Shaking his hand out, a few droplets of blood from the split skin over Kiryu’s knuckles hits the lens of the disposable camera. Nishiki hisses through his teeth and jerks the Kodak away. It’s a brand-new invention—came out only two years ago—and Nishiki’s been obsessed with them. Far preferable to film cameras, cheaper, and way easier to use. He couldn’t give less of a fuck about quality as long as he’s got his photos, which is unlike him. Nishiki always prefers quality overall, and the most expensive shit is always the best. But with Kiryu’s destructive ass always by his side, the disposable one’s doing him good. Especially since Kiryu used the last 35mm one as a weapon.
“Careful!” he says. Kiryu isn’t listening though, delivering a final kick to the bottom of the thug’s jaw. He’s on the street outside Maharaja, and Kiryu’s a little buzzed and a little pissed. Can’t a guy disco with his bro without being harassed?
“Why should I be careful with him?” Kiryu asks. The man’s nose is a gushing fountain of blood.
“I meant my camera, not him!” Nishiki whines, “I have some pictures I want to get developed. Don’t fucking break my shit.”
Kiryu stands up and away from the man rolling on the floor. He’s making wounded, strange sounds, these retching animalistic grunts. He covers his face in his hands as if to push his broken nose back in place. Shouldn’t have called them a slur, Kiryu thinks.
“You wanna take a pic with me?” Kiryu asks, as if he didn’t just beat down a homophobe in the middle of Kamurocho, girls in bodycon outfits walking by mindlessly, men in business suits averting their eyes. The owner of Maharaja is nowhere to be seen, but the bouncer’s just having a lazy smoke in the doorway, watching behind a pair of unnecessary shades at the violence that unfolds.
“Sure,” Nishiki says, “Let’s get someone to take it.”
Nishiki turns to face the bouncer but second-guesses it whenever he sees that he’s now occupied with checking the nostrils of two girls who are standing on unsteady legs at the door. Who does cocaine before getting in the club? Aren’t you supposed to do it off the toilet seat there, or something?
Nishiki wouldn’t know.
Then he turns back to the thug. He’s sitting up on both hands, coughing up frothy spit dotted pink.
“Hey, man,” Nishiki says, nudging him with the toe of his shoe.
“Wh—what?”
“Can you take a picture of us?”
The guy blinks in disbelievingly, his eyebrows knitting. There’s a missing patch of eyebrow hair now. Kiryu went too hard, Nishiki thinks, but the guy doesn’t know his own strength yet. But eventually, he bows his head. Whatever predilections he has about the two of them seems to be non-existent right now, whenever he’s gotten away with his life.
He shakes furiously as he takes the camera from Nishiki’s hands.
Nishiki grins, stepping back and posing in front of the gaudy, golden building. The neon of the signs around the city reflect all over the columns in a polychromatic smear, the sound of Wink’s “Samishii Nettaigyo” playing from within the club backdropping the two of their sheer glee.
Nishiki wraps his arm around Kiryu’s broad shoulders.
Kiryu wraps his around his waist. They stand hip-to-hip, Nishiki grinning widely and holding his fingers up in a V. Kiryu keeps his free arm at his side, his reddened hand curled into a fist. Keeping the bloodied knuckles out of the picture is ideal, just in case.
Nishiki tilts his head, his sweet-smelling hair bumping against Kiryu’s cheek. Kiryu smirks, his brow relaxing from the scowl he was previously wearing.
Click.
The flash makes Kiryu squint a little.
But he thinks the photo will come out nice.
Nishiki approaches the man and takes the camera from his hand, replacing it with his own. He helps the guy onto his feet, giving him a shake.
“You should be a nicer person, you know?” Nishiki suggests, dropping his hand to his side.
“Your friend over there is considered ‘nice?’”
“Ah, don’t continue being condescending now. I can kick your ass just as much as he can.”
The guy bows his head.
“Reassess yourself, you know? Before you call someone a faggot.”
“…Yes. I apologize.”
“See? That wasn’t so hard. There’s no honor in being a shithead, especially not to the Dojima Family,” he says. The guy’s eyes widen, and he frantically lifts his head once more, searching out the daimon upon his lapel signifying his inclusion in the Dojima Clan.
“I—I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“Thanks for the picture,” Nishiki says, slapping his cheek a few times in what’s just as condescending of a “friendly” pat. When he turns back to Kiryu, he’s holding an unlit cigarette between his lips, his chin lifted.
Nishiki grabs his lighter from his pocket and lights it.
The cherry light of the flame reveals the smirk on his full, plush lips.
*
The night goes on, and so does their drinking. As usual. Kiryu was always a bigger kid growing up, stealing from Nishiki’s plate at the orphanage, always stuffing himself with snacks, but now that he’s grown up and slimmed out, he feels like the alcohol hits him a lot harder than it did just when he was eighteen or so.
Kiryu had drunkenly suggested a photoshoot around Kamurocho. Of himself, of course. Kiryu’s normally shy, but the alcohol brings out a bold, silly side of him that Nishiki’s always found charming. He denies it when he’s sober, but if Nishiki photographs it, there will be evidence. He can’t wait to blackmail him.
It starts after the fight. Kiryu posing inside of a Poppo that’s doing a Dragon Quest themed promotion, his body draped around the round, blue figure of a smiling slime statue, giving the top of it a kiss. Then he takes the pointed, raindrop shaped tip into his mouth. Nishiki shrieks with laughter as he does, taking a shot of him. The employee within looks mortified behind the cash register as these two yakuza snuggle up with the store’s merchandise, but Kiryu—drunk but courteous—reorganizes the mess he made in slow motions. Even tips the poor guy after he buys himself a bottle of coffee. They go outside and Kiryu drains the coffee in three long swallows.
Nishiki photographs that, too, the way his neck works, the way his Adam’s apple bobs.
Kiryu takes the camera after that and holds it at waist height, both of them standing beneath a streetlight that casts a flickering, gold halo behind their head, the strands of their hair picking it up like streaks of wheat. The lens faces upwards, as if they’re two doctors looking over a patient that was recently anesthetized.
“We’re gonna have double chins at this angle,” Nishiki protests, but Kiryu clicks the button anyway, listening to the shudder as the flash highlights all the pores of their skin, the drunken half-mast eyes, the inside of their nostrils. That one’s for the books.
“Sexy,” Kiryu says, making Nishiki laugh again. He’s far drunker than him. Nishiki’s not a moderate man by any means—Kiryu’s always the mild one—but he can handle his liquor better than Kiryu. It’s almost four in the morning, now, and they’ve been on a night crawl through the Champion District since eleven.
“I want to go somewhere else,” Kiryu says, slouching against the rattling outside air conditioner of an apartment complex. Nishiki had grabbed his hand and hissed disapprovingly as Kiryu wandered inside the private complex’s grounds. It’s the one from before: when they were arguing over vending machine drinks. The cherry tree isn’t in bloom yet, and bugs rattle noisily in the branches.
“So do I. We have to get out of here, dumbass. It’s private property.”
“Ah, but the sakura tree…”
“It’s not in bloom, you dumbass.”
“If you close your eyes, you can imagine it is,” Kiryu mumbles.
“Kiryu…”
Kiryu opens his eyes, slanting him a lazy look.
“I want to take more pictures.”
“Fine. Out of here, though.”
“I want to go to the Tojo HQ.”
Nishiki scoffs, “You can be such a fool, man.”
Kiryu smirks, “We should get familiar with it. We’ll be ruling it someday.”
“Tch. In your dreams, Mr. Chairman.”
*
The Tojo HQ is cold and silent at this time, but not empty. It never is. Leaving the place unoccupied would be foolish, but the few yakuza patrolling the Zen-style grounds pay them little mind as soon as they see their daimon.
“What’s your business?” one asks Nishiki.
Kiryu is beyond drunk at this point.
“We’re here on a favor for Dojima-san.”
“He hasn’t been here.”
“I know that. Left a gift for his son here when he was having some luncheon the other day—not sure about what. Us foot soldiers don’t hear shit, do we? Hah… Well, must have fallen out of his pocket. He says it’s in the garden. Daigo’s being a real brat about it, so he asked us to get it.”
The man seems to take that as enough. He probably doesn’t care too much.
“What about him?” the grunt nods in Kiryu’s direction. He’s swaying on his feet.
“Sorry. Drunk as shit. It’s Friday night, you know. He’s not a threat.”
The guy leans down, inspects his daimon as if for credibility.
Then he nods.
“Alright, make it quick.”
When they get to the garden, it’s strangely peaceful. Like they’re tucked away in some silent, historic part of Kanazawa, rather than the deep center of Kamurocho. The trees sway in the nighttime breeze and the cool, flat top of the garden’s water fixtures reflect the pitch-black sky like shiny marbles. It’s quite elegant, and as they step over the stone pathway leading away from the veranda, Nishiki lifts his camera.
“Alright, go ahead and pose, pretty boy.”
“I’m pretty,” Kiryu echoes, walking a few steps in front of him. He shoves his hands in the pockets of his black slacks and tilts his head. There’s a dreamy, dazed look on his face, his cheeks red and flushed with pleasure and drunkenness. In the flash, Kiryu wonders if his eyes will be as red as the rest of his face. There’s no moon out, so the shot comes out rather dull and flat, but Nishiki won’t know this until development.
“I’m pretty.”
“Yes, you are.”
Kiryu walks further down the steps, his back against the fencing that’s made of stone and clay, polished from a recent rainfall. There are reaching bulbs of karikomi-style bushes around his legs, and as Nishiki takes more photos of him, he feels as if he’s some time-displaced gangster belonging to centuries ahead of what he seems to be.
“Looks like the sixteenth century.”
“I will wear a yukata soon. And you’ll take photos of me in it.”
Nishiki chuckles at Kiryu’s idea.
“Let’s get out of here.”
As they walk back through the high-halled building, Kiryu reaches out and grabs Nishiki’s hand for balance.
“Do I look good in them?”
“Kiryu…” Nishiki drops his hand with a laugh. Kiryu feels cold, but the feeling goes away as Nishiki smiles at him. “Come on. Let’s get your ass home.”
*
These listless mornings make them feel like kids again.
There’s no open field or playground in the middle of Kamurocho, but the sky is thick with cumulonimbus clouds and there’s a kind of sweetness in the morning air that fades by the time traffic and humans coagulate once again by noon. Kiryu’s naked and Nishiki’s not. Nishiki’s sitting on his couch, both feet propped on Kiryu’s back, as Kiryu lounges on his stomach. He has a magazine open in front of him, reading some journalist’s article reviewing the toy cars Kiryu has a newfound fascination with. Dude spends way too much time at pocket circuit.
“Gotta inject your T today.”
“Ugh,” Kiryu grunts. He can take a lot of pain, but he’s never been a fan of needles.
Nishiki’s foot slips down to his ass and he pats his cheek with the bottom of his foot.
“I want to take more pictures today,” Kiryu says.
“Wow, I thought you would have forgotten about that.”
“I liked it.”
“Becoming a model, aren’t you?” Nishiki stands up and gathers his syringe, preparing it out of his line of vision. It’s easiest if Kiryu doesn’t know when it’s coming. He pads over to the bathroom and gathers a cotton ball, his disinfectant, a bandage, and returns.
“Alright, bite the cushion if you have to.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Kiryu sighs through his nose as his asscheek is swept over with the cotton, before Nishiki skillfully and, with practiced muscle memory, injects him. It’s over quickly, and Nishiki bandages the spot that’s blooming just the smallest droplet of blood. It reminds Nishiki of Kiryu’s knuckles, but he’d washed those for him when they had come back to the apartment at five in the morning.
“You know, when you get your tattoo finished, it’s gonna end here,” he says, patting his ass gently on the opposite cheek. Kiryu glowers over his shoulder.
“I’m not looking forward to it.”
Nishiki laughs and gets back on the couch, plopping his feet back in the warm dip of Kiryu’s back.
The rustling of the magazine pages flipping. The low drone of a neighbor’s too-loud radio playing jazz. The smell of coffee and jasmine tea, soapy and pleasant. Nishiki’s eyes feel heavy. He can almost imagine the days back at Sunflower Orphanage: the sliding shoji screen doors revealing a late summer, the red dragonflies flitting by, the same color of Kiryu’s blood.
It’s December now.
Nishiki finds his suit jacket hanging on the back of the couch and removes the disposable camera from its pocket, before shooting the scene. Kiryu bathed in morning sunlight, his unfinished tattoo cut only by the white flat of a Band-Aid on his butt. Nishiki’s feet propped on his back. The open magazine, multicolored and neon and covered with bright yellow kanji. Kiryu’s lips pouted out as he glares at the camera, the hungover look of exhaustion following the pictures from the night before. Empty cartons of curry flavored instant ramen littering the tea table, the TV screen greenish.
“You’re so pretty,” Nishiki says, and Kiryu rolls up his magazine, hitting him in the leg.
“The developer’s gonna get a fucking shock when he sees that one, man.”
“I’m sure he’s seen worse in Kamurocho,” Nishiki laughs, “Besides, he’ll have an eyeful.”
Kiryu scoffs.
*
Nishiki is interested in Kiryu’s progress. He likes to see him run, likes to see the effects that the testosterone has on his body. He gets bigger, stronger every day, it seems. He’s rapidly losing the baby fat of his youth, his cheekbone prominent, his shoulders broad, his traps larger and larger. Nishiki uses him as inspiration to get fit just as much as Kiryu uses Nishiki as inspiration.
He goes on runs with him, follows him to the gym, sits on the couch, lounging, as Kiryu does reps with the weight set in his living room. Joins him in street fights, wraps his knuckles for him before a sparring match at an MMA class that he’s been taking. They try it all together. Jiu jitsu, capoeira, kung fu, nunchaku. They hear that some guy’s been mixing capoeira with kung fu over in Dotonbori, but they don’t manage to replicate this rumor.
After a trip to the gym, when they’re both in workout gear—Nishiki’s gone without his shirt, though—Kiryu measures his bicep.
“Look at you,” Nishiki purrs, “Almost sixteen inches, huh?”
“Yeah. Why, you jealous?”
“Hell no,” Nishiki lies, crossing his arms over his own chest, “I’m just as fit.”
“No way. You eat like shit and don’t work out nearly as much as I do. Too busy being a nasty boy.”
“Alright, ramen king, does being a virgin really heighten your power?”
“It sure does.”
Kiryu sets down the roll of measuring tape and plops his ass across him. They’re both on locker room benches, pre-shower. Nishiki’s hair is pulled back into a bun.
“Let’s see,” Nishiki says, and sticks an arm out.
“No table.”
Nishiki slips from the bench to kneel beside it, his elbow propped upon the polished wood.
“Gross,” Kiryu says, but joins him on the other side, propping his elbow up as well.
“We’re gonna shower after, anyway. Don’t be such a baby about it. You better put those biceps to use, man. They better not just be for show.”
“Alright. Three, two…”
Their hands meet, and Nishiki nods on “one.”
Arm wrestling was once a real challenge for Kiryu. Before T, before he started taking his workout regimen seriously. He was always a big kid, always playfully fought, but Nishiki was equally matched, a school athlete. Kiryu just roughhoused around the orphanage, but Nishiki was a regular, practiced cis boy.
Now, though, it’s barely a struggle.
Kiryu’s turning his arm over as simply as it takes to push a level. No rust on the lever, either.
Nishiki gasps as the back of his hand almost hits the bench, but a renewed spirit overcomes him. He begins to push back, his arm trembling, his teeth grit. Kiryu, taking mercy—or perhaps teasing him—loosens his hold just a bit, so that Nishiki almost thinks it’s a challenge. He almost gets Kiryu’s hand on the back of the bench himself, until Kiryu decides he doesn’t actually want to lose.
So, with all his strength, he easily overcomes Nishiki.
He pushes his knuckles into the bench and Nishiki deflates with a whine.
His shoulder fucking aches.
He rubs it, slowly, and huffs. His cheeks are hot with defeat.
“See?” Kiryu says and stands up. He grabs his towel and throws it around his neck, smiling proudly down at Nishiki.
“Shit. I’m gonna have to steal your testosterone at this rate.”
Kiryu laughs, a low, pleased sound. He looks so cute when he laughs, his permanently scowling brow relaxing, his eyes sealing shut.
“You need discipline, not hormones.”
Nishiki snickers and stands up.
“Let’s get a picture of you flexing when we get home.”
“Feels a bit narcissistic, no?”
“And you’re not? All that confidence in breaking my arm—don’t act humble.”
Kiryu shrugs.
“Fine. Go ahead. I’m pretty anyway.”
Nishiki smirks, following him to the showers.
“Sure are.”
*
The take photos anywhere and everywhere for a while. They get bartenders to take pictures of them singing karaoke. They ask employees at tourist sites to take pictures of them in their kimonos in front of a traditional Kyoto-style sweet shop. Nishiki takes pictures of Kiryu nose-deep in an onsen, the steam around him making him look like some predatory creature. The cloudy water barely obscures Nishiki’s dick when Kiryu takes a picture of him in turn, Nishiki standing up with his hands on his hips like some proud bodybuilder. They have younger yakuza take pictures of them together after a meeting, even if it’s just them standing in front of the office. They take pictures wearing each other’s clothes, getting their tattoos touched up. Every time Nishiki gets new jewelry, he tries it on, and there’s a collection of headshots. There are hardly photos of scenery, of items—it’s the pure hedonistic narcissism of two twenty-year-olds with a disposable camera.
Once they have the photos developed on these sleek, shiny, horizontal sheets of printed paper that Nishiki loves, they take their time lying on their stomachs and looking through each of them. Nishiki carefully dates each one on the back—the same way he did with Polaroids—and doesn’t let Kiryu keep the good shots. Those are for his collection. He bought himself a nice album, with a lot of clear pages you can slip the photos into. He wants to collect them. He labels them all.
Kiryu at 18—scarred chest and thin body. What a wimp. And then!
Kiryu at 20—HE ALMOST BROKE MY ARM! Look at them guns.
Kiryu beat up a homophobe. Then we made him take our picture.
Kiryu and I at the hot springs. He is a gator, and I’m a slut.
Karaoke. Kiryu hogged the mic, as usual. He likes to sing.
Kiryu and I trying to breakdance at capoeira class. It didn’t work.
Us with double chins. Very sexy, this one.
Kiryu’s butt. I shot it. Twice. Once with a needle, once with my camera.
Kiryu in the Tojo HQ garden at 4:30 AM, drunk. Future chairman?
My feet. Kiryu took this picture on accident, the dumbass.
He catalogues them, happily. Kiryu, Kiryu, Kiryu. God, he’s like a man possessed.
“Why can’t I have the good ones?” Kiryu whines, looking at his array of shittily framed, blurry photos, the flash smearing the colors into an effervescent blur.
“They’re all good.”
“But you get all the in-focus ones. I have to have blurry, blinking, red-eyed photos.”
“Fine. You can have the very best one, and I’ll keep all the rest for myself. That way it’s fair.”
Hardly. But Kiryu isn’t going to argue. Nishiki’s always been the type for quality over quantity. And just like food, Kiryu had always thought more was better.
“Which one’s best?” Kiryu asks.
They rank them, Nishiki penciling in his decisions beside the dates and caption, a very careful analysis of the lighting, the posing, the framing going on in his head. Like they’re discussing high art rather than photos taken on a disposable camera. The double chins photo Kiryu took that first night is the one that gets the lowest ranking. They narrow it down to Kiryu’s butt, a picture of them in matching yukata holding candied apples, and the one in front of Maharaja.
Eventually, the answer is clear. The photo taken by the thug. Guy had an artful eye for such a disgusting mind, apparently, because the photo is lovely. Not only do Kiryu and Nishiki look cozied up together, the drunkenness of Kiryu’s face giving him a carefree glow, but the photo is a neon-filled dream, Maharaja’s gaudiness giving the backdrop a sense of psychedelic artistry. Gold and LED, their jewelry flashing in the camera’s light. Nishiki looks smug with himself, holding up his peace sign (ironic, after a fight), and Kiryu barely looks like he’d just bashed a dude’s face in for calling him a slur.
Besides, that one has particular sentimental value. Nothing to bring two guys together like beating the shit out of an asshole.
“There, you can have it,” Nishiki says, marking a big “one” beside the caption, as he pronounces each syllable with finality. Ich-i. The best of them.
Kiryu smiles as he lifts it between his fingers, like he’s holding a playing card. He’ll have to get a frame. He tucks it neatly atop his stack of outtake photos, a proud card to obscure the rest of his shitty deck.
“Proof of your strength,” Nishiki says, nudging him with his shoulder and smiling.
Kiryu looks at him, his eyes half-mast, and leans down.
His lips meet Nishiki’s cheek in a strangely tender kiss. It’s a dry, chaste thing, but it lingers. When he’s done, Kiryu simply rests his mouth against his skin, breathing. Counting time like a heartbeat. Nishiki’s eyes widen and he pulls away, his eyebrows raised.
“Eh—?! What’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing,” Kiryu says. Nishiki’s skin burns under where his lips fell. He cups his own cheek in his hand.
“What was that?”
“A show of thanks.”
Nishiki laughs, nervously. He knows—he knows they have something going on under this all. Knows they laid together on the boat docks with Kiryu’s head on his chest, some strange but unsaid confession lingering in the night air between them. But still, it’s hard to figure it all out. It’s weird. He knows Kiryu and himself have been attached at the hip since they were kids. They grew up as best friends, they spent all their time together. And he knows that Kiryu has never “conformed to society’s standards of sexual normalcy,” as he puts it. The guy transitioned at eighteen, a brave step to take in the early 80s, and he’s always known who he was, after all.
But it’s still strange whenever he thinks that Kiryu truly, genuinely feels romantically for him. It’s hard to reconcile just what he wants. If it’s admiration—Nishiki gets it. He’s a handsome, admirable man. If it’s some sort of monogamous dedication…
Well.
He’s not sure about that.
Nishiki sits there, fingers ghosting the place Kiryu kissed his cheek.
He looks down at the photos of them, feeling his chest swell with warmth.
Kiryu looks out the window, at the moon.
“If you don’t want me to, I won’t do it ag—”
Nishiki grabs him by his short hair, nails digging into his scalp, and tugs him close. He slants their lips together.
Kiryu doesn’t close his eyes.
Nishiki breathes against his face, his eyes closed, his eyelashes pressing against the top of his cheeks, like brush strokes. Kiryu’s fingers curl, and he tilts his head, curiously, not unlike a puppy. Like he’s seen on TV. He kisses him back, over and over, short little pecks to his lips.
Nishiki pulls away, only slightly, inches from his face.
“You’re welcome.”
His words are hot against Kiryu’s teeth.