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Dojima fuckin’ Daigo had transformed overnight after Kiryu skipped town, leaving him the unwilling sixth chairman of the Tojo Clan and Majima his unwilling captain.
He’d slicked his hair back, pulled a suit and tie outta nowhere, hung up his couldn’t-give-a-shit punk attire and his balls along with it so far as Majima could tell. There’d been no surprise what Tojo would be like under Sera and Terada. Diplomacy and meetings and little chance to actually get out and toss some guys around.
It was only three weeks in when Majima realized Kiryu’d pulled one over on him suggesting things would be any different.
Only three weeks in and he’s got his knife on the sixth chairman’s neck.
——
Kiryu had warned him to keep Majima on a short leash, as if Daigo didn’t fucking know. As if he hadn’t grown up overhearing whispered stories about the Mad Dog. He’d heard it all, the rumors that were too wild to be true and the ones too wild to be lies.
Kiryu had wanted to give him another warning, and like a distant father had choked it back down instead of giving any earnest advice. He didn’t have to. Daigo knew.
They didn’t talk about what Daigo had lost at the top of Millenium Tower. Didn’t talk about the fight that should have been his. Kiryu didn’t apologize, didn’t commiserate. He’d dragged Daigo out of one of his darkest years and left him only halfway to the surface.
Without saying any of it, they both knew there was an empty silhouette that his mind would be spinning to fill. They both knew his record for bad habits and self-destruction. They both knew Majima Goro wasn’t going to fit the big blonde hole in his head and they both knew there was a good chance he’d try to cram him into it anyway.
Daigo had tested him. He let Majima and a crew of his family gear up to make an example of one of the remaining mid-tier families who needed a little encouraging, of the physical sort, to fall in line under Daigo’s name. He’d called Majima back at the last minute, getting a call from his assistant to the Majima family captain after they’d already arrived at the target.
Stand down. A clear order.
He wasn’t surprised when Majima kicked in the HQ office door two hours later.
“Got a bone to pick with you, Mister Chairman,” he said, crooning out the title with his tanto spinning around his thumb.
——
They kicked and punched and shouted for ten too-quick minutes. Daigo evaded without being chased, blocking and feinting nearly with the best of ‘em. All the blood stopped up in Majima’s veins, ready to bust outta his damn forehead half an hour ago, was finally moving.
Majima had always been biting at the heels of men above him. His kyoudai had been stronger, Sagawa more composed, Shimao more powerful, and Kiryu more determined. It had felt like an iron sharpens iron deal when he was young, but maybe he just liked puttin’ his lips on the tailpipe of better men till it would finally kill him. He wouldn’ta put Daigo in their company until he took a punch to the gut and gave it back as good as he got.
He was breathing hard by the time he managed to back Daigo into the side of his desk, blade on his collarbone to press the win without really meaning to gut him. He had the kid pinned, bent back with a hand on the desk, hair in his face like the punk kid he’d only just given up being, and shirt sleeves shoved up around his elbows with his suit jacket lost on the opposite side of the room.
Three weeks in and he was already tired behind the eyes. Majima remembered cramming himself into a suit, learning a diplomatic smile, and the way it nearly broke the bits of him he’d escaped The Hole with. But there was no light at the end of the tunnel for Daigo-chan. No reward to work for. Just holding the Tojo together until it killed him, if he was lucky.
The stare coming off that stubborn face made Majima feel like he was the one pinned down.
——
Majima pulled the blade away from Daigo’s chest and tucked it back into his waistband. He didn’t step away, fingering the tie clip askew at Daigo’s stomach with his gloved hands and tucking it back into place.
“Ya don’t yank my chain and I don’t bite, deal?” Majima asked in the low, slow tone Daigo seldom heard. He consumed the space between them without moving, a press of leather and sweat and cigarettes like every dark club Daigo had retreated to just to feel something.
“I’m supposed to keep this whole clan in check, Majima-san,” Daigo said, his throat rasping around short breath that he couldn’t quite catch with Majima’s right leg still between his thighs. “It’s been upended three times in as many years.”
“Heh! Yeah, by old guys with sticks up their asses who didn’t ever want to do shit,” Majima scoffed. “You can be a stiff just the same if you want, Daigo-chan, but I’m here because someone’s hands have gotta get dirty.”
His heart thudded harder in the well-lit clan office than it ever had to the bass on a dance floor.
Daigo was still testing him.
“I will need you to bite, on occasion.” He hooked one finger in the chain around the Mad Dog’s neck and yanked.
——
Daigo fuckin’ Dojima occasionally got his hands dirty.