Work Text:
The patriarch returns home from another day of being brutally underestimated. He’s down an informant after today’s betrayal, but that’s just business (he tells himself).
With guards dismissed to the hall, a shower lifts the blood from his skin and sends it cascading down the drain. The water also loosens the gel’s grip on his hair that serves as a constant reminder (at every mirror, every unconscious motion to smooth it, every time he turns his head and doesn’t see long strands proceed his movement) of the night he finally took his fate into his own hands. While the evidence of his work is removed from his body, the now signature white suit is sent away to be cleaned by a nameless family member. Good thing he’s always been diligent about his clothes. If he wasn’t, his whole closet would be stained rusty red by now.
It's only minutes before he’s alone in bed, meager routine complete. He should sleep now. But the lack of tasks to achieve and people to manage means there’s no distraction from the raging vortex of emotion in his chest. He tells himself it’s only fury at the people who have betrayed him. (The idea that he could feel anything else- pain, desperation, shame- has been brutally buried long enough it will never reach the surface again.) He calms himself with the notion that Kiryu has been nothing but lucky to fuck up his plans as much as he has in the last few days. All that’s left to do is stick to his strategy and finish what was started 10 years ago. The vision of a near future where he’s finally won is enough to let the man slip away.
---
Suddenly, he’s aware that he’s outfitted in a bright, fashionable suit. That, combined with silky curtains of hair make the young man even more approachable (more than any self-respecting yakuza should be). Something reminds him that most night are spent buddying up with hostesses to impress the higher-ups and bringing them home to prove to himself he’s worth their attention. Back when he thought Kiryu was good for him, not suffocating him like a big fucking tree too dumb to realize it’s blocking the light.
As he sits, he struggles to identify where he is. The world around him sways and fragments, like he’s had a few too many drinks. With effort, the shapes coalesce enough to become recognizable. Trees, spotty grass, decades old wooden bench. Ah, one of the neglected parks of Kamurocho. He sits on the bench, fighting to stop the world from spinning, when a pretty woman with fluffy bangs and a bright suit approaches. She gently teases him for his current state. Offers him water. He’s staring at her, trying to place what‘s special about her, when the scene morphs. The yellowed grass becomes plush carpet underfoot and he now sits on a much more comfortable bar stool. The bar’s mama tells him that she refused to pay protection money to a Tojo lieutenant for months. She stares intently down, tight frown reflected in the gleaming counter, as she tells him that she finally caved. But the cost was so high and the threats so vicious she is thinking of skipping town and starting over elsewhere.
He jumps out of his seat, drunkenness miraculously left behind on the stool. He tells himself he’ll fix this because she’s a beautiful woman. …But he doesn’t particularly want her. Maybe he’s really looking for a distraction from the fact that Kiryu’s wanted for murder and he can’t do shit to help him.
Or maybe, as distant voice sneers, he’s just an idiot, trying to fix problems that aren’t his. The crybaby thinks it’ll make him one of the good guys. That there even is such a thing as ‘good guys’ in this town.
Whatever the reason, he walks out the familiar wooden bar of the door and into a garishly decorated Dojima office. He strides with a young man’s unearned confidence up to the flamboyant lieutenant leaned casually back in his chair, suddenly armed with intel to negotiate on behalf of the woman he just met. He conjures the words easily, as if plucked from a script. The words that will ensure the safety of the bar and its owner. The victory he needs after so many losses and tense stalemates.
The hopeless yakuza’s fragile heart sinks when the lieutenant in his garish purple suits calls him “Kazama’s favorite son” (like he’d never heard of Kiryu). And makes it clear he’s not worth negotiating with.
Off balance and emptyhanded, the eager rookie yakuza searches vainly for what else he can offer. With startlingly little effort, he feels traitorous words fall out of his mouth. He’ll turn spy against his adoptive father, passing along vital information to the man in front of him. His unique tie to the Family’s captain could be the foothold that lets the flashy veteran finally climb to the top.
The lieutenant pauses for a moment. For a single shaky inhale, it seems like it will be enough. Then a sound that floods the younger man with shame, curling hot in his gut. Laughter. Loud, genuine, and unrestrained. He doesn’t realize his fists are clenched until he feels the blood drip under his nails. The lieutenant’s laughter continues in a taunting echo as he explains that this new recruit could never betray the man who raised him.
But he’d meant it.
The thought halts him in his tracks, horrifies him. How could he so quickly and sincerely offer to betray the closest thing he has to a father?
What is wrong with him?
Is there some inexorable flaw deep in his soul that he’s blind to?
Is that why he’d grown up with a caretaker and half a dozen other children, instead of two parents and a sister?
His vision is clouded by panicked tears. He tries to push them away, but he’s helpless against the oppressive tide. He’s trapped, suffocating until he’s yanked to the surface by a warm voice excitedly welcomes him ‘back.’ In a practiced motion, the young man wipes his eyes to see the bar from before. Its owner is smiling brightly at him, secure in the knowledge that her business is safe. And she’s relieved to see him unharmed. She is a smart one- she already put together that he is the reason she stopped getting threats. He plays it cool, unsure in this moment what he’s done to strike the deal. But he politely confirms that the owner doesn’t need to worry anymore, because he knows somehow that it’s true. The mama leans closer, eyes briefly darting to his lips before meeting his eyes again.
“Who knows, maybe this is the start of a long relationship.” Her eyes sparkle and her cheeks flush. “You should call me Reina.”
---
The patriarch wakes up with a start, displaced. A look around the familiar objects of his bedroom brings him back to the present. Black silk sheets on the bed, original works by the hottest up-and-coming artists on the wall, lacquered dresser that cost more than his apartment in ’88. Loaded gun in the top drawer of his bedside table.
.
.
.
He didn’t expect to miss her.
He hadn’t really wanted her dead for more than the space of a heartbeat. The act of killing is routine by now, like checking his phone or giving orders. Unremarkable in the way daily tasks soon become. Sometimes he wonders why he once believed it was so unthinkable to end someone who was the wrong kind of dangerous. Or stubbornly belligerent. Or just too plain stupid to keep wearing his Family pin.
But she had been none of those things.
In fact, she’d always been there for him. Which is more than he could say for anyone else. Hell, she literally fought alongside him once. Back then, it hardly seemed to matter that they were outmatched by the snarling, one-eyed man. They were in trouble together. They were a team.
She was stubbornly brave. And gentle too, a great listener who never mocked him for all his stupid, pointless crying back then. Sometimes it almost seemed like she missed getting to be the one to dry his tears.
Even though he hit her once. She made the mistake of implying he was weak, that it was his fault the woman he loved was missing and hurt. He felt like shit the moment his hand connected with her cheek, sending her to the ground sobbing. And for weeks after.
But he never had to raise his hand to her again. She always was a smart one.
They shared a talent for reading others that lent itself to hundreds of private, unspoken conversations in crowded rooms. Of course he knew she was in love with him. For years, he just didn’t feel the same. As a younger man, he enjoyed her company. But when he changed, so did the unspoken tie between them. She went from friend to asset, and that meant leveraging whatever he needed to keep her compliant. So he started stringing her along. Letting her indulge in brief moments of flirtation and closeness. Decades of experience enticing women to drown out the endless voice claiming he wasn’t enough ensured that she never told him ‘no.’ No matter what he asked of her.
Things were good, going as planned. Until Kiryu came blundering in again, mindlessly wrecking his careful plans like he’s wrecked several barstools striding around without paying attention. (How can one man cause so much destruction through sheer bullheaded stubbornness alone?)
Just a few days with Kiryu and she came at him, raised voice and tears in her eyes, accusing him of being wrong. Saying that she had been wrong to help him. Kiryu’s name never left her lips in that tense conversation where he tried to intimidate her, then charm her until she pulled the trigger and he did too. But her note had Kiryu’s name all over it. He left her last message behind. So Kiryu would know it was his fault the floors of their favorite bar were slicked with blood.
One disadvantage of being a patriarch is that everyone beneath you is waiting impatiently to put a knife in your back. So he wasn’t surprised when his traitorous lieutenant managed to grab her and run for safety. But they didn’t get far.
And just like that, there’s one less person who can remember him from before everything went to hell. Before he betrayed Kiryu. Before he failed to protect the woman he loved and lost her forever. Before he had to watch, worse than useless, as his little sister died.
The long-forgotten sensation of tears pooling in his eyes fills the man with panic. He redirects the energy in a furious shout and swing that turns his bedside lamp into shard of ceramic on the floor. There is no way to go but forward. He learned that lesson 10 years ago. Just a few more days of almost unbearable stress and tension before it’s resolved and everything goes away. With the 10 billion yen in hand and Kiryu gone, he’ll finally be free.