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He's not sure if it's by accidental association or conditioned response, but everything about Sagawa makes Majima's stomach turn.
That smug smile he always wears, like he knows something Majima doesn't. The lingering scent of alcohol and cologne, mixed with notes of blood and gunsmoke. The subtle sign of control, the hand on Majima's back as they enter the taxi. Even the way "Camellia Grove" sounds on his tongue as he gives the driver directions sends a shudder through Majima. No one else could make a flower sound so ugly.
Sagawa sits on the right, out of Majima's blind spot. Maybe it's an act of grace, or just an accident; maybe it's another part of his carefully crafted hell. Seeing Sagawa ever-present in his peripheral makes his skin crawl. He keeps his head down and shuts up — what else can he do?
There's always a pair of watching, waiting eyes pinned to his back, ready to strike if he makes one wrong move. He's not allowed to have his own will.
The car rumbles to life and he feels queasy. The air is heavy, laden with pollution and bad omens. Anxiety tightens around his neck like a collar, and Sagawa gives him a sidelong glance, looking satisfied.
Majima rolls down the window and turns his head to face the wind.
"You okay? Don't puke on me, kid."
"'m fine," he says, only half of a lie.
The Sotenbori sky is murky and gray, cut through with overbright neon displays that burn multicolored trails into his vision. It makes his head pound. He stares, letting the lights gather and blur in his one good eye until it's almost as blind as the other. As they reach the edge of the city, the neons disappear and the pool of colors fades, and he’s only left with fleeting afterimages. He shuts his eye tight, preferring to face the darkness rather than witness Sotenbori disappearing into the distance like it never existed.
There's only a moment of quiet grey-black peace before Sagawa's hand is on his shoulder. He jolts upright.
"You never told me what happened between you and Nishitani," Sagawa drawls with a tone that might've sounded sweet on anyone else.
Majima doesn't answer. A few hazy memories rise up and pass by like the streetlights, like clouds. They might be close enough to reach, but he doesn’t bother trying, vacantly watching as they dissolve into the breeze. He slumps over and lets the edge of the window cut into his cheek and the vibration of the engine rattle his brain.
Sagawa grips Majima's shoulder tighter, threateningly digging his nails in right on the edge of a bruise — one he made himself just a few days ago. The pain feels distant.
"Spill it, tiger. We don't keep secrets here, yeah?" His smile flickers for just a moment, then it's back to cool and casual. "How'd you get Nishitani to talk?"
"Asked him nicely," Majima mutters dismissively.
"Smartass." Sagawa releases his grip, only to give Majima an elbow to the ribs, slightly too hard to be playful. Majima's breath hitches, but the pain quickly fades to numbness. Like everything else. "You're almost as stubborn as he is."
Those words echo, float around in his mind. He tries to keep his head peacefully empty, but that only leaves a hungry void desperate for some coherent thought to fill it. The phrase has been swallowed down before he can register what it means.
Stubborn like him. Nishitani, everything the Lord of the Night isn't: loud and self-centered and hedonistic, never submitting to anyone else's control. But despite the clear differences, something deep connected between the two. It was like looking into another universe, a version of him that made a different turn at the fork in the road long ago. Like a dog meeting a wolf.
None of that matters anymore, he tries to tell himself. But the thought keeps idly rolling around in his mind, picking up dust, snowballing. It becomes a hard lump stuck in his throat, weighing down on his chest. The lights passing by make him feel dizzy.
"We fought," Majima begins, mostly thinking aloud as he tries to make sense of things.
Sagawa makes a noise between a laugh and a scoff. "No shit."
"I beat him."
"You're a tough little thing, tiger." As he says that, Sagawa almost sounds proud. Fond, maybe, in the way that one might appreciate an object, something owned. He continues, with amusement in his voice, "But he enjoys being beat. Threats don't really work on a guy like that, do they?"
Majima pauses, trying to untangle the threads. Trying to form the right words that won't come. Why did Nishitani want to work with him, of all people? Just because he put up a good fight? Or did he see something that Majima didn't, a potential?
He feels Sagawa's curious eyes burning into him. It makes him want to curl up into a little ball and wither away. Jump out of the car and disappear into the night. He stays motionless, breathing heavy.
"I guess he just took a liking to me," Majima says, thready and bitter.
Sagawa laughs, smacking his knee. "Ha, I see! He has a thing for you, huh? Just a couple fights and you got him hooked. You really are something."
Majima stares out into nothing. Conflicted feelings wash over him, but their colors just combine into an unpleasant gray. He feels that vague mass of misery pressing against his chest, his throat, his eyes. He tries to push it back down with a thick swallow.
"What's with that face? I'm complimenting you here, kid."
The only response Majima can force out is a quiet, pained noise, barely a hum.
"Sad I took you from your buddy? You can have another playdate with him soon, I've got plenty more information to squeeze outta that weaselly little bitch." The insult sounds wry, familiar, if a little too sharp to be affectionate. Sagawa pats his shoulder. The motion is innocent this time, but it still makes him shiver.
"He's dead," Majima blurts out without thinking. He feels half-dead himself, vacantly watching the same white lines and streetlights pass by over and over again, rotting away a little more with every one.
"Ah," Sagawa says, quite eloquently.
Majima isn't sure why he spoke in the first place, or why he continues, but he does. He knows anything he says is bound to be used against him, but it feels like he has to get it off his chest, out of his mind. "Saw him get shot up."
It's silent for a moment, nothing but the rumble of the engine. Streetlights and white lines.
"Poor bastard."
Majima isn't sure if that was meant for him or Nishitani. He wonders how familiar he and Sagawa were with each other, if they ever worked together, if he knows anything about Nishitani that Majima doesn't. Majima doesn't have the heart to ask. He already knows more about Nishitani than Nishitani will ever know about him.
It's strange to grieve over someone he only met twice. Barely knowing enough about them to make a eulogy. But he thinks of Makoto and Lee, how much he cared — cares? — for them, and how much they had been through together in just a few days' time.
The sympathy isn't for him, he decides. He doesn't say anything, just lets anger quietly bubble up and burn at the numbness, a little warmth to his cold heart. He curls his fists so tightly his fingers ache.
If Sagawa cared at all, if any sliver of his soul wasn't rotten and dead and shriveled in that empty hot-air chest of his, he wouldn't have killed Lee. He wouldn't have pointed a gun to Majima's head and grinned as he crooked his finger around the trigger. But now Lee is dead, and Makoto is missing, and Majima is back in his cage, tied to the leash again.
Like he knows what Majima is thinking, Sagawa asks, "Did he tell you anything else about the girl? Why he was gunning for her?" The fleeting feelings are gone, this is just business for him. Makoto is nothing more than a name to check off a list.
"No," Majima says, and the simple honesty of it almost makes him laugh.
He doesn't know anything. He's a pawn tossed around in the Tojo's whirlwind game, tangled in layers of politics and rivalries and real estate and blood money. Majima gets the sense that Sagawa knows more than he lets on but less than he thinks he does. He's giving Majima the shit end of the stick, sure, but does being a couple links up the chain really matter if the whole thing's being pulled by someone else? Like being an animal owned by animals, dogs leashing dogs, all begging at the feet of their collective masters.
Maybe a bitter smile finds its way to his lips without him realizing, because Sagawa raises an eyebrow and taps the silver pistol at his belt. A reminder. Like a slap in the face from reality. "If we're out of leads, I guess we'll just have to find Sera and ask him nicely, hm?"
Beast or man or heartless husk, Sagawa is still his handler. Knowing who's at the end of the chain doesn't make the collar disappear. His teeth are grit tight and his hands are shaking, balled-up fists placed neatly in his lap, his anger muzzled.
There's only one thing Majima knows for sure about Sera: he had a chance to kill Makoto, and he didn't. He took her alive. He's one of the only people still alive who doesn't want her dead.
Sagawa is going to kill both of them.
With a shiny little gun and a dead-eyed grin, Sagawa is going to kill every single spark in his life, using Majima's scattered, shattered hopes as target practice.
Majima stiffly turns to face the open window, not wanting to look at the man next to him, and pushes down another wave of nausea. He imagines the white lines on the asphalt as a row of gravestones, stretching endlessly down the dark road. Lee, Biliken, Nishitani. Sera, Makoto, Majima.
"Sorry, kid." Sagawa almost seems genuine. There’s a bit of pity in his soft, lopsided smile. It fades and he’s left with the dull sound of indifferent surrender. "Boss's orders."
The utterly detached tone of his voice matched with his vile words puts a deep, sinking sense of doom in Majima's stomach. Like if he doesn't move in this moment, something terrible will happen. He wants to take control — to steal the gun and hijack the car, or just open the door and throw himself to the highway.
He stays still. None of that will get Makoto back or keep her safe.
Maybe that makes him no different than Sagawa, a doormat, yielding to the cruel boot against his chest and continuing the cycle under his own heel. Watching as all the paths of his future that branch out in front of him are snipped off one by one — hell, the whole tree might as well be on fire, and he's forced to hold the lighter. But beneath his deferent dread, there's a spark of something hopeful and rebellious. Some hidden animal crouched in wait, ready to snatch an opportunity the second it appears and hold on till its teeth break.
Sagawa's hand, still cautiously resting on his pretty pistol, is bandaged. If Majima were superstitious, he might take it as a sign from something higher. It sends a different message than Sagawa means it to — a memento from when Sera beat him at his own game, a bloody consolation prize. Maybe this is his opening, Majima thinks. Maybe this branch won't be burning, for once in his life.
If nothing else, he has Camellia Grove, and whatever will be waiting there.