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The Penthouse feels alien to Saejima.
Some of it is the technology. The TV is as thin as cardboard and is mounted on the wall like a flashy, noisy, painting. He sarcastically reminds Majima that he knows how to operate a remote control, but looking down at it, he might as well be looking at the controls to pilot a space craft. He objectively knows how to his phone works, how you hit the numbers just like what’s now called a landline. But he can’t understand why any phone would need a damn camera, and he finds himself zoning out as Majima explains how if he wants, Nishida can set him up with an email account which he can check on said phone. He eyes the elaborate knobs and buttons on the shower in suspicion, and he breaths a sigh of relief that the most elaborate thing the fridge has is an ice dispenser.
The rest is the luxury. The Majima he remembers with the one good suit he bought at the thrift store. The Majima living off of combini snacks. The Majima who would come over to him and Yasuko’s place in the dead of winter because he didn’t have a kotatsu, feels like a memory he made up to pass the time in prison.
Replaced are high-end custom tailored suits, air conditioning, and a king size bed so large that Saejima can stretch himself out to his full length, reach his arms out to feel for his kyoudai, and touch nothing but a void made of an irrational amount of pillows.
Little bits of the Majima he remembers are still there. The manic grin on his face. The way he talks with his hands. Even small personal quirks Saejima assumed were going to be a phase, still pop up as Majima explains to him about the increase in ocean temperatures.
But sometimes Saejima thinks he might as well be talking to a stranger. His kyoudai has changed, and Saejima knows after twenty-five years, he can’t be the same person Majima remembers either.
He waits for this to get remarked upon, but to Majima this is all business as usual. He appears over the moon about the current situation, showing Saejima around his far too elaborate penthouse, telling him he can stay as long as he likes while he acclimates to life out of prison.
Majima gives him a wink (at least Saejima thinks it’s a wink) and playfully punches him on the arm and says it will be just like old times, while using the other free hand to hold his cell phone and yell at whoever is on the other line, saying that the next time the contractor has the audacity to send an invoice for that kind of half-assed work, Majima will shove it so far down the bastard’s throat he’ll be shitting it out.
After a few days of Majima hovering about Saejima, he’s finally able to convince his sworn brother to return to work, insisting that yes, he will be fine, yes he has his number in his cell phone, yes, and Nishidas and even Minamis and he will be ok without Majima around. But twenty-five years of the strict routines of prison have been burned into his psyche, and Saejima still catches himself turning his head to find a warden to get permission whenever he needs to take a piss.
Eventually, he manages to make a new routine. He’s not sure what Majima had originally planned when he’d moved in, but he spends his time at the gym a few floors down, sticking with the simple free weights he became so use to in the prison yard, ignoring the wide eyes and hushed whispers from Majima’s boys who frequent it.
The hardware store a little outside of Kamaroucho is thankfully still in business, and one refreshingly uneventful round trip on the subway later, he’s made his way back home and sits on the pent house’s balcony, whittling away at small wood carvings. He spends his afternoons working, with the tv on in the background stuck at a station playing a mindless game show that he has no interest in, but is too overwhelmed with that fucking remote control to figure out how to change the channel.
When Majima gets home at night, he reminds Saejima of a kid talking about his day at school and then asking if he can show you his room. Majima is happy to show off the liquor’s acquired for the place, (Saejima wonders when the Majimai who once drank mirin because that was all he could afford, developed such a knowledge of spirits), how the tv can now record tv shows without a vcr, and keeps telling Saejima of high-end hamburger restaurants that have become a trend and how they need to go over the next weekend so Saejima can try one for himself.
But Saejima can’t find a reason to get excited over any of this, and the biggest luxury he indulges in is the bathtub, which he soaks in, mentally zoning out like a monk under a waterfall. Even before the events of 1985, he was never one to go out. He remembers the occasional indulgence going out to the batting cages with Majima when they had a little money, but more often than not, it was Majima who would go out, only to bang on his door at two in the morning. Drunk, pupil’s dilated due to whatever upper he was on, twitching and horny.
He wonders if Majima remembers any of this at all. Saejima has had the last twenty-five years to himself, alone his with his memories. He can remember all the small inconsequential details. How Majima’s shirt reeked of cigarettes no matter how many times Yasuko washed it. The way his chain reflected off that apartment’s shitty fluorescent lighting. The way the chain bounced up and down on his chest as he road Saejima unheedingly. But Saejima can tell how much of life has thrown at Majima in that time span with sparing moments to reminiscence. He wonders many small details from their time together Majima remembers. At times he thinks he might be as much of a stranger to Majima as Majima is to him.
He slowly tries to fill in the gaps of what happened to Majima in those 25 years. The eye sure, but there’s more. He notices old scars on Majima’s back when he’s dressing, scars now covered up by retouching sessions on his tattoo, many scars that don’t look like they were inflicted through a simple street brawl. Majima himself deflects any of this past like they’re baseballs at the battle center, and Saejima doesn’t have the nosiness to pry.
A few details of the past slip through between bouts of drinks or lines. Majima was in Sotenbori for a while. Majima ran a club in Sotenbori. Majima ran a hostess club in Sotenbori. Majima was married to an idol singer. Majima was friends with an up and coming action movie star. Majima had a threeway with the idol singer, and up and coming action movie star. Saejima watches as his kyoudai happily announces this like it’s the punch line of a joke, giving a manic cackle and quickly moving onto the next topic.
After Majima had been released from jail and Saejima had his closure with Yasuko’s memorial service, he had expected things between them to escalate. That rowdy abundant energy he remembered with Majima frantically pulling at his shirt, biting and grinding up against him like the dumb horny kid he’d been. But while he wouldn’t say Majima in present day had been aloof, he acted almost platonic. They shared the same ridiculously large bed together, bathed together while Majima showed him how to work that shower so elaborate it might as well be the cockpit piloted by the lead of a tokutatsu. When they watch TV, Majima spreads himself out on the sofa propping his feet up on him, he undresses in front of Saejima, and on occasion walks into the living room, visibly hung over with his bathrobe open, genitals exposed, toothbrush in his mouth, muttering about how two in the afternoon is far too early for Daigo to be calling any meeting.
And there’s a revelation in the pit of Saejima’s stomach that confirms Majima must realize that his sworn brother is a now a stranger as well.
Saejima knows if anyone else was in his shoes, Akiyama, Tainimura, poor sweet Yasuko, even Kiryu, the subject would have been breached. But in all the years Majima has been his kyoudai, Saejima has never pried on what was going on inside his head. Maybe it’s the love and trust between them, maybe it’s that Saejima has never been a man of many words, (he remembers Majima cackling at him in their youth “How the fuck you gonna work with kids if you’re too shy to talk to them!”). Or maybe he’s just a fucking coward when it comes to the people he loves and he just hopes forces of nature bring anything that’s troubling to a head. Which is what happens that night.
It starts off business of usual. Majima comes home wearing that red and black business suit fitting him like a glove, which would be striking but he’s also wearing a bright yellow construction hat and holding a bag of carry-out and rambling about how he’s late due to dealing with a contractor at the construction site, but saying he’ll make it up to Saejima with the best damn pho in all of Kamaroucho.
They sit cross-legged at the table slurping noodles as Majima works through a bottle of whiskey and talks about the construction sites most recent fiasco involving the contractor, some thugs for hire, an exasperated Nishida, a few choice words, and a large sheet glass propped up at an angle that made it surprisingly easy to throw through.
“Still. Not as bad as the Cabaret shit shows that would go down in Sotenbori. You order twenty fucking cases of shiraz, they send you one case of champagne. But of course, it’s not even the good stuff. That cheap shit the guys visiting from Kagawa fuckin’ will buy. Of COURSE, that’s on the same day your best hostess quits and you learn the bouncer has been taking bribes again so five businessmen tweaking come in and start using wine bottles as baseball bats” He finishes the glass he was working on in one gulp and cackles.
“Real estate ain’t nothin’. Shit….being a Patriarch ain’t’ nothin’ once you run a fucking cabaret club!”
Saejima shakes his head. “Still can’t see you being a manager Kyodai.” He hasn’t been drinking as much as Majima, but he chuckles and takes a sip of his own whiskey. “You wear a cute little suit too?”
“Damn straight.” Majima gestures at his own suit he’s left on with his tie loosened and the red shirt unbuttoned with the tips of his tattoos peaking out. “made this monkey suit look like that shit I wore back in the 80’s. Thing was custom made by the best tailor in Sotenbori at the time, dude came all the way from Bangkok.”
He shakes his head as he fills his glass with whiskey again.
Saejima normally let his kyoudai ramble, but the whiskey has gotten the better of his normally stoic mood. “Cabaret Management was an odd career choice for you.”
The glass of whiskey Majima had filled seconds ago is empty and Saejima sees that one single eye with a narrow brow look at him. For a second it’s angry, frustrated, and then the only expression Saejima sees is.. sadness.
“Wasn’t a choice Kyoudai”.
And somewhere in Saejima’s heart, he knows this was about him. He knows it’s related to the eye, the scars, and why Majima fought tooth and claw to get back into the Tojo clan.
He goes quiet, hoping that it deflects the dark places Majima’s mind is going. That he’ll do his manic little cackle Saejima never forgot about even in at his lowest moments, that Majima will switch gears and go off on a new story or tangent, but something is different tonight and he realizes wherever Majima is, he’s not coming back from it easily.
“Some drunk jack ass once poured champagne on me ‘cause I told him he couldn’t feel up the girls. Not that cheap shit either. Fuckin, top shelf. I smiled at him. Thanked him even…”
Majima is drunk now and caught up in his own thoughts. “Most beautiful high-end club in Sotenbori and I couldn’t leave. Like being in some fucking cage. You should have seen my place, didn’t even have a futon. I’d take off that suit that cost more than a fucking car and go to sleep on the goddamn floor” Another laugh. ‘I mean, didn’t have a futon in the 80’s either, but let’s be honest Kyoudai, you were always comfy to climb on top of” he fumbles again for the whiskey muttering, “it was worth it though.. ya’ got your inauguration next week.” he pauses and lets go of the neck of the bottle before he can pour it. His hand slipping off its neck and into the table and lets out a sigh.
“…I coulda done more”
Saejima’s instinct is to remain quiet, the way he does when he hears Majima violently bolt up from nightmares, drenched in sweat, stumbling into the kitchen to find whatever combination of alcohol and sleeping pills will coax him back down. But something about the lost expression on Majima’s face makes him speak. “You lost your eye for me”.
He’s not a man of many words, but it’s enough to break that dam that has been restraining something so upsetting, so shameful, that Majima has kept it inside himself for 25 years. Something that has boiled to the surface since they saw their faces again at Millennium Towers. Something that has been relying on the good grace of surface tension alone to keep from spilling everywhere.
“An eye? A fucking eye??” he slams his fists against the table, strong enough that if they’d been people who cooked their food, the dishes might have shattered, but it’s takeout from the best Vietnamese food in all of Kamarocho and the paper containers just vibrate and shake against each other, broth from the pho spills onto the side of the table, the worst casualty of Majima’s outburst.
Majima stands up and paces back and forth like he’s trying to put together the exact words he’s looking for. He finally does and points accusatorially at Saejima, like a child tattling in school.
“An eye is nothing compared to what you went through! I betrayed you and they threw you away to rot. 25 years in a cell before a nice long drop snapped your neck in half! All ‘cause of me Kyoudai! And now you’re back, and one brawl at the batting center later and it’s all good?? You were supposed to kill me!”
Majima’s face is flushed with the booze, but Saejima knows this goes further than drunken ramblings. Something he’s been burying and restraining, and now the chains are broken and it’s out and free. It’s moved from eating Majima up on the inside to just eating Majima up in general.
“Fucking 25 years… The waterfalls of SHIT I went through…-“
“Kyoudai…”
“No! You!” he violently gestures. “I knew you’d get out. You’re unstoppable. There’s no one like you. Never will be. Fucking death row… Ha. That couldn’t stop ya’… You always deserved to get out. To come back to a family of your own. But I betrayed my only brother… You’re not allowed to fuckin’ brush that off Saejima!”
Saejima stands up, putting his hands gently but firmly on Majima’s shoulders. It reminded him of back in their youth, Majima could be drunk, high on whatever his boss had given him that he’d crushed up and snorted and it would settle him down. But as Saejima keeps reminding himself, he might as well be talking to a stranger. Something about his hands on Majima’s shoulders triggers something darker, something Saejima knows must have build in the past twenty-five years, and he’s given a sharp kick to the shin for his troubles. Some things don’t change, however, and sure enough, Majima’s back palm comes flying upwards to his nose, and Saejima is quick enough to grab Majima’s wrist and pull Majima into him so his back is against his chest. But some things do change after 25 years, and Majima pulls his head back and slams it into Saejima’s face. He feels his lip slice against his teeth. Tastes blood, and he lets go. His composure as the calmer one of the two slipping away as he finds himself screaming. “Kyoudai what the FUCK?”
To his surprise, the violent outburst appears to have calmed Majima down a bit, and he cackles. “it was always easy to catch you off guard.”
He sighs and sits back down on the floor, the fight leaving him. “Shit.. maybe it is still you-“
Saejima, taking advantage of his positioning, moves quickly in front of Majima. He grabs his wrists and before Majima can counter again, pushes him backward, slamming his weight into the floor.
He braces himself for Majima to resist again, but both stay there, frozen, eyes locked. Like none of this has happened. Like it’s still the 80’s, and they’re just two dumb kids who managed to find each other. Managed to decided they’d die for each other.
“Kyoudai… who the fuck else would it be?”
Saejima kisses him. He remembers their drunken tussles. Majima, wild, and crazy, demanding and testing him and Saejima’s boundaries in a way that horrified and delighted him all at once. This kiss is far quieter. It’s cautious, intimate. Reassuring. Majima kisses him back and it’s not the teeth clashing and lip bites he remembers. It’s quiet, soft, almost as if Majima is using the kiss as guild lines for some weird meditation.
Saejima feels the body underneath him relax, and he lets go of Majima’s wrists. He braces himself, half expecting Majima to knee him in the stomach and wiggle his way out of his grasp, or head butt him a second time for good measure. But Majima’s breathing is steady and the look in his eye shows something Saejima had not seen since that encounter at the batting cages, where Majima pulled off his eyepatch.
Vulnerability.
He caresses his hand along Majima’s face. His calluses rubbing against stubble. He reaches to where the eyepatch is and slowly hooks his thumb under it. He pauses, waiting for a violent trash or teeth to suddenly be latched into his hand.
There’s nothing.
He pulls the eyepatch upwards.
Prison was a violent place, he’d seen eye injuries before. Scar tissue covering the entire socket, eye completely white, scars going straight down the face and over the eye like some protagonist in a shounen comic.
But his kyoudai’s injury is different. There’s …nothing. Everything else is there. No scar tissue. The eyelid is there, eyelashes and all. But the eye itself is gone. Saejima remembers the numbness that spread through his hands and into his belly the first time he saw it. It’s a void. As if a piece of Majima was no longer there.
His silence gets a scoff from Majima “lovely sight isn’t it?”
Saejima learns forward and kisses next to it. His lips quietly on top of the eyelid and he hears Majima gasp in surprise, his body tighten underneath him as Saejima continues to gently kiss him, softly rubbing his thumb against the side of his cheek. Saejima is not one for a lot of words, so he tries to make what he wants to say simple.
“You gave all you had Kyoudai. More than anyone could have expected. More than anyone could. It’s ok”
Majima is the most volatile man he’s ever known, and Saejima expects 100 different outcomes from his actions. Most being violent.
He’s shocked as Majima puts his arm on his forearm and gives it a reassuring squeeze and gives a sigh from a breath he’s been holding for what appears to be 25 years.
“yeh ok”
Majima lets Saejima move him to the bedroom. Sits him down on that giant bed of his, and unbuttons his shirt his. Saejima slowly moves his hands along his body. Exploring a road he hasn’t walked in ages. Hands across his tattoos, colors just as bright as the day he had gotten them, some scars he remembers, far too many being new introductions.
Saejima hastily pulls off his own clothes and pushes Majima back on the bed. He’s already hard and his erection pushes against Saejima’s stomach. He expects his kyoudai to rut up against him, to grab his own dick which is now swollen and throbbing as well, but he lays there and lets Saejima runs his hands past his tattoos, along his ribcage, scars he knows damn well are knives, to past his hips, down to scars along the outside and inside his thighs that imply something far crueler.
Majima says nothing, and Saejima doesn’t ask. After 25 years, he’s back with his kyoudai who never betrayed him and went through hell to make sure he was able to have a place to come back to. He kisses Majima again, he tastes of whiskey and he feels those legs wrap around him and those hands tug on his hair and he knows parts of Majima are gone and parts of Majima have changed, but this is his one and only kyoudai and Saejima has never felt more at home then he does right in this very moment.
He fucks Majima till his sweat his running down his brows and dripping onto him, Majima pays it no mind and moans and whines, words he was going to say turned into nearly breathless pants that he can barely get out as Saejima kisses him hard on the mouth muffling them. It feels oddly intimate, exposed, vulnerable. Feelings nearly alien for the two of them. He comes with Majima’s teeth digging into his shoulder and stays inside of him as Majima frantically jacks himself off with one hand, others digging into his back, grabbing at his hair, as he finally comes on Saejima’s stomach.
He awakens a few hours later to the rustling of sheets and general mutterings, turning over to the side to see the silhouette of Majima in the dark tugging on those impossibly tight leather pants he’s taken a liking to since Saejima had been sent to death row.
“Kyoudai?”
Majima turns around, eyepatch now back on, slightly surprised he’s woken him up. “Remember you sleeping through a monsoon once….”
“Prison isn’t a good place to be a sound sleeper. Is-“
“Got some punks trying to start shit at the construction site…” he walks past Sajima, opening up one of his closets revealing an elaborate assortment of baseball bats. “me and Kiryu-chan got most of them under control a few years back, but Kamaroucho Hills is one of the biggest developments right now, so roaches climb out of the woodwork on occasion tryin’ to take a bite.” He settles on a large metal bat, squeezing it and taking a few practice swings before nodding in approval to himself. “Shouldn’t take long.” he gives that cackle and pauses for a second looking at him. “You know how to work the cellphone now rig-“
“Kyoudai.”
“The coffee maker is set for 7, but it ain’t gonna burn down the place if ya’ don’t get it. I mean, I’ll be back before that-“
“Kyoudai”
Majima pauses and Saejima looks at him. Saejima says nothing and Majima cackles to himself “Yeh, yeh… you got this. Shit, it’s like you never left”
Saejima gives a small shrug. “suppose in a way I never did”