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Kiryu can't feel love but that's okay. He can see and hear and that's more than enough for him.
Love is a feeling Kiryu can't wrap his head around anymore but his adolescence was nurtured enough for him not to mind that. At the end of the day, love is something Kiryu simply doesn't need.
His sense of touch allows him to feel the wind flying past his face, whispering the local rumors about this and that. He doesn't need love to hear Majima's broken cackling from across the street, running towards him with a smile that doesn't quite reach his eye.
Before, love was enough to keep Nishiki around. It was far more than Nishiki needed and yet he still wouldn't stop. To Kiryu, it was never enough but asking for more was where the bridge ended. There were not enough words in the dictionary to justify seeing Nishiki's fallen strands of hair curve over his ear. There wasn't enough money in the world that could justify him hearing Nishiki's crooked insults and annoyingly correct advice.
And Nishiki is just the same. He gives and gives until Kiryu is smothered with it. He pours everything he has, leaving nothing but the scraps for himself until Kiryu is there to fill him up again. Nishiki gives and gives but that's not enough for Kiryu and he hates that part about him with every speck of his heart. Wants to strangle it down and keep it in the ocean where no one can grab at.
Love was enough to keep Nishiki around until it wasn't. Until Kiryu crossed a line neither right nor wrong to a place where love didn't cut it anymore.
But love was what he learned from Kazama. Love was what saved him from ending up in the gutters and at age 20, probably. With each favor Kiryu racked up for Kazama and with each he gave back, love was there to tie their relationship back together. So when Kiryu looked at Kazama, bowing down as every apology he could think of left his mouth—Kazama would smile and Kiryu doesn't need anyone else in the world because Kazama is the father he always wanted.
Though it doesn't help much when Kazama's on the floor, thick blood oozing down his head and onto Kiryu's hands as he says the words he's always thought. But by the time it's out, it is already far too late.
Kiryu doesn't love again until he sees Majima once more. But it's only temporary because Majima is his own man and doesn't have room for leverage like Kiryu. Kiryu doesn't hate him when Majima kicks him out of his house, hickeys painting his neck and an empty open sea filling his chest. Majima doesn't love him in the way he needs to be but Kiryu was raised not to ask for more so he leaves willingly.
It isn't a while until he sees Nishiki again and instead of a flickering red ribbon casting around their bodies, like a cold winter's night when they were 12—huddling together under a thin blanket after lights out, it is the opposite of love. Nishiki isn't Nishiki and Kiryu is still Kiryu. Still the empty man he was 10 years ago after Tachibana had faded away in his arms and Nishiki knows this the first time their eyes meet.
Nishiki still allows him into his house but it's colder now. His bedsheets don't sink him in like they used to but that's not what makes him cry. It's when Nishiki is on top of him and his hair doesn't fall over him and frame his perfect face. It's when his eyes don't remind him of the coffee they used to make and his smile is like make-up; it's blood. This isn't love, this is lust. It is craved desire that is biting down onto his aging skin.
But his best friend is still in there—Kiryu realizes one night when Nishiki cries after he thinks Kiryu's fallen asleep—he can still be saved. It's a vicious cycle of want and need before they can both realize that it's so much more than legs tangled under crimson sheets. Kiryu's shirt looks beautiful draped over Nishiki's sleeping shoulders, he thinks as he pulls it off and walks to the night.
It isn't until he hears Reina's vow and Shinji's final breath until he ponders the meaning of love in itself. It makes him wonder what the point is after giving so much and receiving little to nothing in return. And he realizes it, that love is such a cruel thing in many different meanings. Because even though Reina has Nishiki's rejections written in her chest, Kiryu doesn't hate him a single bit.
Love falls like a wilted leaf off a maple tree in autumn and it is already winter. Kiryu is the wind forced to blow it away.
Nishiki still looks beautiful like this, as sad as it is, it's the truth. Nishiki has never looked more vulnerable than he did on the floor and the look in his eyes when Yumi comes dashing to Kiryu's side is sharper than any blade. His fingers graze the trigger while giving Kiryu one last breath before he joins the flying cash in the air.
He can only hold Haruka tight in his arms and wish for a better future until it's over.