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"Special delivery for Kiryu-chan!"
Majima tugged open the heavy sliding door of room 707, careful not to disturb the sizable bouquet of fresh flowers cradled in the crook of his arm.
Sunlight streamed through the window, bleaching the space's light wood accents and throwing beams across the crisp white sheets of the hospital bed. It was a gorgeous spring day in Tokyo. Which seemed almost cruel, given the room's occupant could only enjoy it through a thick pane of glass, high above the city.
Today was a "good day", it seemed, given the brightness of Kiryu's eyes behind his reading glasses and the fact that he was sitting upright.
Kiryu took off his glasses, placing them atop the book he had been reading on the nightstand. "You don't have to keep bringing me flowers, you know."
"What kinda boyfriend would I be if I didn't, huh?" Majima plucked last week's dried-out bouquet from the vase on the desk, tossed it into the trash bin, and carefully replaced it with the one he had brought. "What, you don't like 'em?"
Kiryu smiled softly and shook his head. "I didn't say that."
It had been two months since Majima had returned from his unplanned vacation in Hawaii. Two months since he had seen Kiryu in this very room, on a chilly winter night, and had told him the entire story—about how he had been attacked by a giant squid, lost his memory, befriended a little boy, brought down Madlantis royalty, battled said giant squid again and made it calamari—from start to finish.
Well, it had taken more than a single evening to tell the whole story. So Majima had come back every night until Kiryu had heard the last of his tale.
One of those nights, just as Majima had gotten to the good part about Saejima's daring rescue, Kiryu had suffered a particularly nasty coughing fit. Majima had hit the button to call the nurse, wiped blood from his mouth with his handkerchief, grabbed at Kiryu's pale, fragile hand like it was a lifeline, and broke.
"Don't die on me, Kiryu-chan," he had pleaded as Kiryu continued to hack up blood all over the bleached sheets. "You can't die, ya hear me? Because...because I have somethin' I need to tell ya."
Kiryu hadn't had a chance to respond as he had been swarmed by his medical team, Majima shooed out of the room.
The next night, Majima had returned once again to find Kiryu faring slightly better.
"Nii-san," he'd rasped, a far cry from the commanding Dragon of Dojima he knew so well. "What did you need to tell me?"
Looking back, Majima didn't know why he had chosen that moment to kiss Kiryu. After so many lost moments, so many wasted years...why then? But Majima had never been one to dwell on the past, and maybe his brush with death by legendary sea monster had shaken something loose in his stubborn old noggin. It turned out he had no reason to be so uptight about it anyway, because Kiryu had kissed him right back.
That evening had been filled with whispered promises, soft kisses, and long-overdue confessions. Whatever their future brought, and for however long they both had left, they wanted to face it together.
Majima had visited Kiryu in the hospital every day since.
As Majima arranged the flowers in the vase, propping up the peonies and turning the sunflowers so they could drink in the sunlight, something in the corner of his eye gave him pause. On the desk, next to a stack of murder mystery books and Kiryu's laptop, sat a pale green archive box that definitely hadn't been there yesterday.
"What's in the box?" Majima asked, adjusting a rose until he was satisfied with it.
"Haruka brought that by this morning. It's some old pictures." The sheets rustled as Kiryu sat up a bit straighter. "From when I used to live in Okinawa."
Majima ran his fingers over the top of the box, worn with age and the salty air of the Pacific. "Surprised it survived the demolition in '09."
"We were, too. She found them while she was organizing the storage closet." A shallow cough abruptly shook Kiryu's thin frame. He accepted the glass of water Majima had at the ready, who did his best to ignore the way his own chest clenched at the sight. "We looked at some of them, but there are quite a few. Want to look at them together?"
Admittedly, there was a lot Majima still didn't know about Kiryu's life as the caretaker of Morning Glory Orphanage. He'd had his hands full at the time—with his construction company, and the whole Tojo Clan coup thing, and making sure Daigo didn't get himself shot (again). He hadn't exactly had time for tropical vacations. But he knew that Kiryu considered those kids his own, and that the years he'd spent on the island had been some of the happiest of his life. So naturally, Majima was curious.
Majima pulled up his usual chair next to Kiryu's bedside, picked up the box, and placed it next to Kiryu's blanket-covered knees. "You feelin' up to it?"
"I can look at a few pictures, nii-san."
Majima removed the lid and was immediately met with piles of glossy, colorful photographs. Kiryu took a stack for himself and handed another pile to Majima.
The pictures documented everyday life at Morning Glory—kids playing on the beach, Kiryu chopping wood shirtless (nice), a table filled with small hands and heaping bowls of curry.
"Who took all these?" Majima asked, transfixed by the photos' many subjects.
"I took some of them. But we all shared the camera—it was a New Year's gift from Nakahara, the Ryudo Family patriarch. You can probably tell who took each one from the angle of the photo."
Sure enough, some of the pictures were angled in such a way that no one over four-foot-five could have taken them. Others were undoubtedly Kiryu's, who towered over the little faces smiling up at the lens.
"Look at this one," Kiryu said, flipping one of his photos around so Majima could see it better. "This was Haruka's first day of junior high. She was so proud of that uniform. And this one," he continued before Majima could respond. "This was the time Shiro tried to bake a cake in the fish fryer." The photo showed a boy with a bowl cut and glasses in a kitchen covered in flour and grease and who knows what else. "He was afraid to touch the stove for an entire year."
As they continued to sift through the pictures in the box, Kiryu excitedly explaining the context behind each one, Majima realized that he had never seen Kiryu smile like this before. The occasional smirk or huff of laughter, sure, but Kiryu was beaming, like a proud father eager to show off his children's school photos that he kept in his wallet to anyone who asked. It made Majima even angrier at the people who had held this joy for ransom.
Majima reached into the box and pulled out another stack. A dog being washed in the yard by a little girl, an attempted selfie of Kiryu and a boy with a shaved head that wasn't more than a blur and half a peace sign. The next photo immediately caught Majima's attention because of its subject—there weren't nearly enough photos of Kiryu in here, he had decided. Probably because he had been the one taking most of them.
But this photo was different.
Majima froze, hand gripping the glossy picture, rapidly attempting to make sense of what he was seeing.
In the picture Kiryu was shirtless, sitting on the engawa of what Majima assumed was the orphanage. The sun was setting—orange and pink shadows cast across the sand, the wooden planks of the porch, the planes of Kiryu's face. He held an Orion beer in one hand, posture relaxed, and was gazing out at the horizon. He looked unbelievably happy.
But that wasn't what struck Majima about the photo. His eye scanned over Kiryu's body—the one Majima knew like the back of his own hand, the one that he had spent the better part of a month honing into a weapon, all sharp angles and fine-tuned muscle. That Kiryu was nowhere to be found.
This Kiryu was soft.
His arms looked as strong as they always had but thicker, shoulders round and broad. His pecs were meaty and looked like they had heft to them, like they would strain uncomfortably against the confines of a cotton shirt. Of course, the most apparent departure from Majima's knowledge of Kiryu's figure was his midsection, soft and rounded as it rolled over the waistband of his swim trunks, any hint or trace of chiseled six pack abs long buried by days spent lounging on the sand.
It was the sexiest thing Majima had ever seen.
"Nii-san, what's wrong?"
Majima jumped like someone had just walked in on him mid-jerk off session.
"The fuck is this?" Majima wheezed, shoving the photo at Kiryu, who plucked it gingerly from Majima's fingers.
"Oh, I remember this day," Kiryu explained, still reminiscing. "It was the middle of a summer heatwave, and even a cold beer and a swim in the ocean didn't cool me off. The sunset was nice, though."
"No, the—" Majima was going to blow a fuse. He snatched the picture back and jabbed at the tummy Kiryu was sporting. "What. Is. This?"
Kiryu paused. Looked from the photo, to Majima's manic face, and back again, as a blush creeped up his neck and across his pale cheeks. His voice was quieter when he finally responded. "I...that was before I went on a diet."
"A what?"
"The stress and the lifestyle change were getting to me. Not long after this picture was taken I joined a local dojo and got back into shape."
Majima was horrified. "Why?"
"Why what?"
There were too many questions Majima wanted answers to. Why hadn't Majima visited Okinawa in 2008 to see Kiryu in all of his dad bod glory? Why had he never seen this picture before? Who had seen this picture before?
Instead he asked: "Why'd ya go on a diet?"
"Because I...isn't it obvious?" He huffed, grabbing the photo from Majima and placing it face down and out of reach. "You don't have to tease me."
Where the hell had Kiryu gotten that idea? Sure, Majima liked to poke fun at Kiryu's old man reading glasses, or the way he pouted when he unevenly snapped a pair of disposable chopsticks. In fact, one could argue that Kiryu was the one doing the teasing here, making Majima all hot and bothered with his thick and juicy beach bod.
But as Majima observed Kiryu—arms crossed, face flushed, eyes looking everywhere but at him—he realized something.
Kiryu was embarrassed.
Kiryu thought Majima was judging him. Shaming him for not maintaining his image as the pinnacle of musculature during a time in his life where he deserved nothing but to rest. Thinking he was less attractive because of it. It was unacceptable.
"I ain't teasin'!" Majima jabbed a finger at the face-down rectangle at Kiryu's opposite hip. "If you'd shown up to the Purgatory coliseum lookin' like that, I woulda thrown the match, dragged ya into my office, and bent you over my desk."
Kiryu's eyes widened briefly, before settling back into a resigned expression. "You don't have to lie to make me feel better."
"Kiryu-chan." Majima hopped up on the edge of the bed and grasped both of Kiryu's hands in his, taking care not to jostle the IV port. "Kazuma. When have I lied to you?"
"I..." He was actually thinking about it. "Well, there was the zombie thing."
"That don't count! And I actually think I deserve a little credit here, for resisting the temptation to jump yer bones right here and now."
Kiryu swallowed. "You're serious."
With long, dramatic groan, Majima deflated and draped himself over Kiryu's legs. "'Course I'm serious," he said into the blankets. They smelled like hospital—too sterile and too clean. He hated it.
When Kiryu sighed above him, Majima made his move.
He reached out, snagged the photo that lay next to Kiryu, and raised it in the air like he'd just pulled a winning lottery ticket.
"Hee hee! I'm takin' this for safe keepin'." He took one last look at his prize before tucking it carefully into his jacket.
"Goro," Kiryu groaned, tipping his head against the headrest.
"Oy, don't 'Goro' me like that. Have some pity! When I'm all alone, late at night, with no one but my ultra-rare, one of a kind, soft-bellied Kiryu-chan to keep me company." He stroked his jacket lewdly.
Kiryu rolled his eyes, but the twitch of his lips betrayed his serious facade. But not a moment later, his face fell.
"I'm sorry I..."
"What?"
"It might be a while. Before...well." Kiryu looked down at his hands, turning them over. Like the rest of him, they were thin from his extensive treatment, skin nearly translucent and pulled tight over tendon and bone.
Majima already knew Kiryu was self-conscious about the amount of weight he had lost over the past several months. He didn't need to say it out loud—Majima could see it in the way he shrunk into himself, the way he worried at his dull locks of hair, the way he avoided his own reflection in the mirror.
Well, that wouldn't do, either.
Majima patted the bed next to Kiryu. "Hey, scooch over a bit."
Positioning himself next to Kiryu on the bed, Majima wrapped him in his arms and pulled him in close as Kiryu leaned into his chest with a sigh.
"You know I think yer hot stuff no matter what, right?"
Taking Kiryu's chin in his hand, Majima tilted his face just so, and kissed him. Soft and gentle in a way that Majima never thought he could ever be. They would have time for more later, once Kiryu had recovered. This was enough for now. It was more than Majima ever thought he would have.
Kiryu sighed again, more deeply this time. Just last month, a sigh that deep would have sent him into a coughing fit. Silver linings.
Kiryu smelled like antiseptic and metal and shitty hospital shampoo. Majima wondered what Kiryu would smell like if he were at the beach, salt in his hair and sunscreen on his skin. What he would taste like, cold beer and summer watermelon on his tongue.
After a moment, Kiryu said, "It's just...unexpected, I guess."
"What, that I'm into the idea of you bein' a kinda chubby DILF?"
He got a small laugh out of that one. "Mm."
"I dunno. There's somethin' sexy about the thought of you daddin' it up. Caring too much about signin' permission slips and packin' lunches for nine kids to worry about yer waistline."
Kiryu chuckled. "That's kind of what happened."
"I know!" Majima grabbed playfully at Kiryu's side and tried not to think about how he could feel every one of his ribs. "And I'm pissed I wasn't there for it."
A contemplative hum rumbled through Kiryu's chest. "Me, too."
"That's why you've gotta get better. So you can be a sexy grandpa. Takin' Haruto to baseball practice and helpin' the old lady neighbors with their gardens in exchange fer homemade sweets."
Kiryu took Majima's hand in his, squeezing tightly. "You'll be there with me this time, though. Right?"
"'Course I will. Who do ya think is gonna take the pictures?"
They lay there together, taking comfort in each other's warmth in the otherwise cold hospital room, bare of all color except for a bright bouquet of flowers caught in the beam of sunlight.
Just as Kiryu's breathing evened out and the heart monitor slowed, Majima blinked his eyes open, struck with a sudden thought.
"Wait a minute," he said, bolting upright and looking at the box of photos. "Are there more of these in there?"
